July 25 - Texas utility regulators announced the largest renewable-energy investment in the U.S. when they recently approved a $4.9 billion plan that will build extensive transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from remote western parts of the state to urban centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.

July 18 - Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has announced the implementation of an alternative to the current poverty measure. It will be the first time any local government has reformulated the nation's 40-year-old standard for determining poverty levels, which is based primarily on food expenditures.

July 10 - Over the past few months, a salmonella outbreak has infected over 1,000 people around the U.S. The suspect food items -- certain types of  tomatoes, jalapeno and serrano peppers and cilantro -- have had the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other public health officials scrambling to determine where in the cultivation and distribution chain the infection originated, and what can be done to protect consumers.

June 26 - European astronomers have found a trio of "super-Earths" circling a star 42 light years away. This is the first time three planets close to Earth's size have been found orbiting a single star, although they appear to be too hot to support life.

June 20 - The Ugandan government recently started spraying insecticides in homes and settlements to combat mosquitoes that spread malaria, the country's leading cause of death.  A new report from a committee of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences (UNAS) says that as the spraying continues, the government needs to monitor mosquitoes for resistance to insecticides, and manage the spraying program in ways that minimize resistance.  UNAS is a participant in the African Science Academy Development Initiative, a joint effort of several African academies and the U.S. National Academies to advance science-based policy advice in Africa.