"Record high global food prices showed no sign of relenting following a rash of catastrophic weather, highlighted by a major U.S. snowstorm and a cyclone in Australia, which could put yet more pressure on prices and spark further unrest around the world."

"The Environmental Protection Agency, which enforces rules that affect the U.S. economy from factories to farms, is the No. 1 target of complaints from business groups collected by House Republican leaders." The rules also protect public health.

"The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch no longer sit outside Washington's political establishment, isolated by their uncompromising conservatism. Instead, they are now at the center of Republican power, a change most evident in the new makeup of the House Energy and Commerce Committee."

An Associated Press investigation explains how federal regulators leave safety up to gas pipelines and utilities, whose profit-seeking decisions on safety cause fatal disasters like the one in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight and destroyed 55 homes.