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Forecasters Had Chance To Warn Moore, Okla., Before Tornado Melissa Block talks to Jon Hamilton about the science of tornadoes. |
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Measuring The Power Of Deadly Tornadoes Tornado strength is currently measured on what is called the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which gives the tornado a rating from 0 to 5 based on estimated wind speeds and the severity of the damage. |
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Calif. Law To Require Ships To Cut Pollution California is about to become the first state to require shore power at its ports. A new law mandates at least half of a shipping line's fleet to shut down their diesel engines and plug into shore-side electric power when they unload their cargo. It's part of a larger effort to cut pollution at the state's busiest ports, but costs have been a sticking point. |
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Impossible Choice Faces America's First 'Climate Refugees' The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the tiny town of Newtok, Alaska, could be completely underwater by 2017. Its 350 residents must relocate or stay to face the floods, but a move is easier said than done. |
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Afghan Mineral Treasures Stay Buried, Hostages To Uncertainty Afghanistan is believed to be home to world-class mineral deposits, valued at up to $3 trillion and offering hope for the country's economic future. But in the current environment of uncertainty, investors are nervous and it could be many years before Afghanistan strikes pay dirt. |
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Not Your Grandpa's RV: This Roving Lab Tracks Air Pollution Atmospheric scientist Ira Leifer installed special air sensors on a camper, then drove from Florida to California, measuring methane levels all along the way. More than 6,000 readings later, he found some noticeable spikes, especially around petrochemical plants and urban areas like Los Angeles. |
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Scientists Agree On Climate Change, Why Doesn't The Public? A new study confirms that the vast majority of scientists who research the climate accept that the planet is warming and human beings are largely responsible. Yet a large slice of the American public believes that scientists are deeply split about global warming. |
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How Can You Give A Community Better Health? Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. He hopes to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where "the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys." |
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When Is the Right Time To Give? Volunteer firefighter Mark Bezos tells a story of an act of heroism that didn't go quite as expected — but that taught him a big lesson: Don't wait — give now. |
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Cape Cod Community To Vote On Status Of Wind Turbines In the Cape Cod community of Falmouth, voters will decide if two, town-owned wind turbines will be taken down. Dozens have complained of headaches, insomnia and other issues since the first turbine started spinning in 2010. |
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First U.S. Company To Enter Export Market For Natural Gas With supplies high and prices at historic lows, there's debate whether U.S. companies should be allowed to export the gas overseas for a higher price. Many energy companies have applied for government approval to ship liquefied natural gas worldwide. So far, only one company has gotten a license to do that in the past 30 years.. |
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How Trace Amounts Of Arsenic End Up In Grocery Store Meat A recently published study found slightly elevated amounts of inorganic arsenic in samples of chicken meat purchased at grocery stores. Arsenic-based drugs are no longer used in chickens — but they are still used in turkeys. |
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Water Trapped For 1.5 Billion Years Could Hold Ancient Life Scientists have discovered water that was sealed in Canadian bedrock for nearly half of Earth's history. It may contain the descendants of ancient microbes. The discovery could give scientists new insights into early life on Earth and inform the search for life on other planets. |
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Dam Removal Ushers In New Life In Washington State New life is coming to Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. Two dams along the Elwha River are being removed, bringing a rush of sediment downstream and exposing hundreds of acres of once-submerged land. The dams were built in the early 1900s to power nearby timber mills. But they blocked salmon migration and their power is no longer needed, so they're coming out. This story originated as part of the public media collaboration, EarthFix. |
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Go Fish (Somewhere Else): Warming Oceans Are Altering Catches Fish are moving away from the equator and toward the poles to maintain their preferred water temperature. That means, for example, that fishermen are seeing swordfish normally found in the Mediterranean swimming near Denmark. But in the tropics, there are no fish to replace the ones that are leaving. |
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Dirty Diapers Pile Up In Portland Recycling Bins: 'It's Not Pretty' Waste and recycling handlers in Portland, Ore., say they're seeing an unfortunate side effect of the city's reduction in garbage pickups: 120 pounds of dirty diapers a day, tucked into recycling bins. |
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Huge Boost In U.S. Oil Output Set To Transform Global Market The International Energy Agency says U.S. shale output and petroleum from Canada's tar sands are transforming global energy markets. |
