Disasters

"U.S. government forecasters announced Thursday they expect three to six major hurricanes from an above-average Atlantic storm season."

"The president of Japan’s troubled power company, Tokyo Electric Power, resigned Friday, shouldering responsibility for the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as the utility booked one of the largest yearly losses in Japanese corporate history."

"A team of independent investigators has concluded that a corporate culture at Massey Energy put coal production before safety, prompting a collection of major safety infractions that caused the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster." Their report also faulted state and federal mine safety regulators for lax enforcement.

"A dead zone -- already the size of the state of New Jersey -- is growing in the Gulf of Mexico, fueled by nutrient runoff from the swollen Mississippi River."

"Opponents of a pipeline that would nearly double U.S. imports of Canadian oil-sands crude sued the State Department today in a bid to force speedy disclosure of any contacts it made with a lobbyist for the pipeline's sponsor."

"Five years before the crucial emergency vents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were disabled by an accident they were supposed to help handle, engineers at a reactor in Minnesota warned American regulators about that very problem."

"Cargo was slowly moving along the bloated Mississippi River after a costly daylong standstill, while officials kept an eye on the lower Delta where thousands of acres of farmland could be swamped by water that is inching closer to the top of a levee."