The livestock industry, which has been successfully urging state legislatures to pass bills hamstringing exposes of animal cruelty, has a new tactic that hobbles long-term undercover investigations of feedlots and slaughterhouses.

"On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks."

"InsideClimate News reporter Lisa Song was threatened with arrest on Wednesday after she entered the command center for the cleanup operation in Mayflower, Ark., where a major oil pipeline spill occurred on Friday."

"Rumors of Scripps begone -- geophysicist Marcia McNutt, who stepped down as head of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in February, is returning to Washington, D.C., as the new editor-in-chief of Science. McNutt will take over the editorship on 1 June from Bruce Alberts, who announced his retirement last year."

Rumors that the conservative billionaire Koch brothers could be poised to buy the Tribune Company raise questions about how that might affect Tribune news outlets' coverage of environment and energy issues, in which the Kochs have a substantial stake.

"Wide-ranging investigation, which will look into six different federal departments, is to review incidents in which the media was thwarted when trying to speak to Canadian government scientists about their work."