5 day forecast
National Briefs (01/08/10)
Share with others:
Scientists urge mining limits
WASHINGTON -- Scientific evidence that mountaintop-removal coal mining destroys streams and threatens human health is so strong the government should stop granting new permits for it, a group of 12 environmental scientists report in today's issue of the journal Science.
The consequences of this mining in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and southwestern Virginia are "pervasive and irreversible," the article finds.
Companies are required by law to take steps to reduce the damages, but their efforts don't compensate for lost streams nor do they prevent lasting water pollution, it says.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Steadily falling snow blanketed the Midwest yesterday, part of a vicious cold snap engulfing much of the nation, and a tractor-trailer spun out of control on snow-slick roads in Ohio, killing four people and injuring seven.
The tractor-trailer jackknifed on Interstate 70, crossed the highway median and swerved into oncoming traffic, colliding with a small bus transporting adult disabled passengers, the Ohio Highway Patrol said.
Elsewhere, snow was piled so high in Iowa that drivers couldn't see across intersections, and in Bowbells, in northwestern North Dakota, the wind chill hit 52-below zero yesterday morning.
WASHINGTON -- Nearly one out of every three youths at 13 juvenile detention facilities have reported some type of sexual victimization, according to a government study issued yesterday that found widespread reports of youth sex abuse at correctional centers. Included in the study was the Cresson Secure Treatment Unit in Cambria County.
Victimization included forced sexual activity with another youth and sexual activity with staff.
The survey -- conducted for the government by Westat, a company based on Rockville, Md. -- collected information from about 9,000 detainees.
NEWARK, N.J. -- A man took advantage of a guard's absence to sneak past a Newark Liberty International Airport security checkpoint Sunday evening and walk arm-in-arm with a woman into a secure area, causing a terminal shutdown that delayed flights across the globe and called into question just how secure the nation's airports really are.
The couple's actions emerged in a surveillance video released yesterday by the office of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who had pushed the Transportation Security Administration to release the footage.
TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey's state Senate has defeated a bill to legalize gay marriage, leaving it unlikely the state will have a gay marriage law in the very near future.
New Jersey offers civil unions that grant the legal rights of marriage to gay couples. Five states -- Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont -- allow gay marriage.
A disgruntled worker embroiled in a pension dispute with his company, ABB Group, showed up at its St. Louis plant and opened fire yesterday, killing three people and wounding five before apparently killing himself... White House budget director Peter Orszag's ex-girlfriend, Claire Miolnas, gave birth to his daughter a few weeks before he got engaged to a different woman, ABC News reporter Bianna Golodryga.
First Published January 8, 2010 12:00 am
