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Week In The News: Bad Water, School Shooting, Net Neutrality

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Poisoned water in West Virginia. Net neutrality takes a hit. Another school shooting – New Mexico. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Water buffaloes are made available to local residents in South Charleston, W.V. to fill coolers and other containers at the GeStamp Stamping Plant-South Charleston Sunday morning, Jan. 12, 2014. The ban on using water for drinking, washing and cleaning remains in effect following the chemical spill Thursday in the Elk River that has contaminated the public water supply in nine counties. (AP)
Water buffaloes are made available to local residents in South Charleston, W.V. to fill coolers and other containers at the GeStamp Stamping Plant-South Charleston Sunday morning, Jan. 12, 2014. The ban on using water for drinking, washing and cleaning remains in effect following the chemical spill Thursday in the Elk River that has contaminated the public water supply in nine counties. (AP)

Poisoned water in West Virginia this week.  A chemical spill and a crisis on the Elk River and downstream.  Too little water in California.  Fire and drought.  And a trillion-dollar budget deal in Congress, where there haven’t been real budget deals for a long time.  We’ve got Chris Christie squirming.  Blame for Benghazi. A ruling against net neutrality.  And the President on the NSA.  The Supreme Court’s looking at abortion clinic buffer zones.  A school shooting, a supermarket shooting, and scandal in the nuclear missile officer corps.  This hour On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

John Heilemann, national affairs editor at New York Magazine and MSNBC political analyst. Co-author with Mark Halperin of "Double Down: Game Change 2012" and "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin and the Race of a Lifetime." (@jheil)

Nancy Cordes, Congressional correspondent for CBS News.  (@nancycordes)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From Tom's Reading List

CNN: 'Pay to play' on the Web?: Net neutrality explained — "How would you like to have to pay a fee to be able to stream YouTube videos at full speed? What if you liked downloading music from, say, Last.fm or Soundcloud, but those sites suddenly became infinitely slower than bigger sites like Amazon or iTunes? Those are the kind of major changes to the Internet some folks are envisioning after a federal court ruling this week on what's come to be called 'net neutrality.'"

Politico: House approves bipartisan spending bill — "The House approved and sent to the Senate a landmark $1.1 trillion spending bill that fills in the blanks of December’s budget agreement and sets a new template for appropriations for the remainder of President Barack Obama’s second term. Adopted 359-67, the giant measure literally touches every corner of government. And more than any single document to date, it defines the new budget reality that faces the president and his activist agenda."

Reuters: Pregnant women warned off West Virginia water in cleared areas — "One week after the spill into the Elk River prompted authorities to order some 300,000 people not to drink or wash with their tap water, officials have cleared more than 200,000 of them to start drinking the water again after tests showed levels below the 1 part per million level safety standard set by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But pregnant women should continue to steer clear of the water in an 'abundance of caution' until the chemical is completely undetectable, West Virginia American Water said."

This program aired on January 17, 2014.

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