National (U.S.)

The Justice Department and Illinois are suing Midwest Generation, charging the utility company with evading the Clean Air Act by not installing pollution controls when modernizing its plants. The move marks an Obama administration reversal of Bush policies.

Another allegedly grass-roots PR campaign funded by the coal industry has been embarrassed by the revelation that photos of the "real" people who support coal were obtained from a commercial stock-photo outfit.

"Declining industrial electricity demand and an abundance of cheap natural gas will threaten coal's status as the dominant U.S. fuel to generate electric power, even after the economic recession ends" say electric industry executives and analysts.

"If you've been waiting all season for that quintessential taste of summer -- a juicy, ripe tomato from the garden -- you might be disappointed. This year a tomato blight has swept across the Northeast and is moving into Midwestern gardens and farms."

The Local Food Hub in the Charlottesville, Va., area is an example of a new trend: nonprofit distribution enterprises that aggregate food produced by small-scale local farmers and move it quickly to local customers such as restaurants, schools, and retirement homes.

Laboratory researchers are pursuing technologies for skipping the burning of coal altogether, and producing electricity directly from carbon via fuel cells.

"The White House budget update released on Tuesday still reflects a controversial Obama administration plan to combat global warming by auctioning all permits to emit greenhouse gases even though Congress has said it will give away a substantial portion to industry."