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Thousands of dead octopuses have washed up on a beach in northern Portugal, in what is being called an environmental disaster. They cover a 5-mile stretch of Vila Nova de Gaia beach - no reason has yet been found for their appearance. The authorities have warned the public not to eat them. MEANWHILE: WELLINGTON: More than 120 whales died over 48 hours in two separate beachings in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation said on Monday. More than 20 pilot whales will be buried by Coromandel Maori on Monday after dying when they became stranded on Sunday. Sixty-three whales, mostly...

The global economy still faces turmoil as government try to figure out how to move out of fiscal rescue packages, which could lead to another two downturns, Deutsche Bank Chief Economist Norbert Walter said Thursday. In addition, nervousness on the part of major dollar holders could pressure the greenback and lead to a very worrying 2010, Walter said. Norbert said recently in research notes “the world is in trouble.” “I believe that the rescue packages brought on have been so costly for so many governments that the exit from this fiscal policy will be very painful, very painful indeed,” he...

The government's profligacy could spell doom for the U.S. History is littered with examples of major economic and financial crises in countries that have engaged in profligate public spending. These sad experiences should be raising red flags in the U.S. Public finances suggest that the country could very well be on the path to either a destructive burst of inflation or an outright government debt default. There is little question that U.S. public finances are on an unsustainable trajectory. In scoring the Obama administration's 2009 budget, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected that government debt is set to increase at...

Hoh hoh hoh! We're finally seeing some recognition of what I've been talking about for the last two years! Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- More than 150 publicly traded U.S. lenders own nonperforming loans that equal 5 percent or more of their holdings, a level that former regulators say can wipe out a bank’s equity and threaten its survival. And Bloomberg appears to have recognized the key problem with these banks (all of which should have been shut over a year ago): Excluding the stress-test list, banks with nonperformers above 5 percent had combined deposits of $193 billion, according to Bloomberg...

<p>If you look hard enough, you can find some green shoots, but here's the truth. The decline in world industrial output is tracking very close with what we saw during the Depression. This chart was put together by economists Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O'Rourke, as part of a broader study comparing this downturn with the Great Depression. The good news, they say: The policy response has been much better this time around.</p>

If I see one more "we are doomed" or "we'll never again win an election" thread I'm gonna puke! ANY reader of American history knows that going back to the 1600s, EVERY generation has faced (yes) a similar challenge, every generation has thought it faced the "end of the colony/state/country. *John Adams and the Federalists were certain that Thomas Jefferson would destroy the country he helped build, and forge an alliance with that "terrorist" country France. *Both Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren said that the Missouri Compromise (that would be 1820, for those of you from Rio Linda) was...

Wall Street hardly delivered a rousing welcome to President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday, dropping by the largest margin on record for a day following a U.S.presidential contest. The slide more than wiped out the previous day's advance, the largest Election Day rally ever for U.S. stocks. The following table shows the percentage rise or decline in the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI, Standard & Poor's 500 index .SPX and Nasdaq composite index .IXIC on the day after a U.S presidential election and who won the Election Day vote.

You know when climate change is biting hard when instead of a vast expanse of snow the North Pole is a vast expanse of water. This year, for the first time, Arctic scientists are preparing for that possibility. "The set-up for this summer is disturbing," says Mark Serreze, of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). A number of factors have this year led to most of the Arctic ice being thin and vulnerable as it enters its summer melting season. In September 2007, Arctic sea ice reached a record low, opening up the fabled North-West passage that...

On June 22, 1897, about 400 million people around the world -- one-fourth of humanity -- got the day off. It was the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the British throne. The Diamond Jubilee stretched over five days on land and sea, but its high point was the parade and thanksgiving service on June 22. The 11 premiers of Britain's self-governing colonies were in attendance, along with princes, dukes, ambassadors, and envoys from the rest of the world. A military procession of 50,000 soldiers included hussars from Canada, cavalrymen from New South Wales, carabineers from Naples, camel troops...

