[LA Times 07-09-08] Vice President Dick Cheney's office worked to alter sworn congressional testimony provided by a federal official in order to play down the threat of global warming and head off regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, a former government official said in a new accusation Tuesday.

[Columbus Ohio Dispatch 06-19-08] A Mount Vernon teacher undermined science instruction in the public school district by discrediting evolution in his classroom and focusing on creationism and intelligent design, a probe has found.

Eighth-graders who were taught by John Freshwater frequently had to be re-taught in high school what they were supposed to have learned in Freshwater's class, according to outside investigators hired by the district.

[NY Times 06-25-08] The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

Last week Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry (D) vetoed the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act, which purported to protect the expression of religious viewpoints in classrooms but could have negatively impacted science education by allowing creationism and intelligent design (ID) into science classes. AAAS had written a letter to the governor encouraging his veto. Anti-evolution legislation also died in South Carolina, where state Sen. Michael Fair, a longtime ID supporter, had hoped to move his "academic freedom" bill before the end of the session on June 5.

But academic freedom bills-bills that single out evolution as a controversial topic-are alive in Louisiana and Michigan. In Louisiana, the bill has already passed the Senate and is expected on the House floor Wednesday, June 11. Should the bill pass the House, the Senate would likely approve it, as would Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), making it state law. Meanwhile, in Michigan, the Senate now has a companion bill to the House academic freedom bill, which has not progressed since it was introduced in late April.

In other evolution news, the now Texas-based Institute for Creation Research (which moved from California last year) is appealing a Texas higher education board’s rejection of its bid to offer master’s degrees in science education, reportedly in preparation for a court battle.

[NY Times 05-22-08] On campuses nationwide, professors and administrators have passionately debated whether their universities should accept money for research from tobacco companies. But not at Virginia Commonwealth University, a public institution in Richmond, Va.

That is largely because hardly any faculty members or students there know that there is something to debate -- a contract with extremely restrictive terms that the university signed in 2006 to do research for Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest tobacco company and a unit of Altria Group.

[Washington Post 02-18-08] CHICAGO -- The lead author and peer reviewers of a government report raising the possibility of public health threats from industrial contamination throughout the Great Lakes region are charging that the report is being suppressed because of the questions it raises. The author also alleges that he was demoted because of the report.

[Reuters 01-28-08] VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict warned on Monday of the "seductive" powers of science that relegate man's spirituality, reviving the science-versus-religion debate which recently forced him to cancel a speech after student protests.

"In an age when scientific developments attract and seduce with the possibilities they offer, it's more important than ever to educate our contemporaries' consciences so that science does not become the criteria for goodness," he told scientists.

[Reuters 01-17-08] WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Killings at U.S. schools have not risen in recent years, despite some highly publicized crimes, and are far lower than in the early 1990s, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

[NY Times 1-4-08] In 1984 and again in 1999, the National Academy of Sciences, the nation’s most eminent scientific organization, produced books on the evidence supporting the theory of evolution and arguing against the introduction of creationism or other religious alternatives in public school science classes.

On Thursday, it produced a third. But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.

[Reuters 12-19-07] VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Wednesday condemned the film "The Golden Compass," which some have called anti-Christian, saying it promotes a cold and hopeless world without God.

A business trust is looking at sites for a Christian showplace to challenge the theory of evolution

[Observer 12-16-07] The latest salvo in creationism's increasingly ferocious battle with evolution is about to be fired in Lancashire. Not in a fiery sermon preached from the pulpit, but in the form of a giant Christian theme park that will champion the book of Genesis and make a multi-media case that God created the world in seven days.

[NY Times 12-03-07] HOUSTON, Dec. 2 — After 27 years as a science teacher and 9 years as the Texas Education Agency's director of science, Christine Castillo Comer said she did not think she had to remain "neutral" about teaching the theory of evolution.

"It's not just a good idea; it's the law," said Ms. Comer, citing the state's science curriculum.

But now Ms. Comer, 56, of Austin, is out of a job, after forwarding an e-mail message on a talk about evolution and creationism — "a subject on which the agency must remain neutral," according to a dismissal letter last month that accused her of various instances of "misconduct and insubordination" and of siding against creationism and the doctrine that life is the product of "intelligent design."

[NY Times 10-31-07] In a radio advertisement playing in New Hampshire and in speeches along the campaign trail, Rudolph W. Giuliani has cited statistics to cut at the heart of his Democratic rivals’ health care proposals, which he has derided as European-style “socialist” plans that will lower the standard of care in the United States.