A National Press Club panel will convene in Washington, DC on Aug. 12 to debate federal public-affairs practices that some say can cut the public off from its affairs. Although executive branch communications offices can be useful, at times indispensable, in helping the press cover the government, reporters need to always be free to seek information in other ways. Yet doing so has become difficult to a degree that some say jeopardizes open government.
"A 'toxic tour' past rail yards, smokestacks and refineries aims to show officials the consequences of their decisions in low-income, predominantly Latino communities in southeast L.A."
"TOKYO — Foreign nuclear experts harshly criticized the operator of the devastated nuclear power plant at Fukushima on Friday for its delay in disclosing that highly contaminated groundwater has been leaking from the site into the ocean."
"The largest solar power plant of its kind is about to turn on in California's Mojave Desert."
"NEW ORLEANS -- Two companies involved in the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest in U.S. history, have attempted to withhold evidence from investigating authorities, but one must now produce the documents sought, and the other is being penalized for destroying a separate set of evidentiary facts."
"Even though she'd been walking in the woods for only a few minutes, Jen McIntyre was in distress. Tears were running down her cheeks. She couldn't breathe through her nose. 'I feel like this is our new reality,' McIntyre said recently of the allergies that have begun to plague her."
"Honey bees are being fitted with tiny radar antennae to find how disease and pesticides are effecting the insects as they hunt for food."
"MUMBAI/NEW DELHI -- Nearly a decade ago, the Indian government ruled out a ban on the production and use of monocrotophos, the highly toxic pesticide that killed 23 children this month in a village school providing free lunches under a government-sponsored program."
"CLEWISTON, Fla. — The call Ricke Kress and every other citrus grower in Florida dreaded came while he was driving. 'It’s here' was all his grove manager needed to say to force him over to the side of the road."
"BRUSSELS — The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies."
