Saturday, Feb 07th
Last update10:06:05 AM GMT
Safety has taken a back seat to cost-cutting at most of the nation's nuclear power plants, sparking fears that America could be facing its own Fukushima disaster.
An investigation by the Associated Press has revealed federal regulators are repeatedly weakening - or simply failing to impose - strict rules.
Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have frequently decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril.
Two longtime political operatives who worked last year on Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s gubernatorial return campaign were indicted today for ordering what the state prosecutor called deceptive robocalls intended to suppress votes on the night of the election.
Julius Henson and Paul Schurick each face three counts of conspiracy to violate Maryland election laws, one count of attempting to influence a voter's decision and one count of failing to provide an authority line (on campaign material). Schurick also is charged with one count of obstruction of justice.
In a report released Monday, "Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality," the FDA said two-thirds of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States and 80 percent of the seafood eaten domestically are imported.
Half of the medical devices sold in the country and "80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in medications sold here are manufactured elsewhere," the report said.
"There has been a perfect storm -- more products, more manufacturers, more countries and more access. A dramatic change in strategy must be implemented," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said.
Despite an uprising of member doctors, the American Medical Association will continue to support a key tenet of the health care law that requires Americans to buy health insurance.
By a margin of 2 to 1, the AMA's policy-making House of Delegates voted Monday to continue to back the so-called "individual mandate," saying such individual responsibility for Americans who can afford to buy coverage was the best option to expand benefits to the uninsured. The results of the vote were 326 in favor and 165 opposed.
The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats — and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
Delegates called for urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health.
The report summary (released 21 June 2011) outlines the main findings and recommendations. The full report will be released at a later date.
Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.
Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.
Journalists [and the corporate propaganda system that pays them] predominantly ignore such nuclear conundrums as safety, unprofitability, waste accumulation, unlawful decommissioning, routine radioactive releases, or the epidemics of disease clustered around nuclear sites. Those who are intimidated into ignorance and self-censorship merely by the science of it all have left themselves irresponsibly unprepared in proportion to the threat. Prudence would seem to dictate that the SEJ sponsor a conference, to debate -- at the very least -- the ideas of nuclear experts that have been synopsized herein. Nor is this so narrow an issue as it seems: The potential for domestic instability due to nuclear emergency has substantial foreign policy implications. (Not to mention the economic and political ramifications leading us to complete societal breakdown.)
For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.
But economists had little idea who these people were. How many were Wall street financiers? Sports stars? Entrepreneurs? Economists could only speculate, and debates over what is fair stalled. Now a mounting body of economic research indicates that the rise in pay for company executives is a critical feature in the widening income gap.
Deep in the West Texas sand dunes is something that some say could threaten the state's oil and gas production: A tiny lizard. But it's not just any lizard: It's a dunes sagebrush lizard, also known as the sand dune lizard.
This little brown reptile is a concern for state officials, who hope that federal officials don't designate it an endangered species. That, they say, could disrupt oil and gas exploration in the heart of Texas' oil country, leading to higher gas prices and shrinking dollars for schools.
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