By Tony Capaccio21 June 2011 The Pentagon says it has spent at least $1 trillion prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and defending the U.S. homeland, according to newly released Defense Department figures through April 30. Spending growth on Afghanistan operations helped push the Pentagon over the $1 trillion mark, increasing to $6.2 billion […]
By Jeff Donn, Associated Press20 June 2011 LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. — 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 […]
Growing share of income for the rich: Inequality in the U.S. has has grown steadily since the 1970s, following a flat period after World War II. In 2008, the wealthiest 10 percent earned almost the same amount of income as the rest of the country combined. *Based on the salary, bonuses and stock options of […]
By KATE GALBRAITH18 June 2011 On the cliffs surrounding Lake Buchanan in Central Texas, a white ring extends some 13 feet above the shoreline, marking where the water reaches when the lake is full. At nearby Lake Travis, staircases that once led to the water’s edge now end well above it. These two lakes serve […]
By Nancy Gaarder, WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER17 June 2011 FORT CALHOUN, Neb. — Despite the stunning sight of the Fort Calhoun nuclear reactor surrounded by water and the weeks of flooding that lie ahead, the plant is in a safe cold shutdown and can remain so indefinitely, the reactor’s owners and federal regulators say. “We think […]
By PETER SALTER, Lincoln Journal Star 17 June 2011 […] This is the headwaters of the Missouri River — and the source this summer of so much Nebraska pain. But this isn’t where the flood begins. The flood begins higher up, at places like Dark Horse Lake in the Bitterroots, where another 2 inches of […]
By Ker Than14 June 2011 Hundreds of archaeological sites are under threat from a weeks-old, still raging wildfire in eastern Arizona. (See Arizona-fire pictures.) Since it began in late May, the so-called Wallow Fire—the biggest in Arizona’s history—has burned at least 733 square miles (1,900 square kilometers), and has now crossed the state line into […]
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer15 June 2011 WASHINGTON — The fires searing parts of the West are an eerie echo of the past, a frightening reminder of a once terrible danger that had been held largely at bay for decades. The number of large wildfires has been rising for roughly the past 25 […]
By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY16 Jun 2011 The so-called dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico — a region of oxygen-depleted water off the Louisiana and Texas coasts that is harmful to sea life — is predicted to be the largest ever recorded when it develops later this summer, scientists report. The unusually large size […]
By Chip Ward 16 June 2011 Arizona is burning. Texas, too. New Mexico is next. If you need a grim reminder that an already arid West is burning up and blowing away, here it is. As I write this, more than 700 square miles of Arizona and more than 4,300 square miles of Texas have […]
