BP Plc is facing a new lawsuit by state pension funds in Ohio and New York that claim the oil giant misled investors about its commitment to safety before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The funds filed the class-action suit in the U.S. District Court in the southern district of Texas Monday seeking compensation for the investments lost after the April 20 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The case claims that BP misled investors to believe that it had a lower risk profile.

“The truth about BP and its lack of commitment to and implementation of safety processes to avoid preventable incidents began to emerge,” said attorneys for the Ohio and New York state pension funds, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Investors were deceived as to BP’s true risk profile in deep sea drilling.”

BP has been slammed with hundreds of claims related to the drilling rig explosion that set off the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Investors say that BP falsely claimed a commitment to safety measures and maintenance.

A group of 20 penguins rescued from Brazilian beaches last year have been sent to the U.S. for an exhibition on climate change.

Brazilian scientists say the Magellanic penguins arrived safely this weekend in Los Angeles, where they will be kept in quarantine before being sent to California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium, AFP reports.

The birds were among hundreds of Magellanic penguins that washed up on the beaches near Rio de Janeiro while migrating from Argentina’s southern Patagonia region.

Brazilian wildlife officials are currently studying the penguins’ changing migration patterns. They said the birds have been following schools of fish further north in recent years, and that global warming may be to blame.

The European parliament voted Tuesday for new limits that will require auto manufacturers to reduce CO2 emissions by 14 percent by 2017, AFP reports. A 28 percent reduction from 2007 levels would follow in 2020.

Beginning in 2019, auto makers who break the rule will receive a fine of 95 euros for each gram per kilometer that exceeds the limit.

The regulations will apply to new light commercial vehicles, 12 percent of which are vans, AFP reports.

The European Commission, the parliament and governments have signed off on the measure. It will go into effect within the next few weeks after EU states approve it.

A federal judge says he will allow the slaughter of hundreds of wild bison that wandered from Yellowstone National Park into Montana.

U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell said in a 72-page ruling Monday that he will deny requests from sportsmen, Indian tribes and environmentalists to stop the mass kill.

Montana ranchers fear the 525 bison, which are currently corralled along the border of the snowed-in national park, will transmit brucellosis to livestock. The disease can cause cows to miscarry their young.

217 of the wild buffalo have tested positive for the illness so far, and those will be slaughtered first.

“Distasteful as the lethal removal may be to some, it is clearly one of the foremost management tools – time honored – necessarily utilized to protect the species, the habitat, and the public,” the judge wrote.

“If slaughtering buffalo is time-honored, it’s high time for a change,” said Dan Brister, head of the Buffalo Field Campaign, according to Reuters.

The environmental advocates, including Buffalo Field Campaign and Western Watersheds Project, alleged that the planned slaughter was a violation of government regulations and the public trust.

An attorney for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal, The Associated Press reports.

There are currently 3,700 bison in the Yellowstone herd. When numbers dip below 2,100, the government will be prohibited from killing straying buffalo.

Chevron will appeal an Ecuador court ruling that ordered the U.S. oil giant to pay $8 billion damages for allegedly causing widespread environmental devastation in the Amazon jungle.

The company on Monday rejected the disputed lawsuit’s ruling as “illegitimate,” Reuters reports.

While Chevron did not give any hints as to the sum demanded by the Lago Agrio court, defense attorney Pablo Fajardo said it totaled about $8 billion, the British news organization said.

The claim originally asked for $27 billion.

Chevron said it plans to appeal. “The Ecuadorean court’s judgment is illegitimate and unenforceable,” the oil company said in a statement Monday.

The case claims that Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron a decade ago, fouled the Amazon jungle in the 1970s and 1980s due to faulty drilling practices.

Kenyan conservationists are worried that the burgeoning demand for ivory will undo years of work getting the country’s elephant population to healthy numbers.

Wildlife officials say that a survey of an elephant sanctuary from an aerial census showed that growth had slowed to two percent from four percent in 2008, AFP reports.

Scientists counted 12,572 elephants in Tsavo National Park, an 18,000-square mile elephant sanctuary southeast of Nairobi. While that number is only slightly below the previous count of 11,696, it represents a weakening population growth rate, says Julius Kipng’etich, the director of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Kipng’etich said elephant poaching was becoming increasingly prominent following increased ivory demand in Asian countries.

Ian Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of the organization Save the Elephants, told AFP that rising wealth in Asia was partly to blame.

“I am exceedingly worried about the increase in poaching because I think it is linked to a more fundamental factor which is the increase in demand in China and other countries in the Far East and the increased ability in those countries to pay for ivory,” he told AFP.

Ivory is used in traditional Asian medicines and ornaments.

Tsavo, home to a third of Kenya’s elephant population, boasted some 35,000 elephants in 1976, AFP reports. A major drought and poaching in the 1970s and 1980s all but decimated their numbers.

U.S. President Barack Obama is calling for additional federal funding for clean energy research as part of his 2012 budget.

The proposed plan, which was released Monday and is pending approval from Congress, also seeks to eliminate longstanding subsidies for fossil fuels.

Obama aims to increase funding for the Energy Department by 12 percent. The plan would offer $853 million for the development of small nuclear reactors, which are much less expensive than traditional nuclear facilities but may take years of research before earning approval, AFP reports.

The budget would also slash tax incentives for oil companies and reduce government support for drilling, potentially saving $4 billion per year.

It would trim 13 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget down to $9 billion by cutting funding for the agency’s efforts to provide clean water and fight invasive species like Asian carp, AFP said.

Iranian authorities used tear gas to disperse protesters gathered for Egypt-inspired demonstrations in central Tehran Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reported that protesters rallied in Tehran’s Enghelab or Revolution Square, chanting “death to the dictator” and “down with the Taliban, in Cairo and Tehran.”

Before the protests, state police placed opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi under house arrest to prevent them from participating in the rally in support of Egypt and Tunisia’s anti-government protests. They also cut off the leaders’ phone lines, UPI reports.

As Egypt’s military worked to clear the remaining protesters from Cairo’s central square, an unconfirmed report surfaced that ousted President Hosni Mubarak was in a coma.

Quoting “well-informed sources,” Al-Masry al-Youm said Mubarak had fallen into the coma in Sharm el-Sheik, while pro-government daily al-Gomhuria said he was in a “severe psychological condition” but not a coma, UPI reports.

Al-Masri al-Youm reported Sunday that the former leader was being treated in his vacation home in Sharm el-Sheik. The report also stated that the 82-year-old autocrat fainted twice while recording his final speech that was broadcast on state television before he stepped down.

Egypt has been under the leadership of the state military since Mubarak resigned last week, following 18 days of widespread anti-government demonstrations.