Many US nuclear plants have known vulnerabilities that could cause disaster.

The underlying problem is the attitude, "Just ignore possible accidents that are rather unlikely." When the unlikely happens, as at Fukushima, you get screwed.

Plutocrats and businesses have deeply corrupted US "public" television; they buy coverage with the spin they want.

Mining nodules from the ocean floor is fine in principle, but the details can destroy ecosystems.

If precautions made mining twice as expensive, it would still be profitable (if not now, then in 10 years) and could extract all the metal we need while avoiding the damage.

Speaking of ships and transponders, while it would be easy for a ship to switch off its transponder, this would be easily detectable. Unless the ship hid forever, it would be found later. With a suitable legal regime, captains would not dare do that.

A woman was elected head of an Egyptian secularist party.

This would be heartening news if I could believe the military would allow such parties any room for action.

Two thugs in Maryland attacked and threatened a man who was videotaping them.