National (U.S.)

"Bed bugs might make you itch, but the chemicals used to combat the pests are making some people ill.

As more people in the United States are feeling the bed bug's bite, there has been a spike in illnesses from pesticides used to kill the insects, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC.L reported on Thursday.

From 2003 to 2010, 111 people were sickened and one died from bed bug insecticide, the government agency reported in a study that is the first of its kind in the country.

"In lobbying for a presidential permit to construct a massive oil pipeline stretching from Canada to the Gulf Coast, TransCanada’s Paul Elliott has tried nearly every angle.

"President Obama’s visit to the Solyndra solar panel factory in California last year was choreographed down to the last detail — the 20-by-30-foot American flags, the corporate banners hung just so, the special lighting, even coffee and doughnuts for the Secret Service detail."

"WASHINGTON — The House on Friday passed a new version of a stopgap spending bill about 30 hours after rejecting a nearly identical version of the legislation, intended to keep the government open and to provide assistance to victims of natural disasters."

"Perry fast-tracked new plants and made Texas even more polluted than it already was."

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"In April 2006, a few days before Earth Day, Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined executives of TXU, the state's largest utility and biggest carbon dioxide emitter, in cheering plans to open a staggering 11 new coal-fired power plants throughout Texas. With rolling blackouts still fresh on many Texans' minds, Perry hailed TXU's rapid expansion as a path to energy security, not to mention a way to create jobs and potentially lower energy costs.

"A bipartisan effort to secure at least 80 percent of fines from the BP Gulf oil spill for the five Gulf Coast states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas — advanced Wednesday as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the bill by voice vote."

"Worrying levels of BPA, an industrial chemical with suspected links to cancer, lurk inside canned soups and pasta targeted at American children, the Breast Cancer Fund said Wednesday."

"Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed company, has prevailed in another lawsuit against a U.S. farmer, earning a ruling from a federal appeals court that protects Monsanto's interests even when its patented seeds are sold in a mix of undifferentiated "commodity" seeds."

Joan Guilfoyle, the new head of Interior's wild horse and burro program, faces a dilemma. The 38,000 animals roaming 34 million western acres are breeding rapidly. If she moves to fast to cull them, she faces the wrath of conservationists; if she moves too slowly, she faces the wrath of ranchers.

"The President's advisers have made it official and are recommending a strong veto of a House bill that would gut two key anti-pollution rules."