Europe

"Russian courts sentence Evgeny Vitishko, a critic of the Sochi Olympics construction developments, to three years."

"As builders worked feverishly to get the Black Sea resort ready for winter games so closely tied to President Vladimir Putin's legacy, they failed to notice the effects their work was having on the village below."

"The Italian government agreed Tuesday to send in the army to fight the mafia which it blames for illegally dumping tonnes of toxic garbage around Naples, in an area dubbed the 'Triangle of Death'."

"The Camorra mafia has been dumping and burning toxic waste for decades in the area between Naples and the province of Caserta."

"Bill Williams, the president of the company that wants to open a $1.5 billion iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin, is being charged with contaminating an emergency water supply at a mine in Spain."

"At each of Electricite de France SA’s 58 nuclear reactors, there’s a water tank that stores spent atomic fuel rods, keeping them cool and trapping deadly radiation. The country’s atomic watchdog is concerned they aren’t safe enough."

"The Italian Senate is investigating a cluster of cancers near Naples which may have been caused by the mafia's dumping of toxic waste. It's a question that has long been on the conscience of one former mafia boss, who says it was not the violence but pollution that made him turn police informer."

"Spider sightings may be up, but experts say it's due to a reaction to the media frenzy, not an explosion in their population."

"A German scientist who is critical of the European Union’s plan to regulate chemicals and has extensive financial ties to regulated companies has resigned from a key scientific committee of the European Commission."

"On June 16th something very peculiar happened in Germany’s electricity market. The wholesale price of electricity fell to minus €100 per megawatt hour (MWh). That is, generating companies were having to pay the managers of the grid to take their electricity."