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LAKELAND, Fla. — A man was attacked by an alligator in Lakeland early Wednesday morning, and he is alive thanks to the heroics of four deputies.

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TORONTO - The untreated urban sewage and effluents that flow into the Great Lakes each year are threatening a critical ecosystem that supplies water to millions of people, according to a study by a Canadian environmental group.

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The global political battle over climate change was also being fought at the US Supreme Court on Wednesday as judges bickered over the role of greenhouse gas emissions in global warming and disagreed on whether the Env­­ir­on­mental Protection Agency had the power to refuse to regulate such emissions.

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MEDFORD — Federal officials are seeking to calm worries that a 3,500-foot-wide “energy corridor” will be cut through the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, created six years ago to protect native species on its 53,000 acres.

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The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has ordered the Oregon-based developer of a controversial pond near the confluence of Rock Creek and the Clark Fork River to pay $23,528 in penalties for violations of state water quality laws.

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WASHINGTON - Montana Sen. Max Baucus is asking the U.S. Forest Service to hold meetings in Montana on possible cutbacks that could result in the closure of campgrounds, picnic areas and other recreation facilities.

By the end of 2007, each of 155 national forests and 20 grasslands must complete a recreation-site facility master plan evaluating recreation facilities on their condition, frequency of use and how they fit in the forest’s recreation focus.

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WASHINGTON - Environmental groups and a dozen states will argue the U.S. government should regulate emissions of greenhouse gases that spur global warming in a pivotal case before the Supreme Court on Wed

nesday.

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Groups including Trout Unlimited, a fishing and hunting organization, fear Risch’s petition — should it win favor — will adversely affect important wildlife habitat. Trout Unlimited members planned to testify Wednesday against the petition.

“It doesn’t really do Idaho’s sportsmen any favors,” said spokesman Chris Hunt. “What’s important to most hunters and anglers in Idaho is we can boast the most unspoiled, untrashed backcountry in the West, outside of Alaska. Under Gov. Risch’s plan, we can’t make that claim any more.”

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“We have to deal with greenhouse gases,” John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. “From Shell’s point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, ‘Let’s debate the science’?”

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That suggests we could see passage of a Montana wilderness bill, with official wilderness designation for the 224,000-acre Great Burn area along the Montana-Idaho border.

Why? Because that’s exactly what happened the last time the Democrats took control of the Senate.