LINCOLN, Neb. — Thousands of fish are dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees.

About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees. Nebraska fishery officials said they’ve seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp, and other species in the Lower Platte River, including the endangered pallid sturgeon. And biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish and is threatening the population of the greater redhorse fish, a state-endangered species.

So many fish died in one Illinois lake that the carcasses clogged an intake screen near a power plant, lowering water levels to the point that the station had to shut down one of its generators.

‘It’s something I’ve never seen in my career, and I’ve been here for more than 17 years,’ said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. ‘I think what we’re mainly dealing with here are the extremely low flows and this unparalleled heat.’

The fish are victims of one of the driest and warmest summers in history. […]

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When I was a daily news reporter, politicians, campaign managers, public officials and others would occasionally ask me whether they could review their quotes or even read my story before publication.

I refused with two exceptions. One was if I was writing about a complicated subject beyond my knowledge, such as pollution or medicine. Then, I would read back only the portion of the story dealing with the scientific issue. The second was if I was using handwritten notes and had not recorded the speech or interview. If something was unclear to me, I would call back for clarification. That seemed fair.

Doing more would amount to pre-publication censorship. So I was surprised to read Jeremy Peters’ story in The New York Times on Monday, which said that reporters from some of the nation’s biggest media organizations regularly agree to such censorship.

He revealed how politicians and their advisers ‘are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.

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Earthquakes triggered by fluids injected deep underground, such as during the controversial practice of fracking, may be more common than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Fluid injections into Earth are not uncommon. For instance, in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, water, sand and other materials are injected under high pressure into a well to fracture rock, opening fissures that help natural gas flow out more freely. Fluid-injection operations are also used to help get power from geothermal energy, and to dispose of waste.

However, researchers have long known that fluid-injection operations can trigger earthquakes. For instance, in 2006 one geothermal energy site triggered four earthquakes in Basel, Switzerland, ranging from 3.1 to 3.4 on the Richter scale. Fracking also appears linked with Oklahoma’s strongest recorded quake in 2011, as well as a spate of more than 180 minor tremors in Texas between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 31, 2009.

It remains unclear why some injection wells set off earthquakes whereas others do not. To find out, seismologist Cliff Frohlich at the University of Texas at Austin analyzed seismic activity in the Barnett Shale of northern Texas between November 2009 and September 2011 and compared the properties of injection wells located near quake epicenters. […]

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Harjit Jeji Shergill would not go so far as to say there was an inevitability to the murder of six Sikh worshipers at his local temple, but after years of people venomously calling him ‘Bin Laden’ he feared it might come to this somewhere in America.

As Oak Creek’s Sikh community grapples with Sunday’s tragedy it is buffeted by shock and mourning for some its best-known figures. There is also appreciation for the police officers who stopped the gunman – including one who took several bullets – and almost certainly saved other lives.

But underpinning everything is a pouring forth of frustration, just short of anger, at what Sikhs in Oak Creek and other parts of the US say is the frequent assumption that because of their turbans and beards they are Muslims – with all the weight that carries since 9/11.

One Sikh leader said that is an assumption ‘with deadly consequences’. Another said that the Oak Creek killings are the ‘collateral damage’ of the al-Qaida attacks.

Jeji Shergill, 62, said that since 9/11 he has regularly been assumed to be Muslim and that routinely spills over into abuse. ‘They compare us to the Muslims and we’re completely different,’ he said. ‘I own […]

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Overview

Residential segregation by income has increased during the past three decades across the United States and in 27 of the nation’s 30 largest major metropolitan areas1 , according to a new analysis of census tract2 and household income data by the Pew Research Center.

The analysis finds that 28% of lower-income households in 2010 were located in a majority lower-income census tract, up from 23% in 1980, and that 18% of upper- income households were located in a majority upper-income census tract, up from 9% in 1980.3

These increases are related to the long-term rise in income inequality, which has led to a shrinkage in the share of neighborhoods across the United States that are predominantly middle class or mixed income-to 76% in 2010, down from 85% in 1980-and a rise in the shares that are majority lower income (18% in 2010, up from 12% in 1980) and majority upper income (6% in 2010, up from 3% in 1980).

Despite the long-term rise in residential segregation by income, it remains less pervasive than residential segregation by race, even though black-white segregation has been falling for several decades.

The Pew Research analysis also finds significant differences among the nation’s 10 most populous metropolitan areas in […]

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