Teflon

Out of the frying pan and onto your clothes. DuPont's Teflon, which put the no-stick coating on cookware, is broadening its stain-free finishes for ready-to-wear. Most spills on treated clothes bead up and can be blotted off. Last fall, Koret of California, which caters to the working woman, added Teflon fabric protector to a collection of wool separates. Even silk can be treated to stay clean longer without losing its soft touch and bright color.

Rick Ross' two seizures aboard two different airplanes within hours of one another has had many around Ross voicing concern for the Teflon Don's health. The rapper, on his way to perform at a gig with the University of Memphis basketball team, suffered a seizure on Friday morning, forcing the Delta flight he was on to make an emergency landing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He received medical attention at a hospital there, and backers insisted he was fine. Ross said he would be keeping the night's interstate engagement and even posted a video of himself on Twitter on board a private jet headed for Tennessee.

Teflon products, including nonstick cookware, are probable sources of pollutants called trifluoracetate, or TFA, that accumulate in seasonal wetlands in California and Nevada, according to a report in today's issue of the journal Nature. While researchers stress that TFA, a salt, is not toxic to humans and urge people not to throw away their Teflon pots and pans, they do argue that their findings explain a mysterious surplus of the contaminant. "We asked, 'Where is this extra stuff coming from?'

If Ronald Reagan was the classic Teflon president, Barack Obama is made of Velcro. Through two terms, Reagan eluded much of the responsibility for recession and foreign policy scandal. In less than two years, Obama has become ensnared in blame. Hoping to better insulate Obama, White House aides have sought to give other Cabinet officials a higher profile and additional public exposure. They are also crafting new ways to explain the president's policies to a skeptical public.

Lee A. Iacocca today announced an advertising campaign aimed at boosting Chrysler Corp.'s sagging sales, complaining that rival auto makers from Japan are cloaked in a "Teflon kimono." The Chrysler chairman, surrounded by 20 cars in a huge hotel ballroom used more for hosting political fund-raising dinners than for glitzy news conferences, told reporters that the No. 3 U.S. auto maker will "speak out in its ads" to emphasize American quality.

It may not be the challenge of the century, but Peter Churm has thrown down the gauntlet: As chairman of Fluorocarbon Inc. in Laguna Niguel, he is daring the public to engage its imagination and come up with a new moniker to replace his company's nettlesome name. The deadline: Aug. 31. The reward: 100 shares of company stock, valued at around $14 per share.

Remember the Teflon president? Well, get ready for the Teflon swimsuit. Tyr, the Huntington Beach-based swimwear manufacturer, is now marketing swimsuits with a "revolutionary" new fiber that incorporates Teflon, the stuff that was made famous in no-stick frying pans. Don't laugh. Swimmers shave their legs and don racing caps in order to improve their hydrodynamic efficiency and lop precious milliseconds off their race times. Traditional suits absorb water and cause drag, slowing swimmers down.

It has been slipped into everything from frying pans to space suits to the nation's political vernacular, and now Teflon, still the slickest solid on Earth, is sliding into its second half-century. Discovered accidentally on April 6, 1938, by a young chemist named Roy J. Plunkett, the waxy white plastic turns 50 years old this week, still dominating dozens of scientific and consumer uses with no hint of a higher-tech replacement. It keeps the eggs from sticking to frying pans, for sure.

For home cooks and professional chefs, Teflon might be the best kitchen innovation since sliced bread became a cliche. A pan with the nonstick coating makes easy-to-lift omelets and cleans up like a dream. The concept of a cooking surface so smooth that nothing sticks has even leapt into the political lexicon. An American leader who weathered scandal and criticism became known as the Teflon president.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday charged DuPont Co. -- one of the world's largest chemical companies -- with illegally withholding evidence for 20 years that a chemical used to make Teflon endangered its workers and the public. The federal agency accused DuPont of "multiple failures" from 1981 to 2001 to report information that perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, posed "substantial risk of injury to human health or the environment," including a risk of birth defects.

DuPont Co., the third-largest U.S. chemical maker, won a judge's order denying class-action status to 23 lawsuits filed by consumers who said the company failed to warn them that heated Teflon may be dangerous. The cases must be tried separately because of the difficulty in determining which plaintiffs actually own non-stick cookware containing DuPont Teflon, U.S. District Judge Ronald E. Longstaff in Des Moines ruled Friday. DuPont allegedly failed to warn buyers that Teflon pots and pans, when heated, can emit toxic substances that are "likely to be carcinogenic," according to a master complaint filed in 2006.

At first glance, it seems difficult to imagine how Cardinal Roger M. Mahony can survive the pedophile scandal. Far from putting the matter to rest, the $660-million settlement that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay the victims of the abuse -- child rape, alas, is often the more accurate term -- can only lead to further wonder, and worry, about the cardinal's conduct throughout the course of the scandal.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva faces a tough runoff election this month after his stunning fall from prohibitive favorite to co-survivor in Sunday's vote. The charismatic Lula, whose cries of "I was betrayed!" seemed to carry him relatively unscathed through sundry other corruption cases, could not overcome a "dirty tricks" scandal that broke two weeks before the election and left many Brazilians appalled.

For home cooks and professional chefs, Teflon might be the best kitchen innovation since sliced bread became a cliche. A pan with the nonstick coating makes easy-to-lift omelets and cleans up like a dream. The concept of a cooking surface so smooth that nothing sticks has even leapt into the political lexicon. An American leader who weathered scandal and criticism became known as the Teflon president.

In a rare move to phase out a widely used industrial compound, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it was asking all U.S. companies to virtually eliminate public exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon cookware and thousands of other products. Although the effort is voluntary, the federal government has rarely taken such a sweeping, accelerated action against an industrial compound.

Chemical giant DuPont Co. will pay the largest administrative fine in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency to settle charges that it hid information for more than 20 years indicating that a compound used to make Teflon poses a substantial threat to human health. Without admitting any guilt or liability, DuPont has agreed to pay $16.5 million, including a $10.

In a rare move to phase out a widely used industrial compound, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it was asking all U.S. companies to virtually eliminate public exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon cookware and thousands of other products. Although the effort is voluntary, the federal government has rarely taken such a sweeping, accelerated action against an industrial compound.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday reported that a chemical used in making Teflon that has been detected in human bodies worldwide could cause cancer and developmental problems. But the chemical, pioneered by DuPont, has raised so many novel scientific questions that the federal agency asked outside experts to help nail down its risks.

To hear his critics tell it, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe ought to be in trouble. The foundation of his mandate, a promise to tame this nation's unrelenting civil war, is tottering. Attacks by leftist rebels have surged since the beginning of the year, and hundreds of soldiers have died. Accusations of cronyism and nepotism have dogged his administration, while unemployment and poverty remain stubborn challenges throughout the country. Cocaine continues to be a major export.

WHEN terrorists seized passenger jets on Sept. 11, 2001, and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in suburban Washington, D.C., they could not have fully imagined the consequences. Four years later, what is remarkable is this: Despite the terrible deaths and injuries, economic damage and the tightening of air security, no one anticipated the most lasting effects on the American traveler. The attacks helped forge a new U.S.