National (U.S.)

"Meet BP's Bob Dudley, the human relief well."

"A utility proposal to install smart meters throughout Maryland has been rejected by the state's Public Service Commission, jeopardizing if not ending what had been one of the Obama administration's leading investment commitments to smart grid technologies and consumer energy conservation."

"Federal rules governing pesticide experiments using people as test subjects must be rewritten and issued for public comment under a new agreement reached between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and public health groups, farm worker advocates and environmental organizations."

"BP PLC has applied 272,000 gallons of dispersants to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in the four weeks since U.S. EPA directed the company to stop using the chemicals, except "in rare cases" when other approaches to fighting the ongoing oil leak proved unworkable, according to government records."

After a change in counting methods, the number of Gulf spill response worker illnesses has more than tripled.

"A congressional stampede to pass  oil spill legislation gathered momentum Thursday as a Senate committee voted to impose tougher penalties on water polluters, and lawmakers unveiled a comprehensive bill to strengthen environmental and safety rules on offshore drilling."

"More than two months after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Pensacola awoke Wednesday to the largest onslaught of black crude on Florida's coast, as more than nine miles of white shoreline and beaches were soaked with syrupy oil."

"Federal immigration officials have been visiting command centers on the Gulf Coast to check the immigration status of response workers hired by BP and its contractors to clean up the immense oil spill."

One major BP drilling project, three miles off the coast of Alaska, has been exempted from the Obama administration's moratorium on offshore drilling. Regulators are calling it "onshore" because it is built on an artificial island.

"Fearing that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will deal a severe blow to the bluefin tuna, an environmental group is demanding that the government declare the fish an endangered species, setting off extensive new protections under federal law."