"BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website."

Oil spill National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen has put out a written directive that news media have "uninhibited access" to spill response operations unless security or safety problems prevent it. It is not clear whether his order will have any impact on BP.

"If you happen to be wondering if it's any easier to get access to an oil-befouled public beach/wildlife refuge near Grand Isle, Louisiana, if you're teamed up with a fancypants PBS producer, I scouted out the answer today: No."

"Les Line, who as editor of the magazine of the National Audubon Society for 25 years expanded its mission beyond birds and beasts to environmental issues like oil spills, died on May 23 in Sharon, Conn. He was 74."

"Photographers say BP and government officials are preventing them from documenting the impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster."

"Virginia's flagship university went to court Thursday to fight an effort by Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli II (R) to get documents from a former climate scientist at the school, an unusual confrontation that will test the bounds of academic freedom and result in the college facing down its own lawyer in court."

"Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) took steps to increase the transparency of the response to BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil company's actions have been criticized for failing to disclose or monitor important information about the spill, including the quantity of oil erupting into the Gulf, the potential health impacts of the oil and the chemicals used to disperse it, and water and air quality information."

A CBS News crew captured on video orders from BP contractors and US Coast Guard officials to stop filming environmental damage from the BP-owned oil fouling Louisiana beaches and coastal wetlands. The Coast Guard denied that it or BP has rules prohibiting coverage.

"Federal and state investigators began closed-door interviews Monday in their probe of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, as a federal judge considered a suit filed by the United Mine Workers and two disaster victims who want the questioning done during a public hearing."

"A federal judge ordered a documentary filmmaker Thursday to turn over about 600 hours of raw footage from a film about a court fight over whether Chevron Corp. owes billions of dollars in damages for oil contamination in Ecuador."

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday forcefully struck down a federal law aimed at banning depictions of dog fighting and other violence against animals, saying it violated constitutional guarantees of free speech and created a 'criminal prohibition of alarming breadth.'"

"The only part of the [nuclear] summit, other than a post-meeting news conference, that was visible to the public was Obama's eight-minute opening statement, which ended with the words: 'I'm going to ask that we take a few moments to allow the press to exit before our first session.'"

The Mine Safety and Health Administration's investigation of the Massey mine disaster in West Virginia will be held in secret -- despite efforts by news media to open such investigations to the public.

A Tennessee-based chemical company, cited and fined by New Mexico authorities for environmental violations there, won $75,000 in punitive damages in its SLAPP suit against a community activist for what it claimed were defamatory public presentations.

"In a story Feb. 17 about contaminated water at the Camp Lejeune Marine base, The Associated Press made several errors. First, the AP reported erroneously that an environmental contractor omitted the cancer-causing chemical benzene from a final report on pollutants in a base well, part of a long-running review of contamination in the base's water supply. The contractor's 1994 report does list benzene as one of the contaminants in the well, although it does not say how much benzene was found."