Donating $10 to buy a mosquito net to save an African child from malaria has become a hip way to show you care, especially for teenagers. The movement is like a modern version of the March of Dimes, created in 1938 to defeat polio, or like collecting pennies for Unicef on Halloween.

Watchdog groups often single out the Four Corners plant in New Mexico, which burns coal, as an egregious polluter. The discussions have often been tense. Pinned on a wall, a large handmade poster with Rolling Stones lyrics reminds everyone, "You can't always get what you want.'

A bill to regulate tobacco products has lost the support of a black antismoking group, which said Thursday that the legislation failed to adequately protect the health of African-Americans because it would not ban menthol flavorings from cigarettes. The legislation, which has been cleared by crucial committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, would ban candy, fruit and spice flavorings in cigarettes, but specifically exempts menthol flavorings.

The federal government is considering a proposal to allow visitors to carry loaded, concealed weapons in some national parks, wildlife refuges and monuments. The National Rifle Association favors the proposed rule, arguing that it would help keep crime down and protect visitors from potentially dangerous wildlife.

Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer is preparing to walk into a buzzsaw of criticism over American biofuels policy when he meets with world leaders to discuss the global food crisis next week. Mr. Schafer took the offensive at a press conference on Thursday that discussed the food summit, planned for Rome. He said an analysis by the Agriculture Department had determined that biofuel production was responsible for only 2 to 3 percent of the increase in global food prices, while biofuels had reduced consumption of crude oil by a million barrels a day.

After part of a cooling tower collapsed last August at Vermont's only nuclear power plant, the company that runs it blamed rotting wooden timbers that it had failed to inspect properly. The uproar that followed rekindled environmental groups' hopes of shutting down the aging plant. Workers last August examined the collapsed portion of a cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Entergy, the plant's operator, blamed rotting timbers for the collapse.

The Bush administration, bowing to a court order, released a fresh summary of federal and independent research pointing to large, and mainly harmful, impacts in the United States from human-caused global warming. The report is online at climatescience.gov, along with a new report updating the administration's priorities for climate research.

For years, smokers have been exhorted to take the initiative and quit: use a nicotine patch, chew nicotine gum, take a prescription medication that can help, call a help line, just say no. But a new study finds that stopping is seldom an individual decision. Smokers tend to quit in groups, the study finds, which means smoking cessation programs should work best if they focus on groups rather than individuals. It also means that people may help many more than just themselves by quitting: quitting can have a ripple effect prompting an entire social network to break the habit.

Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer, has told the Canadian nuclear regulator that its refinery might have leaked uranium, arsenic and fluorides into Lake Ontario. A section of the Port Hope, Ontario, plant of Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer. The plant at Port Hope, Ontario, across the lake from Rochester and down the shore from Toronto, first refined uranium for the Manhattan Project during World War II. It has been temporarily closed since July to remove contaminated soil.