Public

"Global weather conditions are taking their toll on the artery-clogging guilty pleasure known as bacon. A world pork shortage is now 'unavoidable' says Britain’s National Pig Association (NPA)."

"The Army Corps of Engineers is not liable for billions of dollars in flood damage in the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish during Hurricane Katrina that a lower court said resulted from the agency's failure to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday. The corps was immune from damages because of a provision in the law governing suits against the federal government that protects an agency when it makes a discretionary decision."

"In the midst of the very active North Atlantic hurricane season, the main weather satellite scientists use for keeping tabs on the weather across eastern North America and the Atlantic Ocean has gone offline. The outage began late on Sept. 23, after a period when the satellite, known as GOES-13, had been experience increasing vibrations, or “noise,” in particular instruments that was degrading its performance. According to the Capital Weather Gang blog, the satellite was put in stand-by mode while engineers work to fix the problem from the ground."

"Forty-seven Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing Speaker John Boehner to eliminate the wind production tax credit, a tax break that has split Republicans and drawn criticism from presidential hopeful Mitt Romney."

"The rare greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, is even more imperiled than scientists thought, a new study suggests. By analyzing DNA sampled from cutthroat trout specimens pickled in ethanol for 150 years, comparing it with the genes of today’s cutthroat populations, and cross-referencing more than 40,000 historic stocking records, researchers in Colorado and Australia have revealed that the fish survives not in five wild populations, but just one."

"RALEIGH, N.C. -- A nuclear power partnership of General Electric Co. and Tokyo-based Hitachi Ltd. received federal approval Tuesday to build the first plant to enrich uranium for use in commercial reactors using a classified laser technology."

"MEXICO CITY -- Water-rights activists on Tuesday questioned the theory of Mexican state prosecutors that the killing of a state legislator-elect this month was orchestrated by his designated substitute."

"SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. -- Once the huge property tax bills started coming, telephones started ringing. It did not take long for the 50 or so people who live on this largely undeveloped barrier island to realize that life was about to get worse. Sapelo Island, a tangle of salt marsh and sand reachable only by boat, holds the largest community of people who identify themselves as saltwater Geechees. Sometimes called the Gullahs, they have inhabited the nation’s southeast coast for more than two centuries. Theirs is one of the most fragile cultures in America."

"A new study in monkeys provides the strongest evidence yet that an estrogen-like chemical called BPA could alter chromosomes, increasing the risk of birth defects and miscarriages, scientists say."

"Hundreds of thousands of active oil and gas wells go without government inspection in any given year, and fines for regulatory violations are too small to change drilling company behavior, according to an energy watchdog group's review of regulation and enforcement activities in six states."