From the BBC:

Plans to turn environmental offences over to the criminal courts across the EU are set to be unveiled by the European Commission.

It marks an extension of the EU's powers, following a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2006.

It is one of the first times the EU would have the power to make criminal law and set penalties.

Most offences covered by the draft directive relate to the dumping, transport or treatment of waste.

This includes both nuclear material and radioactive substances.

From the AP story on Yahoo! News:

The timing could hardly be better. "News War" is a Frontline probe into the modern Fourth Estate, embattled from many directions. And, by chance, it coincides with the imminent conclusion to a Washington free-for-all that has ensnared the news media: the perjury trial of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

He is charged with lying to investigators about his conversations with journalists such as Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail in a futile effort to avoid revealing such conversations.

The first hour of the four-part series does a splendid job of untangling the snarl of events that began in early 2003 with the Bush administration's successful drive to win support from the public, and the media, for invading Iraq.

Airing Tuesday on PBS at 9 p.m. EST (check local listings; Starts Feb. 13 - BD), "Secrets, Sources & Spin" lays out how the government peddled its point of view to major media outlets by planting confidential tips that supported administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Such tips sparked stories which the government then cited as bolstering its claim.

Few in the media broke this information loop at the time, nor managed to uncover what became obvious only after the invasion: There were no WMDs.

"The way that the press was sold and spun ... and just fooled by the White House in the run-up to the war represents more than just a missed story," media analyst Jay Rosen says in the film. "How can one say that we have a watchdog press after a performance like that?"

The PBS news release (which, judging from the URL, will morph into a companion website), can be found here.

Anna Nicole Smith was found dead today.

And a grieving nation mourns the loss of its tabloid friend.

Bernard Drainville, a Radio Canada reporter, has decided to throw his hat in the political ring and run for the Parti Quebecois. However, not before doing one last interview with Andre Boisclair, that party's leader.

An interesting argument from Online Journalism Review editor Robert Niles about ensuring a blog is interactive.

The NYT.com calls it The Lede. It is described thusly:

In the news business, the opening sentences of a story are referred to as its "lede" -- spelled that way, journalism lore has it, to avoid confusion with the lead typesetting that once dominated newspaper printing presses. Although a tightly focused narrative typically follows the lede, every sentence in a news story has the potential to spiral off in new directions, and each paragraph leaves behind unexplored angles. That's where The Lede's mission begins.

Essentially, Tom Zeller Jr. blogs about major stories of the day. His first entry is on the gagged babies in a Russian hospital.

I noticed the feature Wednesday afternoon when I saw a post about Crazy Astronaut Lady.

I loved this segment:

No screening, of course, is foolproof. Writing more than a decade ago in New Scientist magazine, Ian Mundell noted the problems that Soviet cosmonauts have encountered during long term space flight. He includes a telling quote from Cosmonaut Valery Ryumin:

Cosmonaut Valery Ryumin wrote in his personal diary in 1980, “All the necessary conditions to perpetrate a murder are met by locking two men in a cabin of 18 by 20 feet … for two months.” As far as the Western world knows Soviet space missions never went that far, despite missions lasting more than a year in the 90 cubic meters of the Mir orbital station. And even that space became increasingly constricted because used equipment was stored inside, rather than ejected.

Anyway, seemed like an interesting supplement to the news to me.

Addendum

The Lede isn't that new. The first post was on Nov. 14, 2006. I love the headline:

Blog for make benefit glorious discusson of daily news

However, although I'm a regular visitor to the NYT website, I didn't see it until today, even though I visit it almost daily.

What might have been the difference? The blog was promoted with a graphic.

An excerpt from a BBC column by Mark Mardell and my gentle rebuttal and additional thoughts.

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva dropped the diplomatic niceties during a speech in Rio de Janeiro. He demanded that developed countries do more on reducing GHG emissions, accused them of having a double standard on the issue and warned them not to lecture him on the Amazon rain forest.