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China is showing none of the hesitancy that marks the U.S. effort to train people for clean-energy jobs. One result is that China is poised to beat the U.S. in the contest for developing a clean-energy economy.

"If the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a high-profile case over whether states can invoke common law to force industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it's likely one of the justices will sit on the sidelines." Her missing vote might determine the outcome of the case.

"The major U.S. ethanol incentive would be cut by 20 percent but given one more year of life in a Senate tax bill that also would revive a biodiesel tax credit that died a year ago."

"This year is set to be among the three warmest since records began in 1850 and caps a record-warm decade that is a new indication of man-made climate change, the United Nations said on Thursday."
 

"At a 2 p.m. news conference streamed live over the Web, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said they found microbes in the mud beneath a California lake that can use arsenic -- usually considered toxic -- rather than phosphorus as one of the building blocks of its DNA. Phosphorus is one of the elements that sustains all other life forms on earth."

"The president's deficit commission proposed slashing energy tax breaks yesterday, a move that could make renewable power more competitive and help chisel down greenhouse gas emissions. But the plan is brimming with political pitfalls and vagueness around whether clean power subsidies might also be axed to curb the nation's rising debt."

"Foreign firefighters and aircraft poured into Israel Friday in an unprecedented wave of international assistance as the country battled a huge forest fire that has killed at least 41 people and displaced thousands."

"Japan's whaling fleet has been scaled back and today departed late for the Southern Ocean aiming to catch hundreds of minke whales and 50 fin whales." They will be met and harassed by a three-ship flotilla from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which includes a new high-speed trimaran interceptor and video crews from Animal Planet.

"A binational coalition of over 70 mayors from Quebec, Ontario and the eight Great Lake States fear that the proposed maritime shipment of 16 giant radioactive steam generators from Ontario's Bruce Power to Sweden for recycling could release radioactivity into the water in the event of an accident during shipment."