(The Politico) President Bush has laid out a new global warming policy that seeks to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, but the lack of a mandated cap on carbon emissions has led Democrats to blast the proposal as falling well short. The reaction from Democrats _ in advance of the Bush announcement on global warming this afternoon _ comes as no surprise. Democrats have used climate change as a bludgeon to bash Republicans, yet have been unsuccessful in pushing legislation with mandatory caps on carbon emissions. "After seven years of denying the seriousness of the climate...

April 16, 2008, 9:30 a.m. Like Lemmings to the SeaWill President Bush join in the chorus of dead-end energy proposals? By Roy Spencer Today’s announcement by President Bush on strategies to limit global warming has yet to come, but unless he is ready to unveil a new and miraculous source of energy that produces no carbon dioxide, one can only assume that he will simply be adding his voice to the many other lemmings who are calling for a mass migration to the nearest cliff from which we can all jump. The fact is that there is simply nothing...

The last months of a presidential administration are often dangerous. Presidents -- looking to their legacies -- go to desperate lengths to try to enhance their reputations for posterity. A pungent example of such practices by the Bush administration was reported above the fold on the front page of The Washington Times Monday: "Bush prepares global warming initiative." Oh, dear. Just as an increasing number of scientists are finding their courage to speak out against the global warming alarmists and just as a building body of evidence and theories challenge the key elements of the human-centric carbon-based global warming theories,...

In a significant shift on global warming, President Bush will propose stopping growth in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025 and signal that he is open to lawmakers reining in pollution from power companies. The stance, set to be unveiled Wednesday at a White House speech, indicates Mr. Bush's willingness to grapple with the growing legislative debate over global warming. It marks an acknowledgment by the Bush administration that the U.S. likely will adopt some sort of broad new legal system to curb greenhouse-gas emissions in coming years. Mr. Bush has opposed comprehensive legislation to curb emissions. But like an increasing...

BERLIN (AFP) - A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated. Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported. NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right. The schoolboy took into consideration...

SHARPSBURG - Antietam National Battlefield is one of the 10 most endangered battlefields in the United States, according to a list released Wednesday by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT). The battlefield is "threatened with a 120-foot-tall cellular tower that would be visible from all of the battlefield's most famous vantage points," according to a CWPT press release. Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick, Md., also is on the list, which also includes sites in several states from Virginia to Oklahoma. National Park Service officials were notified in December 2007 of a proposal to erect a stealth cell tower south of...

The relatively warmer temperatures and sunshine of the last several days have caused areas of ice that had been affixed to the western shore of Lake Michigan off the Racine and Kenosha areas to break away from the shore. The blustery west winds on Tuesday have carried these floating ice "bergs" several miles away from shore. Here is a high resolution visible satellite image from 102 pm CDT from March 10th.

Going deaf is not a problem that most of us would automatically associate with global warming. For coral reef fish, however, hotter seas could pose a real threat.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Flooded roads and subways, deformed railroad tracks and weakened bridges may be the wave of the future with continuing global warming, a new study says. Climate change will affect every type of transportation through rising sea levels, increased rainfall and surges from more intense storms, the National Research Council said in a report released Tuesday. Complicating matters, people continue to move into coastal areas, creating the need for more roads and services in the most vulnerable regions, the report noted. "The time has come for transportation professionals to acknowledge and confront the challenges posed by climate change...

Aftermath: Population Zero investigates what would happen if every single person on Earth simply disappeared. Explore an interactive world without humans.

Lead paint in toys. Brain-eating amoeba. Identity theft. Drowning in sand. We know more than ever about the risks all around us. Do we know what disclosing them all is doing to us? I’D LIKE TO SAY that the writing that had the most profound effect on me this year was some classic novel I picked up in my spare time, but in fact it was an Associated Press article. Last June, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe wrote a fascinating, harrowing story about large holes dug in beach sand that can collapse "horrifyingly fast" and cause a person in the...