"WASHINGTON — A troubled new computer system used by inspectors at the nation’s 6,500 meatpacking and processing plants shut down for two days this month, putting at risk millions of pounds of beef, poultry, pork and lamb that had left the plants before workers could collect samples to check for E. coli bacteria and other contaminants."
"The US Bureau of Reclamation announced the cut Friday, from Lake Powell, because of drought conditions. While the move involving the Colorado River will be hard for people to detect at the faucet, it carries symbolic importance."
"A study on the fetuses of pregnant rhesus macaque monkeys has shown that exposure to the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, led to changes in their lungs that increased the potential for developing asthma."
"NASA is getting ready to turn its scientific instruments toward our home planet with a trio of Earth-observing missions set to launch in 2014."
"The University of California at Berkeley cut laboratory financing this week for a professor who has complained for years about corporate-led retaliation for his association of health risks with a widely used herbicide." The herbicide is atrazine.
"ANGELICA, N.Y. — Questions about the integrity of official water tests are stirring the latest controversy over New York State’s embattled policy of allowing imports of radioactive waste from natural gas drilling operations in Pennsylvania."
"For auto companies, that Environmental Protection Agency-approved MPG sticker on a new car is a high stakes and expensive process. These days it can be damaging to a company's image if customers can't achieve that great fuel economy in their own commutes."
"Jimmy Carter put up solar panels in 1979, then Ronald Reagan took them down in 1986. Now the Obama administration is fulfilling a long-delayed promise to put solar panels back on the White House."
"MIDLAND, Mich. -- As Dow Chemical’s chief executive, Andrew N. Liveris has made himself into something of an outcast among his fellow business leaders. The reason? He is spearheading a public campaign against increased exports of natural gas, which he sees as a threat to a manufacturing renaissance in the United States, not to mention his own company’s bottom line."
"Pending greenhouse gas regulations cloud the future of coal-burning power plants. But electric utilities are investing to keep large facilities going."
