In early August 2013, Arlene Skurupey of Blacksburg, Va., got an animated call from the normally taciturn farmer who rents her family land in Billings County, N.D. There had been an accident at the Skurupey 1-9H oil well. “Oh, my gosh, the gold is blowing,” she said he told her. “Bakken gold.”
It was the 11th blowout since 2006 at a North Dakota well operated by Continental Resources, the most prolific producer in the booming Bakken oil patch. Spewing some 173,250 gallons of potential pollutants, the eruption, undisclosed at the time, was serious enough to bring the Oklahoma-based company’s chairman and chief executive, Harold G. Hamm, to the remote scene.
Fracking: The Downside of the Boom
Rights groups release software to detect government spyware
Human rights group Amnesty International released free software on Thursday that allows users to determine if their computers are bugged by government intelligence agencies.
The program, Detekt, was designed specifically for human rights activists and journalists, whose computers governments regularly target, Amnesty said.
“Governments are increasingly using dangerous and sophisticated technology that allows them to read activists and journalists’ private emails and remotely turn on their computer’s camera or microphone to secretly record their activities,” said Marek Marczynski of Amnesty International.
UN: World not close to avoiding dangerous warming
The world still isn't close to preventing what leaders call a dangerous level of man-made warming, a new United Nations report says. That's despite some nations' recent pledges to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions.
The report looks at the gap between what countries promise to do about carbon pollution and what scientists say needs to be done to prevent temperatures rising another two degrees. That two-degree level is a goal that world leaders set in 2009.
Alex Baer: Aping Nuclear Wisdom with Monkey Business
The fun thing about humanity is that there's always something brand new to deliver ground-breaking terrors right to your front door. Sometimes it's a concept that rocks the boat or quakes the bedrock beneath us, Other times it's left to inventions, products, and gizmos to break the ground out from under us, pitching us into our self-made quagmires and quicksand.
As a bonus, we comfort ourselves by reassuring our consciences that there's never any direct charge for free delivery of such nightmares and broad-daylight terrors. Some part of us knows the delivery price is always worked into the cost, and then, we hope somebody else pays the cost -- and also pays the price.
Warren Joins U.S. Senate Democratic Leadership Team
U.S. Senate Democrats elevated first-term Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to an expanded leadership team as they prepare to become the chamber’s minority party in January.
Warren, who will act as a bridge to the party’s liberal wing, said she’ll use her role to focus on financial equality in the U.S.
“Wall Street is doing very well; CEOs are bringing in more and more, yet families everywhere are struggling,” Warren told reporters at the Capitol in Washington.
Keystone pipeline approval bills advance in Congress
Legislation to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline began racing through the U.S. Congress on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans appeared to be coming together in a challenge of President Barack Obama's oversight of the project.
In a series of rapid developments that unfolded just hours after Congress returned from a seven-week recess, there were indications the measure could pass and be sent to Obama sometime next week.
Here's How The US Is About To Change Global Torture Rules
The Obama administration will tell a U.N. anti-torture committee today that the U.S. has reversed a Bush administration rule that had said the ban on torture did not extend beyond America's borders.
A U.S. delegation will appear in Geneva today before the Committee Against Torture, the U.N. body that monitors Geneva Conventions anti-torture compliance. The American delegation will state that the U.S. ban on torture now does apply to U.S. facilities overseas, at places like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Are Fracking Workers Being Poisoned on the Job?
Last week’s Republican election victories will set the stage for more stagnation in Washington, but might also grease the skids for some of the most controversial energy ventures at ground zero in the climate change debate: the long-stalled Keystone XL Pipeline project, and the booming hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," industry. But one thing that might put the brakes on the dirty fuel rush is the mounting research evidence linking oil and gas extraction to massive health risks for workers and communities.
A new study published in Environmental Health reveals air pollution data on major, in some cases previously underestimated, health risks from toxic contamination at gas production sites related to fracking.
Israeli ministers approve applying Israel law to West Bank settlers
A ministerial committee approved a proposed bill on Sunday that would ensure the wholesale application of Israeli law to Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, a move sponsored by legislators who want Israel to annex part of the territory.
But Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel's chief negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians that collapsed in April, said she would appeal the decision, effectively putting parliamentary ratification on indefinite hold.
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