The Weekend Off – News You Missed

Alaska

ADN – BP settles over Prudhoe Bay spills

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. has reached a proposed $450,000 settlement to resolve federal and state pollution violations in the Greater Prudhoe Bay unit.

The settlement covers four oil discharges from BP-operated pipelines from 2007 to 2011.

Juneau Empire – Authorities investigating whale, ferry collision

KODIAK — Authorities were working Friday to determine if a 25-ton humpback whale died as the result of a collision with the state ferry Kennicott near Kodiak.

Scientists believe the whale was alive when it was struck by the vessel. And Kate Wynne, a marine mammal specialist for the University of Alaska Sea Grant Program, said it died of massive trauma.

Fairbanks News Miner – GOP group unlikely to get involved in Alaska primary

A spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign says that group isn’t likely to pick sides in the GOP Alaska U.S. Senate primary.

National

MSNBC – Poll: Keep unaccompanied children who cross into U.S. here

The influx of immigrant children crossing alone into the U.S. has been a popular issue over the past few weeks.

Now new polling shows what Americans think should happen to those children… and there’s overwhelming support for keeping those kids here, if they qualify as political refugees.

Vice.com – If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, ‘We’re Fucked’: Climatologist

This week, scientists made a disturbing discovery in the Arctic Ocean: They saw “vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor,” as the Stockholm University put it in a release disclosing the observations. The plume of methane—a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat more powerfully than carbon dioxide, the chief driver of climate change—was unsettling to the scientists.

International

The Guardian – Wikipedia link to be hidden in Google under ‘right to be forgotten’ law

Google is set to restrict search terms to a link to a Wikipedia article, in the first request under Europe’s controversial new “right to be forgotten” legislation to affect the 110m-page encyclopaedia.

The identity of the individual requesting a change to Google’s search results has not been disclosed and may never be known, but it is understood the request will be put into effect within days. Google and other search engines can only remove the link – as with other “right to be forgotten” requests, the web page itself will remain on Wikipedia.

The Guardian – Greenpeace ‘Arctic 30’ ship leaves Russia 

A Greenpeace ship impounded by Russia has left the country nearly a year after armed coastguards stormed it in response to a protest against oil drilling.

The Arctic Sunrise, one of three of the group’s fleet, left Murmansk in the Arctic circle on Friday, following several weeks of repairs.

ABC News – ISIS Makes Up To $3 Million a Day Selling Oil, Say Analysts

For two weeks, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad have been battling for control of the Shaar gas field, one of Syria’s largest, near the landmark city of Palmyra. On July 19, it was reported that the Sunni militant group had killed 270 regime fighters, taking control of the field in what was reportedly one of the conflict’s deadliest 48-hour periods to date.

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