"DILLINGHAM, Alaska — President Barack Obama’s top environmental official was visibly moved as people in this fishing town told her the giant Pebble Mine would kill wild salmon and destroy their culture."

"WASHINGTON -- New Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy plans to visit the site of Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine next week as she decides whether to block the massive project to protect one of the world’s last big runs of wild salmon."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska residents have been enjoying an unusually warm, sunny summer, but the pleasant weather has come at a cost: choking smoke from an extended wildfire season, flooding rivers due to fast-melting snow and glacial ice, and fish covered in algae."

"Developers of the proposed Pebble mine don't deserve special protections for buying insider documents about the financial workings of project opponents and then using the records to pursue a case against those opponents with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, a California appeals court panel ruled [July 30]."

"Flossie's Hawaiian adventure: Short, scattered and more powerful than many believed it would be at first."

Mining of a newly discovered rare earth element near the remote Alaskan town of Hydaburg jeopardizes the fishery which is its economic mainstay.

"A dispute over a proposed copper and gold mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay may be one of the most important environmental decisions of President Obama’s second term — yet few are even aware that the fight is happening."

"The people of Newtok, on the west coast of Alaska and about 400 miles south of the Bering Strait that separates the state from Russia, are living a slow-motion disaster that will end, very possibly within the next five years, with the entire village being washed away." ... "Climate change has accelerated the normal process of erosion along Alaska's rivers and coasts - especially near the shores of the Bering and Arctic seas."

"Digging a large mine in southwest Alaska would inflict widespread ecological damage, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report on Friday that could hurt the chances of a proposed project in that region winning regulatory approval."