"PORTLAND -- A genetically modified test strain of wheat that emerged to the surprise of an Oregon farmer last month was likely the result of an accident or deliberate mixing of seeds, the company that developed it said Wednesday."
"The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season got a little stronger early Thursday as it headed toward Florida's western coast and a new tropical storm warning was issued for a swath of the U.S. East Coast."
Styrene (used to make plastic packaging) was listed in June 2011 as "reasonably anticipated" to be cancer-causing in the biennial federal Report on Carcinogens. Industry not only challenged, but also mounted a political campaign, persuading a powerful House Appropriations subcommittee chairman to withhold spending for the report until NTP reconsidered the styrene listing.
NC's Senate is considering an industry-sponsored bill that would extend restrictions on undercover investigations beyond livestock operations to include other categories of industry. The state's Chamber of Commerce supports it, saying industries beyond agriculture want protection from the reporting of workplace abuses.
The fracking industry loves to argue there's no proof its gas-extraction methods cause pollution. But it works hard in Pennsylvania to keep secret any evidence that might prove the question — one way or the other. Existence of its database was reported by Marie Cusick of WITF in Harrisburg, via NPR's StateImpact Pennsylvania.
Aftershocks of the April 17, 2013, ammonium nitrate explosion in West, Texas, continue — including investigations by news organizations as well as state and federal agencies. A major multistate investigative project by the Associated Press could only get data for 28 of the 50 states, but within those states it found that more than 600,000 people live within a typical blast zone and more had family in schools and hospitals within one.
"As Secretary of State John Kerry lauded Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Washington, D.C., yesterday for his country's hosting of this year's U.N. climate change summit, activists lambasted the Eastern European nation as a climate scoundrel."
A series of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, damaged during a September 2004 hurricane, are still leaking in a "chronic" oil spill. SkyTruth brought the pollution to light using satellite imagery, aerial photography, and publicly available government data. The slicks are bigger than the company responsible is reporting.
"The federal government must spend at least $384 billion to improve the nation's drinking water infrastructure in order to ensure the safe delivery of water to Americans for the next 20 years."
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