Public

The 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting went to InsideClimate News, a 5-year-old web-only nonprofit, for its book-length feature series on the 2010 Enbridge tar-sands oil spill that fouled miles of Michigan's Kalamazoo River. InsideClimate has been one of the most aggressive media outlets covering the current spill in Mayflower, Arkansas. ExxonMobil recently threatened one of InsideClimate's reporters with arrest for trying to find a federal government press office handling the spill.

"Giant snail invasion puts more than 500 plant species and even stucco and plaster at risk. More than 1,000 giant African land snails caught each week in Miami and invasion expected to spread in upcoming rainy season."

"The Peruvian anchovy is the world's most heavily exploited fish. Now Peru's government is trying to reduce overfishing of the popular little forager."

"Before Disney World, Silver Springs in Central Florida was for decades one of the state's most popular tourist destinations."

"PORTLAND, Maine -- Ocean temperatures have been higher than normal in the Gulf of Maine, creating worries among lobstermen that there could be a repeat of last spring's early harvest that resulted in a market glut, a crash in the prices fishermen get and a blockade of Maine-caught lobsters in Canada."

"NOAA has issued a report on a small part of the recent brutal droughts that have hit the United States over the past few years. The report — 'An Interpretation of the Origins of the 2012 Central Great Plains Drought' — is needlessly confusing, scientifically problematic, and already leading to misleading headlines."

"BEIJING -- China's H7N9 bird flu spread west to the central province of Henan on Sunday, as government websites and state media reported two deaths and 11 new cases nationwide."

"MAYFLOWER, Arkansas -- Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter's 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas, when his wife came inside and said something was wrong."

"President Obama's top energy adviser repeatedly huddled with oil and gas lobbyists in the months before the administration changed new hydraulic fracturing rules to the industry's liking, records show."

While honey bee die-offs often called "colony collapse disorder" have been increasing for several years, so has scientific evidence that a widely used class of pesticides called neonicotinoids could well be an important contributing cause. In 2011, EPA said it would review its approval on one such pesticide. Now it says it expects to finish in five years.