Disasters

"When the Department of Homeland Security wants advice on how to guard against terrorist attacks at chemical plants, it relies heavily on a special agency panel focused on the topic. There's just one problem, critics say: The committee is stacked with more than a dozen chemical corporation lobbyists and other industry representatives, who have worked to water down agency standards and oppose tougher security requirements."

Half a mile below the surface, the muddy bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is covered in a layer of oil.

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday it had closed 4,200 square miles/10,880 square kms of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to royal red shrimping after a commercial shrimper discovered tar balls in his net."

"The companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill made several risky decisions to save time -- and consequently money -- ahead of the disaster, according to a document that was pulled at the last minute from a presentation of the president's oil spill commission earlier this month."

"A new study from the presidential oil spill commission describes the behind-the-scenes, excruciating tension and mistakes behind the three-month effort to cap the busted well."

"Attorneys representing the 10,043 eligible plaintiffs who were injured by exposure to toxics while working in rescue, recovery and debris removal operations at the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks confirmed today that they have met the 95 percent opt-in threshold required in their agreement with the City of New York and its contractors."

"In the aftermath of a deadly gas explosion in San Bruno this year, a Sacramento school district is considering the unthinkable: Closing a school in the middle of the school year and transferring all its students to another campus or campuses."

"Failure to manage the risks of a complex well and to learn from an earlier narrowly missed disaster contributed significantly to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a panel investigating the BP oil spill said Wednesday."