Disasters

"With a startling report that some researchers call more spin than science, the government said Wednesday that the mess made by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is mostly gone already."

An oil-industry-funded PR 'War Room' stands ready to kill or counter any public discourse unfavorable to the oil industry. The conservative non-profit group running it has been accused of shaking down BP. They are working hard to elect Republiicans to the Senate.

"Democrats on Tuesday gave up trying to pass even a scaled-back energy bill this summer that would have removed liability ceilings on oil companies, a reaction to the BP oil spill."

"BP says it has reached the 'desired outcome' in a procedure in which it pumped mud down the throat of the blown-out well that is leaking in the Gulf of Mexico. ... The company said Wednesday that the well pressure was being controlled, 'which is the desired outcome of the static kill procedure carried out yesterday.'"

"The House of Representatives on Friday approved the toughest reforms ever to offshore energy drilling practices, as Democrats narrowly pushed through an election-year response to BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

"The worst floods in memory in Pakistan have devastated the lives of more than 3 million people, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday, while outrage over the unpopular government's response to the suffering spreads."

"Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill asked Russians to pray for rain on Sunday as wildfires raged across the European parts of the vast country, sweltering since June in an unprecedented heat wave."

"The EPA says that the brew of oil and dispersants still swirling in the Gulf of Mexico can be highly to moderately toxic to marine organisms at certain concentrations determined in a lab setting. The agency did not say whether those acute toxic levels are present in the open waters of the Gulf."

"The BP spill is by far the world's largest accidental release of oil  into marine waters, according to the most precise estimates yet of the well's flow rate, announced by federal scientists on Monday."

Residents of the area affected by last week's oil spill in the Kalamazoo River filed a federal class-action lawsuit against pipeline operator Enbridge Inc. on Friday.