The former head of an EPA criminal probe into pipeline spills at a BP PLC oil field in Alaska claims the Justice Department prematurely shut down the investigation and settled with the company for less than the case may have warranted.
Scott West, a former special agent-in-charge of the EPA's criminal-investigation division in Seattle who supervised a team of investigators, said he needed as much as another year to determine if, in fact, "there was sufficient evidence to charge BP with a felony." Mr. West said his agents still had large volumes of evidence to go through to make that determination.



Evacuations have been ordered for areas along California’s famous Big Sur coast as a wildfire burns...
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, has plummeted to its lowest water level...
Construction crews building a border wall in New Mexico were ordered to stop drilling new wells...





























