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Environmental groups in Northern California are suing to stop a winery from leveling 154 acres of coast redwoods and Douglas firs to make way for grapevines. As climate change heats up California's interior valley, the wine industry is creeping toward the coast, where majestic redwoods grow.

The drowning of more than 300 African migrants off Italy's Lampedusa island earlier this month jolted the world into awareness of a long-running crisis. Tens of thousands of refugees from Syria, Somalia and beyond risk their lives each year, traveling by boat to Europe in search of a better life. Scores die en route.

Earlier this month, NPR reported on a small group of Pentecostal Christians who handle snakes to prove their faith in God. We wondered why the handlers are bitten so rarely, and why so few of those snakebites are lethal. Herpetologists who have studied the snake-handling phenomenon have some theories.

Hunting is a popular U.S. pastime, but most hunters are male. A women's foundation in Wyoming is trying to change that through mentorship and a new women's hunting competition. The sport isn't just fun, the group says; it's also a good way for mothers to put food on the table.

Foley, who died Friday at age 84, was in some ways ideally suited to be speaker. A generation ago he held together the regional and ideological factions of his own Democratic party while speaking calm and consistent reason to his foes across the aisle.

Same-sex couples can start marrying on Monday, after the state's Supreme Court rejected Gov. Chris Christie's request to halt the weddings. His administration sought a stay while it appealed a lower court ruling that found the state's system of civil unions was unconstitutional.

When Saudia Arabia cut off direct oil shipments to the U.S. 40 years ago, the country was thrown into shock. Calls for energy independence grew louder. The U.S. is now producing more of its own oil and natural gas than ever, but the commitment to efficiency has been uneven.

Solomon Northup, an African-American musician from New York, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. He was eventually freed and wrote about his experience in Twelve Years a Slave, a memoir that has inspired a new film adaptation. But by the end of the Civil War, he dropped off the public record.

Bandleader Wallace Hartley is thought to have kept playing the instrument as the ship went down. It was later found, in a leather case, floating among the wreckage.

After several years planning the difficult mission, scientists successfully drilled through Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier. They were stunned by what they found, and worry global sea levels could be at risk.