A radical enviornmentalist who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters while wearing what police may be explosives was shot and killed by officers, police said.
The gunman, identified as James Lee, was killed by police following four hours of negotiations but the hostages are all safe, said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.
Manger said the suspect had “metalic canisters” strapped to his chest and back. When Lee was struck by police bullets, one of the canisters “popped.” Police have not confirmed if the canisters were a bomb, but Manger said the “device may have gone off” when he was shot.
osmoothie
You need to know
Militant environmentalist killed by police at Discovery Channel headquarters
Microbe discovered eating oil spill in Gulf
AP,
A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf following the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
And the microbe works without significantly depleting oxygen in the water, researchers led by Terry Hazen at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., reported Tuesday in the online journal Sciencexpress.
“Our findings, which provide the first data ever on microbial activity from a deepwater dispersed oil plume, suggest” a great potential for bacteria to help dispose of oil plumes in the deep-sea, Hazen said in a statement.
Carbon credit scam: UN board could rein in $2.7 billion
AP,
An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases has agreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S. environmentalists are calling a huge scam.
At a meeting this week that ended Friday, the executive board of the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism said that five chemical plants in China would no longer qualify for funding as so-called carbon offset credits until the environmentalists’ claims can be further investigated.
The “CDM” credits have been widely used in the carbon trading markets of the European Union, Japan and other nations that signed onto the 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
Rather than cut their own carbon emissions, industrialized nations can buy the credits which then pay developing countries to cut their greenhouse gases instead.
But environmentalists say rich nations could be wasting billions of dollars on what some are calling “perverse financial incentives,” because some of the largest projects funded by the U.N.-managed CDM are a golden goose for chemical makers without making meaningful cuts in emissions.
NOAA scientist: Release of oil spill report done by White House
A NOAA scientist, Dr. Bill Lehr, yesterday told a group of Congressional staff investigators on a conference call that a controversial National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report claiming that nearly three-quarters of the oil from the Gulf oil spill has already been addressed was released by White House officials and not scientists at NOAA.
The NOAA scientist told congressional investigators that the data backing up the assertions made in the report is still unavailable and that peer review of the report is still not complete. Officials at an August 4 White House press briefing had said that the report had been thoroughly peer reviewed.
“This is yet another in a long line of examples where the White House’s pre-occupation with the public relations of the oil spill has superseded the realities on the ground. It is deeply troubling that White House officials apparently preempted the completion and review of a scientific study on the oil spill by NOAA scientists in order to tout conclusions that many experts believe may be deeply flawed,” said Rep. Issa referring to an August 4 White House press briefing focused on the report. “This irresponsible action only adds to the perception that the Obama White House is more concerned about appearing competent than actually making sure the massive oil spill in the Gulf gets cleaned-up as quickly as possible. I will certainly be demanding the White House name those responsible for releasing this report, why it was released before it was complete, and whether its controversial conclusions have led to changes in Gulf clean-up efforts.”
Disasters undermine Russians’ faith in the state
FT,
Outside the Preobrazhenskoye cemetery in eastern Moscow, Muscovites hawking books and trinkets are still in shock from the scorching heat and choking smog that filled the Russian capital and made it hell on earth for nearly a week.
“People couldn’t breathe,” said one. “The authorities did nothing,” said Nadezhda, a pensioner selling flowers.
Inside the cemetery gates, gravediggers are taking respite from a surge in funerals that first grew as temperatures reached record levels and then climbed, as toxic smog from forest and peat bog fires shrouded the city. Death rates doubled in recent days, according to a senior Moscow health official, as the elderly and those suffering from bronchial and heart problems were hit.
Oil in gulf is degrading, becoming harder to find, NOAA head says
Oil from the BP blowout is degrading rapidly in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and becoming increasingly difficult to find on the water surface, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.
“The light crude oil is biodegrading quickly,” NOAA director Jane Lubchenco said during the response team daily briefing. “We know that a significant amount of the oil has dispersed and been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria.”
