Cops Can't Afford Gas Prices Either

With five-member department on 6-month leave, mayor predicts chaos

(NEWSER) - With its finances stretched to the breaking point, Alto, Texas, is giving its police officers the boot for six months—all five of them. OK, so it’s not exactly the NYPD. But with the county sheriff’s office already overburdened, town residents are afraid losing their small department could have dire consequences. “They’re just throwin’ the town wide open to crime,” one resident tells KTRE . More»

As US drivers complain, those overseas think we're lucky

(NEWSER) - Gas prices are climbing again, which means people are complaining, which means it's time for a spate of stories showing how relatively cheap gas remains in the US. Here's a rough estimate of world prices per gallon, courtesy of CNN :

• US: $3.53
• Norway: $9.28
• Europe: Between $7.50 and $8 for most, including Britain, Ireland, Italy, France, and Germany.

We survived three years ago, and we'll survive now: 'Chicago Tribune'

(NEWSER) - Everyone is freaking out about $5 gas , but the Chicago Tribune has an idea: Take a chill pill, it asserts in an editorial. "All those bad memories of oil soaring to $147 a barrel three years ago tend to crowd out the vague recollection that, oh yeah, prices came tumbling down just as fast." Fear, not supply and demand, is mostly to blame for the rise in oil prices as we worry that the unrest in the Middle East could "threaten the oil production of Saudi Arabia and other nations that pump far more crude than war-torn Libya." We need to squash the impulse to overreact. More»

BP, Statoil have pulled out of country

(NEWSER) - Trips to the gas station could get a whole lot more painful soon, now that the unrest sweeping the Middle East has hit an oil-producing nation. Crude prices shot up 7% yesterday, and were still rising this morning, after BP and Norway’s Statoil evacuated workers from Libya, USA Today reports. “If this thing escalates, and there’s a good chance that there’d be a shift in supplies, $5 gas isn’t out of the question,” one senior energy analyst says. More»

(NEWSER) - Law enforcement officers from across the country descended on Oakland today for the funerals of four cops gunned down by a fugitive last weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. All 815 members of the Oakland force attended while officers from other jurisdictions patrolled the streets in their stead. An overflow crowd that included 19,000 officers from as far as New York and Boston filled two stadiums. More»