TransCanada Corp. (TRP), which says Keystone XL will be the safest pipeline ever built, isn’t planning to use infrared sensors or fiber-optic cables to detect spills along the system’s 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) path to Texas refineries from fields in Alberta.[...]
The [U.S. Transportation] department is studying leak detection as it considers new rules to improve safety. Equipment available to spot spills more quickly would have cut 75 percent off the estimated $1.7 billion toll in property damage caused by major incidents on oil lines from 2001 to 2011, consultants said in a December report prepared for the department.
The petition drive comes as the Supreme Court is expected to release its ruling this month on gay marriage. Many observers believe the court will rule that individual states must decide whether gay marriage should be legal, and Equal Marriage Arizona wants to position voters to change the state’s course on marriage equality.
“The attitudes of this state, of the people of this state, have changed a lot,” said Warren Meyer, a Phoenix business owner leading the initiative effort. “We believe that Arizonans are ready for equal marriage.”
The FBI—working on information from an aging reputed mobster—began digging in the waist-high grass of a Detroit-area field Monday in yet another search for the remains of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, according to a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the investigation. [...]
FBI Special Agent Bob Foley, head of the agency's Detroit office, told CNN at the scene that the information leading to the search "reached the threshold of probable cause, which was sufficient to allow us to obtain a search warrant.
"If it didn't rise to that level then, certainly, we wouldn't be out here."
The first experimental drug to boost brain synapses lost in Alzheimer's disease has been developed by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. The drug, called NitroMemantine, combines two FDA-approved medicines to stop the destructive cascade of changes in the brain that destroys the connections between neurons, leading to memory loss and cognitive decline.
The decade-long study, led by Stuart A. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the Del E. Webb Center for Neuroscience, Aging, and Stem Cell Research, who is also a practicing clinical neurologist, shows that NitroMemantine can restore synapses, representing the connections between nerve cells (neurons) that have been lost during the progression of Alzheimer's in the brain. The research findings are described in a paper published June 17 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Bank of America’s mortgage servicing unit systematically lied to homeowners, fraudulently denied loan modifications, and paid their staff bonuses for deliberately pushing people into foreclosure: Yes, these allegations were suspected by any homeowner who ever had to deal with the bank to try to get a loan modification – but now they come from six former employees and one contractor, whose sworn statements were added last week to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Massachusetts.
“Bank of America’s practice is to string homeowners along with no apparent intention of providing the permanent loan modifications it promises,” said Erika Brown, one of the former employees. The damning evidence would spur a series of criminal investigations of BofA executives, if we still had a rule of law in this country for Wall Street banks.
On today's
Kagro in the Morning show, a Republican back-bencher (not a euphemism) makes headlines with an eyebrow-raising claim about how fetuses pass their time!
Greg Dworkin discusses his latest for
Politix, both-sides-ism, Republican rebranding, and traditional media missing the point(s).
Armando called in on trust in gov't, in the context of the fading IRS story, the NSA revelations, Syria, and the polling on all three. David Weigel at
Slate notes Republican tactics in conflating IRS accusations. Jindal's latest derp. David Dayen's
Salon entry, "Bank of America whistle-blower's bombshell: 'We were told to lie.'" And the KS Sec. of State outraged by a protest at his home goes to 2nd Amendment rhetoric.