China's largest auto parts maker won U.S. government approval to buy A123 Systems Inc (AONEQ.PK), a maker of electric car batteries, despite warnings by some lawmakers that the deal would transfer sensitive technology developed with U.S. government money.
The sale of the lithium-ion battery maker to a U.S. unit of Wanxiang Group was approved by a U.S. government committee on foreign investment, according to a statement from the Chinese company.
Chinese firm wins A123 despite U.S. tech transfer fears
Judge OKs $4B BP oil spill criminal settlement
A federal judge on Tuesday approved an agreement for BP PLC to plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges and pay a record $4 billion in criminal penalties for the company's role in the 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Before she ruled, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance heard testimony from relatives of 11 workers who died when BP's blown-out Macondo well triggered an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and started the spill.
Guantanamo judge declines to explain mysterious censoring
The military judge presiding over the trial of the five men accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks declined Tuesday to explain a mysterious episode in which the audio and video feeds to the proceedings were severed.
The feeds to the public gallery and media centers were stopped for a period of a few minutes during pre-trial arguments Monday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — apparently startling the judge, Army Col. James Pohl.
Special report: Dairy farms suffer in US shale gas fracking boom
The dash for unconventional gas may have brought financial benefits to some, but for struggling dairy farmers in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, the arrival of drilling wells could be the final nail in the coffin. Dimiter Kenarov reports
When Sheila Russell decided to move back to her ancestral home in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, she wanted to start a new life. A seventh-generation Russell, whose family had settled the land in 1796, the last year of George Washington’s presidency, she left her corporate job at a catalogue company to do what she loved best: farming.
Report: Treasury approved excessive pay for executives at bailed-out AIG, GM and Ally
The U.S. Treasury Department disregarded its own guidelines by allowing large pay increases for executives at three firms bailed out during the financial crisis, a report released Monday says.
The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said Treasury approved all 18 requests it received for executive raises at American International Group Inc., General Motors Corp. and Ally Financial Inc. Of those requests, 14 were for $100,000 or more. One raise, for the CEO of a division at AIG, was for $1 million.
The tiniest particles that may be a threat as bad as asbestos
Europe is failing to control a burgeoning industry in microscopic materials, prompting claims that it has failed to heed the lessons from millions of asbestos deaths, according to a hard-hitting new report. Despite early warnings of the damage some nanomaterials could cause, EU governments are still reacting too slowly to signs of potentially deadly environmental hazards.
Nanomaterials – tiny particles as small as a billionth of a metre – are not currently governed by any regulations specific to them in Britain or the EU, despite concern about the possible effect some may have on health.
Fracking wastewater can be highly radioactive
Its contents remain mostly a mystery. But fracking wastewater has revealed one of its secrets: It can be highly radioactive. And yet no agency really regulates its handling, transport or disposal. First of a four-part series on radiation in fracking wastewater.
Randy Moyer hasn’t been able to work in 14 months. He’s seen more than 40 doctors, has 10 prescriptions to his name and no less than eight inhalers stationed around his apartment.
Heat from North American cities causing warmer winters, study finds
Those who wonder why large parts of North America seem to be skipping winter have a new answer in addition to climate change: big city life.
A study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the heat thrown off by major metropolitan areas on America's east coast caused winter warming across large areas of North America, thousands of miles away from those cities.
The GOP Plan to Steal Elections
I’m optimistic about the Republican Party. Does that surprise you? Well, let me qualify that. When I say I’m optimistic about the Republican Party, I am referring of course to the old joke in which the pessimist says, “Geez, things sure can’t get any worse,” and the optimist replies, “Oh, yes they can!”
When the subject is today’s GOP and the conservative movement, things can always get worse. Having attempted virtually every dishonest and cynical trick in the book under existing rules, they have decided now that the problem is not their dishonesty or cynicism, but the existing rules, so the new task is to change them.
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