Environment

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Lab technician Heather Bickley tests samples for H1N1 flu at the Arizona State Health Laboratory in Phoenix. With Arizona among at least 11 states where swine flu is already widespread, state health officials are working harder to detect cases of illness. (Associated Press)

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Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth Systems Science Center (Greg Grieco/Special to The Washington Times)

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** File ** Shoppers flood into Victoria's Secret as it opens on Black Friday, 2012. (Peter Lockley / The Washington Times)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS **FILE** Job seekers line up in front of a Dollar General booth at a Little Rock, Ark., job fair in October. Some economists and business executives warn that health care and climate-change costs on corporations would stifle the ability of employers to hire workers.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Valero Energy Corp.'s Delaware City, Del., refinery lost about $1 million every day this year. Falling fuel demand has forced refineries across the country to shut down and put hundreds of employees out of work.

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The Chevy Cobalt is on the assembly line at the Lordstown Assembly Plant in Lordstown, Ohio. (Associated Press)

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Construction employees work on an overpass over Highway 71 near the southwestern Missouri city of Lamar in 2009. The project was part of President Obama's stimulus package. (Associated Press File)

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President Obama's address to a crowd in Prague included his go-to phrase, "Let me be clear." Mr. Obama has relied on the four-word introduction to pitch everything from health care, climate change and auto bailouts to his reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize. (Associated Press)

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Motorists pass a billboard encouraging people not to text while driving in Indianapolis, where drivers younger than 18 are banned from using cell phones. (Associated Press)

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Small ice figures are seen on the stairs of Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin on Sept. 2, 2009, as part of an art project by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). One thousand ice figures by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo were melting within 30 minutes, symbolizing the effect of global warming.

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More than four feet of sand is brought to the beach along the seawall in January in Galveston to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Ike. According to Steve LeBlanc, the city manager of Galveston, the sand is being brought over to the seawall from the east end of the island. In some places, they are adding up to 200 feet of beach. The main concern is to protect the wood pylons beneath the concrete of the seawall. (Associated Press)

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A man scavenges at a garbage dump in Dili, the capital of East Timor. A decade ago, the tiny nation broke from Indonesia and has since become on the most expensive United Nations nation-building projects. Many grave challenges remain. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

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ASSOCIATED PRESS New Jersey's Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, the oldest nuclear power plant in the U.S., seen here in February 1998, is facing criticism from environmentalist groups after a series of radioactive water leaks were discovered.

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Locals wait out a storm in Goma, where the main thoroughfare is choked with potholes that fill with rainwater. Hunger and disease have killed an estimated 5 million people in Congo since 1998. "By any yardstick, [Congo] has been a humanitarian disaster, and one the world has ignored," says John Holmes, undersecretary-general of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times)

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Above: Casey Trees' bicycle Crew Captain Karja Hansen turns on a Massachusetts Avenue fire hydrant, the water source the crew uses to water trees, as intern Evan Douglas looks on. Casey Trees has the nation's first bike-powered program to care for trees. Intern Heydi Lovo (right and below right) waters her trees.

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President Obama outlined his nuclear policy in a landmark speech in 2009 in Prague, proclaiming he would seek a "world without nuclear weapons." The forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review says his administration's calculation of setting the conditions for further cuts in global nuclear arms was a failure. (Agence France-Presse/File)

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The government's required switch from incandescent light bulbs to CFLs come with potential hazards: Improper disposal of the mercury-powered bulbs may pollute landfills and groundwater. (Associated Press)

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Pipes carrying liquid natural gas, or LNG, and electrical lines run toward a storage tank at the Distrigas liquid natural-gas plant in Everett, Mass. Some energy experts say there is sufficient liquid natural-gas storage capacity in the U.S. to make natural gas a good choice for serving the nation's energy needs until other energy sources become more common.

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JOHN FRASSANITO AND ASSOCIATES NASA's Constellation program, initiated in 2005, is working on a new spacecraft that will return humans to the moon and blaze a trail to Mars and beyond. This rendering shows a concept of a lunar lander, lunar rover and astronauts on the moon's surface with a view of Earth in the distance.

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Associated Press photographs. *FILE* Jim Hill (above) looks after the marijuana he grows for medicinal purposes at his farm in Potter Valley, Calif., and shows the roots (left) of one plant.