A Penn State anthropologist puts forth a new hypothesis: that the nearly universal human tendency to bond altruistically with animals is a unique trait that has evolved because it gives us many advantages.

"BP PLC and the other companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are faced with fast-multiplying lawsuits that will provoke one of the most drawn-out and costliest legal battles in U.S. history, one that could easily consume the $20 billion set aside by BP to pay for the disaster, according to legal experts and attorneys nationwide."

"BP Plc appointed U.S.-born Robert Dudley as chief executive officer and pledged to accelerate asset sales to as much as $30 billion after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill led to a record loss."
 

"In a sweltering summer in New York City back in 1999, Yolanda Baldwin was eight months pregnant with her first child. She lived across the street from a busy intersection and often wondered what the fumes might be doing to her unborn child. Now Baldwin and several hundred other mothers whose sons and daughters have been monitored for a decade have an answer: Before children even take their first breath, common air pollutants breathed by their mothers may reduce their IQs."

"About an hour's drive southwest of Las Vegas, on a private 2,200-acre desert patch flanked by Clark Mountain and the Mojave National Preserve, lies an idled mine many consider to be a linchpin in the U.S. push for energy independence and national security."

"BP’s board is expected on Monday to name an American, Robert Dudley, as its chief executive, replacing Tony Hayward, whose repeated stumbles during the company’s three-month oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico alienated federal and state officials as well as residents of the Gulf Coast."

The Firestone company, the second largest employer in Liberia, is so powerful in that country that the people there have little recourse when they complain that it is poisoning their water. Firestone's massive rubber plantation there was set up with help from the U.S. government in the 1920s. Firestone is now owned by the giant Bridgestone Americas, a Japanese company.

While federal rules have drastically cut use of asbestos in the U.S., the legacy of decades of use is still killing Americans. As many as 10,000 die of asbestos-related illness each year. Are scientists being paid to bring fraudulent science into court by companies who hope to limit their liability?

"The U.N.'s climate agency has for the first time detailed contingency options if the world cannot agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose present round expires in 2012 with no new deal in sight."

"The Obama administration has asked the governments of Scotland and Britain to review the decision last summer to release the Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie airliner bombing." Four U.S. Senators have asked whether BP lobbied for the release in order to get Libyan oil and gas leases.