Biologists say Maryland bats are infected with the same deadly fungal disease that has killed more than a million of the animals since 2006.

A state scientist doing an annual survey last week found dead and weakened bats in a cave near Cumberland. About three-quarters of the bats had clear signs of white nose syndrome.

The new director of U.S. EPA’s Montana bureau, Julie DalSoglio, came to her office in tragic circumstances: Last fall, the division’s former director, John Wardell, died after a climbing accident.

During that dark time, DalSoglio, then Wardell’s deputy, held the office together as its acting director, said Richard Opper, director of Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality. Recently, DalSoglio’s superiors in Colorado decided to give her the job on a permanent basis.

Chevron Corp. may pursue arbitration in The Hague to settle a decades-old case over contamination from the company’s former oil fields in Ecuador, a federal judge in New York ruled yesterday.

Ecuadorean plaintiffs are seeking $27 billion for environmental damage that took place between 1964 and 1990. Chevron has claimed that it is shielded from litigation by an agreement with the Ecuadorean government to clean up part of the contamination while leaving the rest to Petroecuador, the state-run oil company that purchased the wells.