Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama’s vow that his administration would launch a “relentless response effort” to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.
Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf
Pope's ally probed over sex abuse claims
A close friend of Pope Benedict XVI who has already offered to resign after admitting that he hit children in his care is now being investigated over allegations of paedophilia.
Prosecutors in the southern city of Augsburg said that they had opened a preliminary probe into Walter Mixa after media reports said he had been accused of sexually abusing a boy while bishop of Eichstaett between 1996 and 2005.
Michael Moore Says Judge’s Ruling Could Have ‘Chilling Effect’ on Documentaries
The director Michael Moore says that a federal judge’s ruling to allow Chevron to subpoena footage from the documentary “Crude” could have dire consequences on the documentary filmmaking process, and urged that film’s director to resist the subpoena if he can.Israel won't move on U.N. call for nuclear-free zone
Israel has no plan to review its nuclear policies, a government official said on Friday, playing down efforts by world powers at a U.N. non-proliferation conference to promote a Middle East free of atomic arms.
Hoping to win Arab backing for sanctions against Iran, the United States and other permanent U.N. Security Council members on Wednesday called for ways to be found to implement a 1995 initiative that would guarantee nuclear disarmament in a region where Israel is widely assumed to have the only such weapons.
U.S. officials: No credible evidence that terrorists trained Shahzad
No credible evidence has been found so far that the Pakistani-American man accused in the Times Square bombing plot received any serious terrorist training from the Pakistani Taliban or another radical Islamic group, six U.S. officials said Thursday.
Exposed: Christian leader caught with male escort says he needed help with his luggage
The male escort hired by anti-gay activist George Alan Rekers has told Miami New Times the Baptist minister is a homosexual who paid him to provide body rubs once a day in the nude, during their ten-day vacation in Europe.
Congress Refuses to Outlaw Insider Trading For Lawmakers
Even a cynic can find Washington's hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.
That's right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading!
Climate change deniers accused of McCarthyism
In a letter published in the journal Science, more than 250 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel Prize laureates, condemned the increase in "political assaults" on scientists who argue greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet.
The 'climategate' scandal and mistakes by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have led to a surge in attacks on climate scientists around the world.
Chemical dispersants an unknown quantity in addressing oil spill
The decision on whether to use chemical dispersants deep below the sea's surface to break up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill boils down to two central questions:
Is it worth taking this unprecedented step to protect the region's sensitive and ecologically valuable wetlands, even at the potential expense of its marine life? And should federal officials conduct extensive new research before making the leap, since the scientific literature on this question is so sparse?
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