National (U.S.)

"With global talks on climate change looming, the Obama administration sought to gain momentum Tuesday by unveiling its plan to require better gas mileage for cars and trucks and the first-ever rules on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions."

Furniture stores and architectural firms get a lot of samples – of fabric, tiles, and carpet. Those samples can pile up. Usually, they get thrown in the trash. But, in some cities, they are starting to make unused design samples available to artists and art teachers. The Environment Report's Julie Grant has more.

"SAN FRANCISCO -- In a ruling with national implications for public lands, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today overturned the federal government's approval of a land exchange with mining giant Asarco, Inc."

"Drug-resistant staph bacteria have been found on public beaches in Washington state, and beaches in other states may harbor the superbug too."

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar launched the Obama administration's first coordinated response to the impacts of climate change Monday, which he said would both monitor how global warming is altering the nation's landscape and help the country cope with those changes."

"A coalition of environmental groups says U.S. EPA is 26 years tardy in limiting toxic metal discharges from coal-fired power plants and is threatening to sue the agency if it does produce the rules."

"Government scientists figure that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs, a sign of how widespread fish feminizing has become."

As governments tighten their belts, it's getting harder for them to pay scientists to monitor the health of the nation's ecosystems. So increasingly, they're turning to citizens who do that kind of work for free. The Environment Report's Ann Dornfeld reports on the growing influence of these "citizen scientists".

An EPA study of possible gas drilling pollution in Wyoming has become a case in point in a national legislative battle.

Intensified monitoring for toxics in the air around certain schools has only raised more questions about health effects -- and some lawsuits.