Disasters

"House Republicans want to drop one of the key components of the Interior Department's overhaul of the troubled agency responsible for oversight of offshore drilling -- expanding the enforcement of regulations to contractors."

"Many scientists suggest that climate changes could be causing certain kinds of wildfires for which the West's forests are not well adapted. This year could help researchers better understand and fight the trend."

"The Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns show that it is time for “redefining the level of protection that is regarded as adequate” at American nuclear plants, a special task force of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded."

"Beef from cows from Fukushima Prefecture contaminated with radioactive cesium was sold to restaurants and shoppers in at least five prefectures, according to Tokyo metropolitan government officials."

"Authorities will keep up pressure on BP Plc to ensure it fully compensates victims of last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on Monday after the company indicated it wants to limit future claims."

"COLQUITT, Ga. — The heat and the drought are so bad in this southwest corner of Georgia that hogs can barely eat. Corn, a lucrative crop with a notorious thirst, is burning up in fields. Cotton plants are too weak to punch through soil so dry it might as well be pavement."

"The La Nina weather anomaly blamed for one of the worst droughts in the southern United States could revive this autumn, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center forecast on Thursday."

"The lives of half a million children in the Horn of Africa are at risk, international aid agencies said on Friday, as the worst drought in decades forces thousands of people to flee their homes each day."

"A Japanese nuclear power plant has come under fire for trying to sway the outcome of a public forum on atomic safety, dealing a fresh blow to the industry's credibility four months after the world's biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl."

The DuPont company, which has touted its own safety and environmental record, turned down in 1988 a construction option for its Belle, WV, plant that could have protected workers and the community from deadly phosgene gas. One worker died in a series of three phosgene releases there in 2010.