Fires in the 47-story office tower at the edge of the World Trade Center site undermined floor beams and critical structural columns, federal investigators concluded Thursday, as they attempted to curb still-rampant speculation that explosives or fuel fires were responsible for the building’s collapse of Sept. 11, 2001

It is the first skyscraper in modern times to collapse primarily as a result of a fire.

Mainstream engineers and government officials have rejected the speculation as ridiculous. But national polls have shown that perhaps as many as 1 in 7 Americans believe that the destruction of the World Trade Center towers was an inside job.

The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world’s biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.

“The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say ‘the worst is to come’,” he told a financial conference.

Parts of the Endangered Species Act, which has protected nature in the United States for 3 1/2 decades, soon may be extinct. The new regulations, which do not require Congress’ approval, would reduce the numbers of mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained and reported by The Associated Press.

As world oil production has never peaked before, there is no historical basis for making informed judgments as to what is going to happen.

All we know is that some six billion people, living in some 200 economies on this earth are soon going to be confronted with getting by on less than the 86 million barrels of oil per day (b/d) that we currently consume. The outcome of the interaction among all those people, all those countries and all that oil is too complex to foresee with any clarity.

About half the world’s apes, monkeys, and other types of primates are in danger of extinction, according to a new study that predicts a bleak future for many of humankind’s closest relatives.

Primates are falling prey to intense hunting and rapidly losing their habitats to deforestation, the study released Monday said.