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With Rising Seas, America's Birthplace Could Disappear By the end of the century, ocean levels could rise by 2 or 3 feet. That's enough to flood the colonists' first settlement at Jamestown, Va. And it's putting pressure on archaeologists to get as many artifacts out of the ground as quickly as possible — before it's too late. |
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The Enemy Inside: Rhino's Protectors Sometimes Aid Poachers The defenders of Africa's rhinos are battling a well-financed and well-informed enemy. Poachers clear $40,000 or more for a single rhino horn. They have cash for the latest weaponry and to pay for inside information from some of the very people whose job it is to protect the rhinos. |
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'Ice Shove' Damages Some Manitoba Homes Beyond Repair Residents of Ochre Beach, Manitoba, were surprised when heavy ice floes were pushed up on their beachfront properties last week, damaging many homes to the point of no repair. The ice event is the first for the area, but the second weather event to wreak havoc after severe flooding in 2011. |
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India, China Could Soon Demand More Oil Than U.S. And Europe The United States has emerged as the star performer on the global oil scene, according to the latest oil outlook from the International Energy Agency. Oil production from the United States grew at a record pace last year for a non-OPEC nations. Meanwhile, emerging economies have become the big oil buyers. |
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Maybe It's Time To Swap Burgers For Bugs, Says U.N. A new report makes the case that insects may be essential to feeding a planet of 7 billion people. Why? They're nutritious, better for the environment than other protein sources and can generate jobs, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. |
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Michigan Apple Orchards Blossom After A Devastating Year The apple trees are heading for full blossom in Michigan after a disastrous 2012 crop, when only 15 percent of the apples survived. But this year's harvest is expected to rebound. |
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Vietnam's Appetite For Rhino Horn Drives Poaching In Africa Demand for rhino horn, used in traditional Chinese medicine, is fueling a slaughter of the animals in Africa. In Vietnam, the sought-after commodity is fetching prices as high as $1,400 an ounce, or about the price of gold. There, some believe ground horn can cure everything from hangovers to cancer. |
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Is It Safe To Use Compost Made From Treated Human Waste? Treated human waste has been used on farmland for decades, but the ick factor has not entirely faded. Some environmentalists think the treatment process may not get rid of all the harmful contaminants that could be in the waste. |
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Frozen Lakes Cut Into Minnesota Fishing Tradition Saturday is the opening of the walleye fishing season, and it's usually one of the busiest weekends for the state's resort communities. This year, many of the lakes in northern Minnesota are still iced over, putting a chill on the season. |
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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'Dangerous Territory': Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach Milestone The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has crossed the "psychological threshold" of 400 parts per million. That number is one of the clearest measures of how humans are changing the planet by burning fossil fuels. |
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College Divestment Campaigns Creating Passionate Environmentalists Taking a page from the playbook of decades past, college students are once again pressuring schools to pull investment funding from specific sectors. This time it's big oil and coal companies. But these campaigns have effects beyond the university — they're launching a new generation of activists. |
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Big Ag Agrees to Conserve Cropland, But At What Cost? Farmers say they are ready to compromise with some environmental groups on the issue of conservation compliance. But critics say the price tag for the taxpayer may be too high. |
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Shell Digs Deep To Tap Into Lucrative Oil, Gas Reserves Royal Dutch Shell is pushing ahead with plans for the world's deepest offshore oil and gas production facility. It will be nearly two miles beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. It is testing the bounds of the oil and gas industry's capability to drill ever deeper. |
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Enron's Jeffrey Skilling May See Sentence Reduced Skilling was sentenced in 2006 for his role in the collapse of the energy trading giant and handed a 24-year prison sentence. Under the deal announced Thursday, he may see as much as a decade cut from that sentence. |
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Nearly Three Years After Dodd-Frank, Reforms Happen Slowly The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was a sweeping legislative package designed to prevent another financial collapse. Journalist Gary Rivlin says passing the bill was just a first step in a long road to real reform, and the financial system is as vulnerable to disaster it was in 2008. |
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With Warming Climes, How Long Will A Bordeaux Be A Bordeaux? Climate change is already creating new winners among Europe's winemaking regions. (Great bubbly from Britain — who knew?) But those changes have also put in doubt the rules and traditions that have defined the continent's top winemakers for centuries. |
