"A landmark Environmental Protection Agency report concluding that children exposed to toxic substances can develop learning disabilities, asthma and other health problems has been sidetracked indefinitely amid fierce opposition from the chemical industry."

"Barbara Kingsolver's novel, 'Flight Behavior,' opens with a scenario that could have been ripped from a Harlequin Romance: Dellarobia Turnbow, a restless young housewife in rural Feathertown, Tenn., is walking into the woods to meet a man who is not her husband. Things take a turn, as they always do in fiction. But this turn is not the usual one."

"Energy in Depth prepares 'cheat sheet' of pro-fracking talking points before release of Gus Van Sant drilling-rights drama."

"Have you ever found yourself reading a news article or op-ed in which an 'expert' from a distinguished-sounding 'think tank' or 'institute' seeks to distort or attack climate change science or, alternately, decries public investment in clean energy solutions, and wonder in whose interest this individual and their organization is operating?"

"LOS ANGELES -- A federal board Friday ordered the operator of a shuttered nuclear power plant in California to turn over dozens of pages of documents that were withheld when the company submitted a plan to restart one of its damaged twin reactors."

Chevron has subpoenaed one of its shareholders, a sutainable investment firm that has sponsored numerous stockholder proposals over the years, for records that include the firm's conversations with the news media.

"Fears that the world will end on 21 December are rife, despite there being no evidence. So, why are we so fixated with end of the world theories?"

"A subsidiary of Nabors Industries Ltd. pumped a mixture of chemicals identified only as “EXP- F0173-11” into a half-dozen oil wells in rural Karnes County, Texas, in July. Few people outside Nabors, the largest onshore drilling contractor by revenue, know exactly what’s in that blend. This much is clear: One ingredient, an unidentified solvent, can cause damage to the kidney and liver, according to safety information about the product that Michigan state regulators have on file."

Don't believe everything you read in the news media. A new study of 13,950 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 1 January 1991 and 9 November 2012 reports that only 24 of them, or 0.17% rejected the idea that human activity was causing global warming. It was self-published by geologist-blogger James Lawrence Powell.

"Major tobacco companies that spent decades denying they lied to the U.S. public about the dangers of cigarettes must spend their own money on a public advertising campaign saying they did lie, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday."

"She may be the only boss in America who will tell you during a job interview that you really, truly, almost certainly don't want the job. Go home and think about it, she might say. Reconsider if you need. Imagine what you'll be doing."

"BP and the U.S. government portrayed in public a united front as a runaway well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But they privately sought to withhold potentially critical information from each other, possibly slowing efforts to solve the crisis, according to new testimony."

"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reportedly threatened to punch a reporter with the Colorado Springs Gazette after he asked him about the Bureau of Land Management's wild horses program at an Election Day get out the vote event."

The Conservative Harper government is discouraging Environment Canada scientists from talking to news media about their published findings on pollution from oilsands.

Because of the Citizens United decision, spending on the 2012 election by fossil-fuel and anti-environmental-regulation groups was enormous. The actual results of the election seem to suggest that these business lobbies made some disastrously bad investments. The common media narrative that big money makes big business omnipotent (or omniscient) may be due for fact-checking.