mea culpa

Wal-Marts Cost State, Study Says (San Francisco Chronicle)Employment practices at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer with relatively lower labor costs in the retail sector, cost California taxpayers about $86 million annually in public assistance to company workers, according to a study.

Fertilisers blamed as marine life struggles in Gulf of Mexico (Sydney Morning Herald)A huge "dead zone" of water so devoid of oxygen that sea life cannot live in it has spread across 15,000 square kilometres of the Gulf of Mexico this northern summer in what has become an annual occurrence caused by pollution.