National (U.S.)

The alumina dust that coats a Texas Gulf Coast town is a sign of risks like those in the Hungarian villages recently buried in a spill of toxic red sludge.

"The voluntary quality control system widely used in the nation's $1 trillion domestic food industry is rife with conflicts of interest, inexperienced auditors and cursory inspections that produce inflated ratings, according to food retail executives and other industry experts."

"With Election Day less than two weeks away and Republicans rallying around their opposition to U.S. EPA regulations, the agency is expected to wait before it tightens the nationwide limit on ozone pollution."

"Remember the 2008 presidential campaign, when candidates and voters alike couldn’t seem to get enough of energy and climate issues during the good ol’ days of $4 per gallon gasoline? Politically and at the pump, those days are long gone."

"Federal forecasters on Thursday called for another winter of extremes, with the Pacific Northwest expecting a wetter and colder season than average and the South and Southeast yearning for rain."

"Just nine days after the Obama Administration lifted the deepwater drilling moratorium, Chevron announced on Thursday that it was going forward with a $7.5 billion project to develop two giant deepwater fields in the gulf."

"A new set of federal rules issued for shallow-water drilling are null and void because federal regulators didn’t offer the proper notices or public comment period, a judge in New Orleans said this week."

"ON THE FLOOR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO -- Just 20 miles north of where BP's blown-out well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the sea, life appears bountiful despite initial fears that crude could have wiped out many of these delicate deepwater habitats."

For Tea Party activists in Indiana, manmade climate change is a 'flat-out lie.' For them, Rush Limbaugh and the Bible speak with more scientific authority than scientists, scientific organizations, or research institutes. One consequence is that a Democrat who voted for cap-and-trade is endangered.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to explain why it determined that polar bears are merely threatened under the Endangered Species Act, not endangered. Environmentalists are in court seeking the more protective classification.