Ethics

"Two top Environmental Protection Agency officials who were deeply involved in easing an air pollution rule for old power plants just took private-sector jobs with firms that benefit from the changes," Knight Ridder's Seth Boronstein reports.

"Last week," notes columnist Paul Krugman, "a quietly scathing report by the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed what some have long suspected: in the aftermath of the World Trade Center's collapse, the agency systematically misled New Yorkers about the risks the resulting air pollution posed to their health.

The sale of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to women is a multi-billion dollar cash cow for the pharmaceutical industry. What will its PR machine do in the face of evidence that long-term HRT use increases women's risk of blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, breast cancer, and dementia, and has no quality of life benefits?

Fresh from the slammer, disgraced celebrity publicist Lizzie Grubman is trying to rehabilite her image by teaching a three-hour class called "How to Succeed in Public Relations and Image Marketing." According to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, Grubman's presentation included two and a half hours of Q&A in which "she did not mention the 2001 hit-and-run incident at Conscience Point in the Hamptons which landed her in jail, and some questions submitte