Just 50 miles off the Pacific Northwest coast is an earthquake hotspot that threatens to unleash on Seattle, Portland and Vancouver the kind of damage that has shattered Chile.
The fault has been dormant for more than 300 years, but when it awakens — tomorrow or decades from now — the consequences could be devastating. Recent computer simulations of a hypothetical magnitude-9 quake found that shaking could last 2 to 5 minutes — strong enough to potentially cause poorly constructed buildings from British Columbia to Northern California to collapse and severely damage highways and bridges.
Northwest at risk of megaquake like one in Chile
Fish oil PCB levels subject of lawsuit
Makers and sellers of fish oil supplements were sued in California for not including labeling about PCB contamination, a plaintiff's attorney said Tuesday.
"Consumers who want the health benefits of fish oil shouldn't also have to take the health risks of an extremely toxic man-made chemical," attorney David Roe said in a release. "And they don't have to, since preliminary test results show that some fish oil brands have only 1/70th as much PCB contamination in them as others."
Consumer group sues California health insurer
Consumer advocates filed a class-action suit against Anthem Blue Cross on Monday, accusing California's largest for-profit health insurer of illegally using drastic rate hikes to force customers into inferior health plans.
The suit comes two days before top executives from several major U.S. health insurers, including Anthem's parent company, WellPoint Inc. , were to meet in Washington with Obama administration officials to discuss escalating premiums. Anthem's plan to boost its individual premiums by as much as 39 percent has spawned inquiries by state regulators and congressional committees.
Herbicide Chemical in Drinking Water Could Pose Much Greater Danger to Health Than Previously Thought
Contamination of drinking water by a common herbicide poses a greater health threat than previously believed, according to a report issued by the nonprofit environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Why pharmaceuticals might be called Weapons of Mass Prescription
Most people are familiar with traditional weapons of mass destruction such biological weapons, nuclear weapons and chemical weapons. The point of all such weapons of mass destruction is to inflict a large number of casualties on civilian populations as a way to cripple a nation into political or military submission.
Same-sex marriage leads Catholic Charities to adjust benefits
Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.
TVNL Comment: What would Jesus do? Just asking....
Defense contractor BAE pleads guilty; fined $400 million
BAE Systems pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges of conspiring to defraud the federal government, among other things, the U.S. Justice Department said.U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates sentenced BAE Systems to pay a $400 million criminal fine, one of the largest criminal fines in the history of the Justice Department's effort to fight overseas corruption in international business and enforce U.S. export control laws, the department said Monday in a release.
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Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says
The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.
Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.
“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”
Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.
Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.
Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.
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