National (U.S.)

"President Barack Obama said Saturday that he will stand with Gulf Coast residents 'until they are made whole' from the oil spill catastrophe."

"For 16 months, they have protested mountaintop mining. Now the coal giant is pursuing court injunctions, and the demonstrators are facing more severe punishments for their civil disobedience."

Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told reporters yesterday that funding cuts in recent years for instrumental ocean observation programs have left scientists trying to track the movement of spilled oil partly in the dark.

"The Environmental Protection Agency issued a new health standard on Thursday for sulfur dioxide emissions, the first such revision in nearly 40 years."

Initial enthusiasm from electric utilities for the Kerry-Lieberman Senate climate bill has given way to lobbying silence -- which worries environmentalists hoping a last-ditch effort to pass it this year might succeed.

"At virtually every turn lately, the White House cannot shake the appearance that it is hamstrung and a step behind. From a major crisis such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to smaller and seemingly avoidable controversies over internal Democratic Party politics, President Obama and his team are on the defensive."

"The Interior Department denied Thursday that it has extended a drilling freeze to shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, contradicting an e-mail written earlier in the day by the Minerals Management Service's supervisor of field operations for the Gulf of Mexico."

"BP reported some oil was flowing up a pipe Friday from a cap it wrestled onto its broken Gulf of Mexico well but crude still spewed and it was unclear how much could be captured in the latest bid to tame the nation's worst oil spill."

Tonight CNN completes its two-day special report, "Toxic America," detailing some of the ways Americans are exposed to toxic chemicals, their effects, and what can be done to reduce human exposure.