Other stories below: Climate Change And Food Pressures Adding
Challenges to World Water Supply; Use of Public Transit Grew in
2011 If Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) needs
examples of official waste and abuse as he runs for governor, he
could cite the harassment that he conducted against climate
scientist Michael E. Mann, a costly episode of government
overreach that is finally over. This month, after nearly two
years of legal proceedings, the Virginia Supreme Court halted
the attorney general’s investigation of Mr. Mann, who used to
teach at the University of Virginia. Twisting a law designed to
root out embezzlement of state funds and the like, the attorney
general had demanded oceans of documents — including Mr. Mann’s
e-mail correspondence — from U-Va. But, along with some
technical legal problems with his demand, Mr. Cuccinelli didn’t
offer any reasonable suspicion that Mr. Mann had committed
anything resembling fraud — even as the attorney general
proposed violating scientists’ sacrosanc