National (U.S.)

The Army Corpts of Engineers changed the operating schedule for the Clearwater Dam on the Black River in Missouri in the 1990s in response to requests by Missouri farmers. On October 3 Arkansas is going to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the Corps action has damaged the 23,000-acre Black River Wildlife Management Area 115 miles downstream. What's more, the state is arguing that the Corps should compensate it under the "takings clause," a favorite conservative legal weapon.

"WINNSBORO, Texas -- Two anti-tar sands pipeline activists were arrested in east Texas on Tuesday as demonstrators continue a three-day-old tree-sit to block TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline."

Shannon Bebe of Dallas and Benjamin Franklin of Houston delayed pipeline construction for most of the day when they locked arms around construction machinery being used by TransCanada to build the southern branch of a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The biosafety level 3 facility on Plum Island in Long Island Sound has been converted from biowarfare to studying animal diseases, harmless to humans, that could come into the U.S. from abroad. Some of those diseases could devastate U.S. flocks or herds. The secrecy and message-control surrounding the facility is intense. But is the secrecy meant to protect the U.S. public or to protect the financial interests of the agriculture industry?

"A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service circulated yesterday evening backed up supporters' claim that pricing carbon could be a powerful tool for reining in the federal deficit."

"Two out of every three times oil and gas companies have publicly disclosed the chemicals in their hydraulic fracturing fluid, they've left something out."

"The Army Corps of Engineers is not liable for billions of dollars in flood damage in the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish during Hurricane Katrina that a lower court said resulted from the agency's failure to maintain the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday. The corps was immune from damages because of a provision in the law governing suits against the federal government that protects an agency when it makes a discretionary decision."

"In the midst of the very active North Atlantic hurricane season, the main weather satellite scientists use for keeping tabs on the weather across eastern North America and the Atlantic Ocean has gone offline. The outage began late on Sept. 23, after a period when the satellite, known as GOES-13, had been experience increasing vibrations, or “noise,” in particular instruments that was degrading its performance. According to the Capital Weather Gang blog, the satellite was put in stand-by mode while engineers work to fix the problem from the ground."

"Forty-seven Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing Speaker John Boehner to eliminate the wind production tax credit, a tax break that has split Republicans and drawn criticism from presidential hopeful Mitt Romney."

"The rare greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, is even more imperiled than scientists thought, a new study suggests. By analyzing DNA sampled from cutthroat trout specimens pickled in ethanol for 150 years, comparing it with the genes of today’s cutthroat populations, and cross-referencing more than 40,000 historic stocking records, researchers in Colorado and Australia have revealed that the fish survives not in five wild populations, but just one."

"RALEIGH, N.C. -- A nuclear power partnership of General Electric Co. and Tokyo-based Hitachi Ltd. received federal approval Tuesday to build the first plant to enrich uranium for use in commercial reactors using a classified laser technology."