National (U.S.)

Many girls seem to be entering puberty much earlier than girls did a few decades ago. Research suggests the cause may be small amounts of estrogen-mimicking chemicals in the food and water supply. For kids and parents struggling with this phenomenon, doctors seem to have few answers besides redefining "normal." Some unhappy families are turning to less conventional practitioners. A closer look at the research reveals that the causes may be more complex than originally thought.

"The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) today recommended the publication of two controversial avian flu papers."

"The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it was denying a petition to ban BPA from all food and drink containers, saying the science does not show an immediate cause for such action. However, the federal agency cautioned that this ruling does not declare bisphenol A, or BPA, as safe. The agency says it is continuing its assessment of the chemical, which is used in the lining of most canned food and drinks."

The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court did not have all the facts before them when they decided the recent case of Sackett v. EPA, which limited EPA's authority over wetlands under the Clean Water Act.

"A senior Republican appropriator confessed today that if the Obama administration applied inappropriate political pressure on the Department of Energy to approve the ill-fated Solyndra loan, then he and other members of Congress are guilty of the same sin."

"The Obama administration has announced a new policy to handle the risks posed by legitimate biological research that could, in the wrong hands, threaten the public."

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide by Saturday whether to continue allowing bisphenol-A (BPA) in food and beverage containers, Americans' main source of exposure to the chemical implicated in everything from asthma to diabetes."

"Federal health authorities have significantly raised their estimate of the prevalence of autism in children, concluding in a new study of 8-year-olds that 1 in 88 has some form of the disorder."

"A last minute entreaty by President Obama wasn’t enough to convince senators to strip the oil and gas industry of billions in tax incentives."

"The search for the killer of America's bees is a little bit like an Agatha Christie novel. Suspicion has turned toward one shady character and then another: declining habitat; parasites; diseases; pesticides.

Or did they all conspire in the recent mass murder of the country's bees?