AP - There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says.

AP - Defiant residents of this eastern Missouri community lost one struggle against the relentless Mississippi River Friday, but quickly prepared for another.

AP - The Navy has adopted a new plan for training in Hawaii waters that it says will allow it to accelerate some exercises and hold them more frequently while continuing to limit the effects of its sonar on marine mammals.

Reuters - The largest study ever of bird genetics has uncovered some surprising facts about the avian evolutionary tree, U.S. researchers said on Thursday, including many that are bound to ruffle some feathers.

AP - The International Whaling Commission voted down Thursday a request by indigenous Greenland fishermen to kill 10 humpback whales a year.

AFP - Martian dirt is apparently good enough for asparagus to grow in, NASA scientists said Thursday, as they announced the results of a soil analysis collected by the US Phoenix Mars lander.

Reuters - More storms dumped crop-drowning rains on parts of the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, threatening strained levees and slowing recovery from a multibillion-dollar flood disaster in the heart of the world's biggest grain and food exporter.

AP - The Navy is challenging Hawaii's authority to protect whales by restricting the use of sonar during training exercises, environmentalists and military representatives say.