"The U.S. put its eastern seaboard on alert for Hurricane Irene on Tuesday as the powerful storm barreled up from the Caribbean on a path that could hit the U.S. coast on the weekend."

The tar-sands oil entering the pipeline in Alberta contains a small amount of water. Whether this will cause corrosion of the pipeline is a question that has brought high emotions and little actual study.

"BOSTON — In the world of environmental regulation, where the hope is to write rules that both industry and science can live with, few areas are as contentious as fishing. Especially on the East Coast, fishermen attack scientists as mired in bottomless ignorance about how fish are actually caught. Scientists sometimes describe fishermen as racing to catch the last fish, regardless of the harm to vanishing species."

"Of all the things there are to worry about, earthquakes are fairly low on the list for those on the East Coast. So it was startling, just as the lunch hour was ending Tuesday and workers in a broad area of North America were settling back into their cubicles, when floors began to shake and chairs rocked."

"Seven months after receiving an executive order to cut red tape, federal agencies today released their final plans for cutting burdensome regulations, unveiling hundreds of changes that are estimated to save billions of dollars and millions of hours of paperwork in the coming years."

"Koch argues that tough restrictions on petrochemicals aren’t necessary because there hasn’t been a terrorist attack here since 9/11."

"The largest earthquake to hit the East Coast of the United States in 67 years raised concerns on Tuesday about the safety of the country's nuclear power plants. The 5.8 magnitude quake's epicenter was just a few miles from the two-reactor North Anna nuclear power plant operated by Dominion Resources in Mineral, Virginia, 80 miles southwest of Washington."

"BILLINGS, Mont. -- Cleaning up tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil that spilled from a pipeline and fouled a stretch of Montana's renowned Yellowstone River is expected to cost Exxon Mobil Corp. an estimated $42.6 million, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press."

Matthew Brown reports for the Associated Press August 22, 2011. [27]

"NEW MADRID, Mo. -- After record flooding this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces an epic repair job on the nation's decades-old flood defenses in the Mississippi and Missouri River basins, and it's already clear that the work won't be completed in time to protect some areas from even run-of-the-mill flooding."

"A strengthening Hurricane Irene eased away from the northwestern Caribbean on Monday, leaving nearly one million people in the dark in Puerto Rico, a billionaire’s mansion torched by lightning in the British Virgin Islands and fears of a dark night of drenching rain and floods across Hispaniola."