Word: foul
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...decades- long effort mounted by the Federal Government and four states in the Delaware River estuary, an area ringed by heavy industry and home to almost 6 million people. The Delaware's pollution problems began in Benjamin Franklin's day. By World War II, the river had become so foul that airplane pilots could smell it at 5,000 ft. President Franklin Roosevelt even considered it a threat to national security. In 1941 he ordered an investigation to determine whether gases from the water were causing corrosion at a secret radar installation on the estuary...
...gulf at the very moment that Flight 655 took off. Yet apparently nobody warned the civilian traffic controllers that Flight 655's path would take it directly over a developing firefight; had the controllers known that, they say, they would have delayed the takeoff. Why the foul-up? The military and civilian controllers at Bandar Abbas, it seems, did not talk to each other...
...hostile intent. Doubtless influencing Rogers' decision was the fact that his ship had just been engaged in hostilities. Following reports of Iranian speedboat attacks on two neutral ships, the Vincennes sent a helicopter to investigate. The Iranians fired on the helicopter, triggering a firefight that Flight 655 had the foul luck to wander into...
...most places that provide assistance for the poor, the Legal Aid Society's Park Place office in Manhattan is overwhelmed. Flooded with requests for help, the 26 lawyers who work there resort to a kind of triage system, sometimes choosing to block an eviction before untangling a Social Security foul-up, or rushing to counter an immigration problem while other clients wait for assistance in getting welfare benefits. "We just don't have the money or the staffing to do it all," says Attorney Morton Dicker...
There are also plenty of hazardous vapors. Says Chemist Gray Robertson, whose company in Fairfax, Va., has surveyed nearly 250 structures for foul indoor air: "The public tends to mistake tobacco smoke -- the only visible indoor contaminant -- for all pollution." Less readily detected are irritating fumes from copier-machine liquids, carbonless paper, paint, rugs, draperies, wall paneling and cleaning solvents. Many contain formaldehyde, which can cause nausea, rashes and menstrual irregularities. Ventilators also spew forth illness-causing bacteria and mold; such organisms find fertile breeding ground in air-conditioning and heating systems that are often turned off at night...