Scrapping to keep a West Virginia Senate seat Democratic in a state that's sprinted to the right, Natalie Tennant is counting on her allegiance to the coal industry to separate herself from an unpopular President Barack Obama. She's among a group who champions the energy industry, criticizes federal energy regulations and blasts "cap-and-trade" proposals, which feature economic incentives to reduce carbon emissions. Some in that group endorse extending the Keystone pipeline.

The Heartbleed computer security bug is many things: a catastrophic tech failure, an open invitation to criminal hackers and yet another reason to upgrade our passwords on dozens of websites. But more than anything else, Heartbleed reveals our neglect of Internet security. The United States spends more than $50 billion a year on spying and intelligence, while the folks who build important defense software — in this case a program called OpenSSL that ensures that your connection to a website is encrypted — are four core programmers, only one of who calls it a full-time job.