Lubchenco said, however, that both the near- and long-term environmental effects of the release of several million barrels of oil remain serious and to some extent unpredictable.
Clean-up crews having trouble finding oil in the Gulf
The numbers don’t lie: two weeks ago, skimmers picked up about 25,000 barrels of oily water. Last Thursday, they gathered just 200 barrels.
Still, it doesn’t mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.
“[It's] mother nature doing her job,” said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.
Harry Reid abandons climate change legislation… for now
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will bring a limited package of oil spill response and energy measures to the floor next week, delaying action until at least this fall on a broader proposal that would impose greenhouse gas limits on power plants, senior Senate Democratic aides said.
Aides insisted Reid’s decision is a nod to the packed floor schedule the Senate faces before it leaves in two weeks for the August recess, and that he has not abandoned plans to try and bring up a broader climate and energy plan later in the year.
But other legislative priorities and election-year politics might scuttle the wider climate and energy plan altogether.
Bills targeting oil industry move forward in House committees
Far-reaching legislation that would impose new environmental safeguards on offshore drilling, repeal oil-industry-friendly provisions of energy policy and hit producers with a new tax to fund conservation programs gained ground in Congress on Thursday.
Acting as BP at least temporarily halted the flow of oil from its blown-out well, two House committees advanced legislation from a pile of oil-spill-related bills.
One bill, approved by the Natural Resources Committee on a largely party-line vote, would strip the oil industry of royalty relief for deep-water drilling. It would repeal a provision of the 2005 Energy Policy Act that exempted projects, including the Deepwater Horizon drilling, from detailed environmental analysis. It would also bar companies with poor environmental and safety records from bidding on future offshore oil and gas leases.
Capped. (But will it hold?)
AP,
A tightly fitted cap was successfully keeping oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in three months, BP said Thursday. The victory — long awaited by weary residents along the coast — is the most significant milestone yet in BP’s effort to control one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.
Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said at a news briefing that oil stopped flowing into the water at 2:25 p.m. CDT after engineers gradually dialed down the amount of crude escaping through the last of three valves in the 75-ton cap.
“I am very pleased that there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I’m really excited there’s no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico,” Wells said.
The stoppage came 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes after the first report April 20 of an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.
After government-imposed 24-hour wait, BP begins testing new cap
AP,
BP allayed last-minute government fears of making the disaster worse and began testing the new, tighter-fitting cap Wednesday that could finally choke off the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration’s point man on the disaster, said the government gave the go-ahead after carefully reviewing the risks.
“What we didn’t want to do is compound that problem by making an irreversible mistake,” he said at the end of a 24-hour roller-coaster of hopes raised, hopes dashed and hopes raised again along the Gulf Coast.
The cap — a 75-ton metal stack of pipes and valves — was lowered onto the well on Monday in hopes of either bottling up the oil inside the well machinery, or capturing it and funneling it to the surface. But before BP could test the equipment, the government intervened because of second thoughts about whether the buildup of pressure from the gushing oil could rupture the walls of the well and make the leak worse.
Containment cap installed on leak
BP has successfully lowered a new containment cap onto its leaking well, its latest attempt to control the gushing oil since the start of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico 84 days ago.
Underwater video of the well showed the new 18-foot, 150,000-pound cap being placed onto the wellhead. The company will soon begin the process of testing the fit that could finally contain all of the leaking oil.
But even with that sign of success, anger continued to bubble across the Gulf Coast today over unfulfilled damage claims.
Oil cap removed, pending new operation
AP,
Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing Gulf oil well Saturday, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the sea for at least two days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it.
There’s no guarantee for such a delicate operation almost a mile below the water’s surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August.
“It’s not just going to be, you put the cap on, it’s done. It’s not like putting a cap on a tube of toothpaste,” Coast Guard spokesman Capt. James McPherson said.
Robotic submarines removed the cap that had been placed on top of the leak in early June to collect the oil and send it to surface ships for collection or burning. BP aims to have the new, tighter cap in place as early as Monday and said that, as of Saturday night, the work was going according to plan.