The failure of a key device on the blowout preventer was one of many factors leading to the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill. Documents and inquiries have shed light on the chain of events leading up to this failure. A New York Times investigation reveals the chasm between oil-industry assertions about blowout-preventer reliability and the actual facts -- as well as a gap between the Obama administration's efforts to reform drilling regulation and its actual performance.

The UK's Murdoch-owned Sunday Times in January 2010 published an article that seemed to discredit science suggesting the Amazon was vulnerable to drought as a result of trends linked to climate change. The article came at a time when climate change deniers were concertedly attacking peer-reviewed science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Now the Times has published a correction and apology for that January article -- discrediting yet another smear in the deniers' widely reported attack on climate science.

"Environmental groups filed two new major lawsuits Thursday, aimed at forcing the coal industry to stop violations of water-quality limits for toxic selenium."

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today suspended the use of a fast-track nationwide permit, Nationwide Permit 21, for mountaintop removal mining operations in the six states of the Appalachian region."

"Commercial fishermen can recover economic losses caused by polluters, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a decision that could establish precedent for future claims against BP PLC."

"A key piece of the state's approach to controlling water pollution from Pennsylvania's fast-expanding natural gas drilling activity cleared a major hurdle Thursday."

"Federal officials are launching efforts today in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to enlist farmers in targeted watersheds in a concerted effort to curb pollution running off their land."

"U.S. environmental regulators said on Tuesday the climate and energy bill in the Senate would only add slightly to average household costs, but the finding was not expected to boost chances for the legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions."

"A competition between nuclear waste dumps has pulled the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into an unusual reconsideration of its rules to allow moderately radioactive materials to be diluted into a milder category that is easier to bury."

"It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico's fragile ecosystem."