Nightly news broadcasts of oil-laden train cars going up in flames in Lac-Mégantic, Canada, two years ago when 47 people were killed, left a stark impression in the minds of many. Anecdotal evidence in the form of exploding railcars may give Americans the impression that the nation’s railways have become dangerous. But statistical information shows that even with increased oil production and rail shipments, railroad accidents have actually decreased.   read more

The 2.5 billion gallons of ash, which contains heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead, is endangering nearby aquifers in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. “TVA has allowed the very pollutants that the coal ash ponds were supposed to treat and remove to enter the groundwater and nearby surface waters, including the Cumberland River, directly and through hydrologic connections in the groundwater, all in violation of the Permit and/or the Clean Water Act,” the complaint states.   read more

“It’s really clear that we have no basis to make almost any conclusions about the safety of the current food supply,” said Public Interest attorney Laura MacCleery. “We don’t know what people are eating.” The GAO report even stated that the FDA’s oversight process does not help ensure the safety of all new food ingredients, and it criticized companies’ ability to use new added ingredients deemed generally recognized as safe without informing federal food regulators.   read more

Koch Industries, the fossil fuel giant owned by ultra-conservative brothers Charles and David Koch, is trying to increase its visibility on college campuses, both to improve the company’s image and to recruit employees. The strategy is being implemented through a media buy and sports sponsorships that include 15 colleges or universities located from Texas to Minnesota. “Koch is looking for a way to connect on campus,” said Roy Seinfeld, rights holder for 10 of the schools and the conference.   read more

Melissa Sickmund, director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, said that putting juveniles behind bars is a mistake. “If you’re detaining the kid — unless they are really a threat to the community — it may be causing more harm than good, it may be putting them in the presence of other bad actors who are worse than them and they just learn bad stuff,” she told the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. “We could be traumatizing them, and it doesn’t help and it’s expensive.”   read more

The police killing of a South Carolina man has brought attention to the use of traffic stops, particularly of black men, as an excuse to investigate drivers and vehicles. Unlike routine safety-related traffic stops, such as those for speeding or driving erratically, investigatory stops are often for minor equipment-related matters, but can lead to vehicle searches, interrogations of motorists and sometimes arrests. Research has shown that black men are overwhelmingly the targets of such stops.   read more

The bill would grant asylum to up to 500 families a year who come to the United States because they can’t homeschool their children in their home countries. Many of these families come from Germany and Sweden, where children must attend regular schools. “The Republicans have put homeschooling as a priority for asylum in the United States ahead of murder, rape, child abuse,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Illinois) told McClatchy.   read more

When you buy something, you’d like to keep it as long as it’s useful to you. With videogames, however, you get to keep them only as long as the manufacturer lets you. Game manufacturers often cut off server access for games they no longer want to support. stuck in legal limbo by server shutdowns are groups such as the Internet Archive, museums like Oakland, California’s Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, and researchers who study video games as a cultural and historical medium.   read more

Give the Forest Service credit—they’re persistent. The agency in 2012 allowed Arch Coal—the nation’s second largest oil company—to exploit an exemption in the Colorado Roadless Rule designed to protect wilderness areas in the state from mining. Environmental groups sued. A judge last year blocked Arch’s plans. Now, the Forest Service is trying again to allow Arch to put six miles of road, along with 48 vent pads, in 19,000 acres in the southwestern part of the state. .   read more

The research showed that buildings hooked up to well water had a 21% higher radon concentration than those connected to municipal supplies. In addition, buildings in townships, where there is more fracking, had 39% higher concentrations of the gas than those in cities.   read more

After arriving in the U.S. five years ago, Morales became a community leader on immigration issues in Iowa. He applied for asylum, explaining that he would be in danger if he were deported, but the petition was denied by an immigration judge. He sought help from Iowa politicians, including U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R), asking them to help him remain in the U.S. The efforts failed, and he was deported to Mexico on September 2, 2014. On April 5, Morales was shot to death.   read more

There are some non-organic ingredients allowed in foods labeled organic. These are permitted because they are judged to be not harmful and there are no organic alternatives. Those ingredients are removed from the list after five years unless the National Organic Standards Board votes to retain them. But USDA changed its policy in 2013, allowing such ingredients to remain on the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances unless the board specifically votes to remove them.   read more

The National Institute on Drug Abuse acknowledged in an April report that “recent animal studies have shown that marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others. Evidence from one animal study suggests that extracts from whole-plant marijuana can shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumors." The medical marijuana study follows other British research that showed a combination of six purified cannabinoids can kill cancerous cells found in leukemia patients.   read more

Gov. Brown’s order to cut water consumption by 25% will prove to be the proverbial drop in the bucket as 80% of the water in the state goes toward agricultural uses. “It is striking that his executive order refines restrictions to the urban sector that consumes only 20 percent of California’s water and leaves the agricultural sector, which consumes 80 percent of the water, untouched at least for the moment,” said Mark Hertsgaard. “You can’t leave 80 percent of the problem off the table.”   read more

The lead plaintiff in the case, Carlo Licata, says Facebook has “secretly amassed the world’s largest privately held database of consumer biometrics data.” She's not the only person worried about the tagging feature. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) has criticized the practice, saying “your face is a conduit to an incredible amount of information about you.” He added that unlike a password, a face cannot be replaced or changed. “Unless you turn it off, it’s already been used on you."   read more

In the past week, four newspapers in the western U.S. published opinion pieces by the Environmental Policy Alliance, described as a front group for the PR firm of Richard Berman, that called for federal public lands to be turned over to states, which in turn are likely to sell them off to oil, gas, and timber interests. Berman is “known as ‘Dr. Evil’ for his aggressive fights against animal rights groups, labor unions, and environmental organizations,"said Claire Moser.   read more