Environment

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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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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.

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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.