National (U.S.)

"BOISE, Idaho -- Sockeye entered the Columbia River in recent weeks, beginning a 900-mile migration that very nearly ended 20 years ago."

"SEATTLE -- The Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday opposing the development of coal-export terminals in Washington state after raising concerns about increased train traffic and potential harm to health and the environment.

The vote came as the federal government is reviewing the first of at least six port facilities proposed in Washington and Oregon to ship coal from the Powder River basin of Montana and Wyoming to hungry markets in Asia.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should consider requiring nuclear power plants to analyze their vulnerability to natural hazards like earthquakes by using the same advanced tools that the industry uses to understand the risks from mechanical accidents, a new report from the Government Accountability Office argues."

"Federal investigators are exploring whether BP PLC representatives lied to Congress about how much oil was leaking after the Deepwater Horizon accident two years ago, a development that could lead to additional criminal charges against current and former company employees."

An explosion of flammable metal dust burned Wiley Sherburne, 42, an electrician at the Gallatin, Tenn., plant of the Hoeganaes Corp. Dust was everywhere at the plant. Sherburne died two days after being burned over 95 percent of his body. Combustible dust has killed or injured at least 900 U.S. workers in the past three decades, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has bogged down on efforts to strengthen regulations.

"WASHINGTON -- From the beginning, Michelle Obama's kitchen garden has been an overachiever, churning out more peppers, parsley and eggplant than expected, and generating interest that -- yes, really -- crosses oceans."

"Adding bird detection systems could protect wind farms from litigation in case of deaths of threatened species."

"An advance guard of 18-wheelers is scheduled to roll into a business park in Cheyenne, Wyo., this week to unload components of a supercomputer called Yellowstone. This 1.5-quadrillion-calculations-per-second crystal ball will model future climate and forecast extreme weather."

"Job growth in the nation's coal fields has taken a hit amid tough market conditions for U.S. coal and competition from natural gas, according to a review of federal employment statistics."

"The Bureau of Land Management is advancing what could become the world's largest solar power project in a region of the Southern California desert where environmental groups and American Indian tribes have filed multiple federal lawsuits to stop already approved, large-scale renewables projects."