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Head Of Environmental Division Is Leaving Justice Dept. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ignacia Moreno's tenure spanned one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010. She oversaw a record civil penalty in the case. |
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Why Ben Franklin Is The World's Banker A report from the Federal Reserve says the number of U.S. dollars in circulation keeps rising. Most of it goes overseas, in the form of $100 bills. People in countries like Russia and Argentina use $100 bills as a safe haven because they don't trust their national currency or their own banks. |
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Former Gov. Mark Sanford Wins South Carolina House Seat Republican Sanford, who as governor was dogged by scandal, defeated Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of satirist Stephen Colbert. |
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Bee Deaths May Have Reached A Crisis Point For Crops The number of honeybees has now dwindled to the point where there may not be enough to pollinate some major U.S. crops, including almonds, blueberries and apples. And this year brought farmers closer than ever to a true pollination crisis. |
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Congressional Hearings Put Renewed Focus On Benghazi Attack Security was a central theme as the Senate held a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Deborah K. Jones, who has been nominated to succeed Christopher Stevens as ambassador to Libya. On Wednesday, House Republicans will hear testimony about the attack that killed Stevens and three other Americans. |
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Are Those North Korean Long-Range Missiles For Real? When North Korea put its missiles on parade last year, experts were surprised to see what looked to be new long-range missiles that might be powerful enough to reach the U.S. But a closer look at details in the photos suggests the missiles on display might have been a bluff. |
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Both Sides Hopeful In Last Hours Of Sanford, Colbert Busch Race Updated at 9:29 pm ET — Former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford handily won the race for his old House seat, beating Elizabeth Colbert Bush. Earlier in the day, both sides expressed confidence that strong turnout was a good omen. And it was — for Sanford. |
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Filling In The Gap On Climate Education In Classrooms Science education standards, issued in April, recommend teaching climate change for the first time. But one nonprofit says kids aren't learning enough, soon enough, about how their world will change in the coming decades. The group aims to remedy this with presentations in schools nationwide. |
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Pakistani Politician Imran Khan Falls From Lift During Campaign The former cricketer was being lifted above a crowd of supporters when he suddenly took a tumble. |
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Obama Says U.S. And South Korea Stand Firm Against Pyongyang The president says he has never spoken directly to the North Korean leader, but that he and South Korean President Park Geun-hye remain open to talks. |
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Kerry Appeals To Russia To Help End Syrian Civil War Secretary of State Kerry met with Russian leaders in Moscow on Tuesday in another attempt to forge a consensus on Syria. |
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Bishops Remain Missing After Capture In Syria As orthodox Christians across the world celebrated a late Easter this year, Christian communities in Syria and neighboring Lebanon postponed all celebrations. Instead they gathered in churches only to pray for the safe return of two bishops kidnapped outside of Aleppo last month. While their whereabouts are still unknown, the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime continue to trade blame for the abduction the Syriac Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo. We speak to the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Beirut and his congregation about how the kidnappings have marred the traditionally celebratory time of year. |
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Why Britain Has Gone Mad About Baking   Some 9 million Britons have taken up baking in the last year alone. A TV program showcasing home bakers is a runaway hit, and sales of baking goods have skyrocketed. Then there are the cake clubs, where the rules call for pacing yourself — and sampling as much as you can. |
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Gas Tanker Explosion Kills At Least 20 Near Mexico City  A tanker truck carrying gasoline exploded on a highway near Mexico City Tuesday morning, reportedly killing at least 20 people. The explosion, which early reports indicate was an accident, occurred after 5 a.m. local time. |
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The History And Politics Of Humanitarian Intervention Some are calling on President Barack Obama to intervene in Syria's civil war. Gary Bass, Princeton University professor and author of Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention, talks about the political risks of humanitarian intervention. |
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Portugal Struggles To Avoid 2nd Bailout Portugal's creditors are evaluating the country's latest austerity package, which includes 30,000 public sector layoffs, to determine whether Lisbon might need a second international bailout. The Portuguese government is raising the retirement age and lengthening work weeks to try to squeeze out more revenue, and repay its bailout loans. |
