Apr
11
2013
New estimates of the amount of oil spilled by Exxon Mobil in Mayflower, Arkansas have grown far beyond the initial figures of 84,000 gallons. Susan White at Inside Climate News tries to get a sense of the actual size of the spill:
Engelmann said Friday that “3,500 to 5,000 is not our number” and suggested that InsideClimate News ask PHMSA where those figures came from. A PHMSA spokeswoman confirmed that the higher …
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Apr
11
2013
The Metropolitan Police has asked groups planning to demonstrate during or in advance of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral to make themselves known to officers so that their “right to protest can be upheld”.
The call, which echoes similar ones made in the run-up to the Olympics, is an attempt to avoid any outbreak of violence or public order issues which might threaten to mar the funeral procession. However, the suggestion will anger those who say the right …
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Apr
11
2013
MADRID—Spanish politicians no longer have to worry about street protests hitting too close to home.
The government announced a ban on gatherings within three blocks of any politician’s home Wednesday, days after more than 100 people waved banners and blew whistles outside the deputy prime minister’s front gate.
The restriction was a sign of the government’s concern that demonstrations generated by years of recession in Spain are becoming more aggressive and less manageable.
Over the past month, a …
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Apr
11
2013
AFP – Shell on Thursday said it had launched a review of its oil and gas assets in Nigeria’s massively polluted Ogoniland region, resuming work in the area two decades after unrest forced the company to pull out.
The Anglo-Dutch oil major said the move was not part of an attempt to restart oil production in Ogoniland, describing it instead as a bid to comply with a 2011 UN report that called for one of the …
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Apr
11
2013
Oklahoma grandmother Nancy Zorn, 79, locked herself to a piece of heavy machinery Tuesday morning in protest of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline construction, halting work on a construction site of the tar sands harbinger for several hours.
Starting early in the morning, Zorn locked herself to the large ‘excavator’, latching a bike lock around her neck to the machine.
“Right now our neighbors in Arkansas are feeling the toxic affect of tar sands on their community. Will …
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Apr
11
2013
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for an open spot on U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. The nominee is Srikanth Srinivasan, whose current job is Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. The hearing is a big one for both Obama and Srinivasan, because as Jeffery Toobin pointed out in a breakdown of Srinivasan’s record, this is basically his audition to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the …
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Apr
10
2013
An order for Exxon Mobil to pay $236 million in damages for groundwater contamination is by far the largest verdict in state history but represents only about two days’ worth of profit for the energy company, an industry analyst said.
Fadel Gheit, managing director of oil and gas research and a senior analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said the verdict won’t put a dent in Exxon Mobil’s bottom line.
“Exxon will probably make close to a …
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Apr
10
2013
Following the adoption Tuesday of new science education guidelines, school children in the US will—for the first time—be taught about global warming, an issue which has dramatically altered their planet’s climate and has severe consequences for themselves and future generations.
New science education recommendations aim to encourage real world investigations into subjects, including climate change. (Photo: Halle Miller via Ohio Sea Grant Lab via Flickr) However, the final guidelines fall short of making explicit the …
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Apr
10
2013
As woman after woman stepped to the microphone at the Hyatt Regency ballroom in Washington, D.C., and made the case for why immigration is a women’s issue, Sojourner Truth’s words rang in my ears. Immigrant women living in states across the country—from Texas to Minnesota to Missouri to Maine—shared stories of being detained and not seeing a child for three months, of surviving domestic violence and not being able to call for help, of …
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Apr
10
2013
If you turn to network television to get your news, don’t expect to hear much about labor unions or the lives of organized workers.
During the years of 2008, 2009 and 2011, less than 0.3 percent of news stories aired on four major news broadcasting networks involved labor unions or labor issues, according to analysis recently released by Federico Subervi, a professor of media markets at Texas State University.
Subervi’s team searched the Vanderbilt University Television News …
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