LA Times | By Thomas H. Maugh II | Researchers have finally shown that an experimental AIDS vaccine can block at least some infections...

by | Suzanne Goldenberg and Damian Carrington | Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating.

Raw Story » U.S. oil company Chevron said Monday that it expects to lose a case which charges the company’s Texaco branch with polluting Ecuador’s rain forest with oil-contaminated water for nearly two decades. An expert appointed by Ecuador’s courts assessed the damages to the locals’ health and environment to be $27 billion: A sum which Chevron spokesman Don Campbell bluntly told The Wall Street Journal, “We’re not paying and we’re going to fight this for years if not decades into the future.”

by Mark C. Eades | A bipartisan group of six "moderate" US senators, dubbed the "Gang of Six" by news agencies, issued a demand July 17 for a slowdown on Democratic health care reform. These senators - including three conservative Democrats, one conservative Independent who caucuses with Democrats, and two moderate Republicans - asked for a slowdown on health care reform not because their constituents wished it so: recent polls show that a clear majority of Americans want health care reform now including a public health care option such as that proposed by President Obama and progressives in Congress. No, these senators asked for a slowdown on health care reform because the for-profit health, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries have bid them to do so in the hope that reform can be stopped, and because these same industries have generously provided them with career campaign contributions totalling more than $11 million.

By Timothy Noah | Slate Magazine | Alarmism is setting in about the health reform bill. " Alliances In Health Debate Splinter," says the Washington Post. " House healthcare plan to add to deficit: analysts," says Reuters, echoing earlier stories about Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf's congressional testimony last week that health reform would be a budget-buster. President Obama's approval ratings are slipping, and public approval of his handling of the health care issue has for the first time dropped below 50 percent. Slate warns readers on its home page, "We're About To Make a Huge Mistake on Health Care." Or maybe health reform is already dead because the Senate finance committee is dithering and six moderate senators are urging the Democratic leadership to slow things down further. Bill Kristol, who helped strangle Hillarycare in its crib, smells blood.

by Robert Reich | Besides Goldman Sachs, the Street's other surviving behemoth is JPMorgan. Today it posted second-quarter earnings up a stunning 36 percent from the first quarter, to $2.7 billion. The resurgence of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs gives both banks more financial clout than any other players on the Street -- allowing both firms to lure talent from everywhere else on the Street with multi-million pay packages, giving both firms enough economic power to charge clients whopping fees, and bestowing on both firms even more political heft in Washington.

Raw Story » The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret assassination squad was allowed to operate anywhere in the world, including the United States, according to a Thursday report in The Washington Post. “The plan to deploy small teams of assassins grew out of the CIA’s early efforts to battle al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” the paper reported. “A secret document known as a ‘presidential finding’ was signed by President George W. Bush that same month, granting the agency broad authority to use deadly force against bin Laden as well as other senior members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”

By Rachel Slajda | President Obama: I love those folks who helped get us in this mess, and suddenly they say, "This is Obama's economy." That's fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe.

A federal judge has sentenced a man who pleaded guilty to leaking part of the disastrous Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" to a year's probation.