National (U.S.)

When water providers find pharmaceuticals in drinking water, they rarely tell the public.

Two soybean industry groups temporarily suspended about $1.5 million in grants to the University of Minnesota for biofuel research after it found using food crops for fuel could worsen global warming and cause other environmental harm.

Judiciary Committee leaders urged Senate leaders March 6, 2008, to schedule a floor vote on a bill to create a federal "shield law" for journalists.

Virtually unknown until the Swiss bank Julius Baer tried to censor it for publishing allegations of financial hanky-panky, a website called Wikileaks has catapulted to fame as a potential tool for journalists... and those who leak to them.

Can the public be trusted with information about drugs in their drinking water?

"News is what people want to keep hidden - and everything else is publicity." Bill Moyers made famous that maxim he gleaned from a Texas mentor.

EPA made public the latest year's data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) February 21, 2008, catching a few journalists by surprise, as usual.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, ruled Feb. 15, 2008, that the public had a legitimate interest in data from some previously unreleased Agriculture Department databases - clearing the way for their release.

Large feedlots would no longer have to report toxic emissions under a rule proposed Dec. 21, 2007, by EPA.