Italy's cruise liner tragedy turned into an environmental crisis Monday, as rough seas battering the stricken mega-ship raised fears that fuel might leak into pristine waters off Tuscany that are…Click to Continue »

Ever since Richard Nixon's 1973 promise to attain energy independence, successive U.S. presidents all have pledged the same goal, even as foreign supplies composed a larger and larger share of the U.S. energy mix. Now, almost 40 years later, a measure of independence is within reach. But as this booming mountain town in northeastern Pennsylvania shows, the quest for independence involves both ...

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan are building the biggest plane ever to haul cargo and astronauts into space, in the latest of several ventures fueled by technology tycoons clamoring to write America’s next chapter in spaceflight. Their plans, unveiled Tuesday, call for a twin-fuselage aircraft with wings longer than a football field to carry a rocket high into...

Tony Stewart insisted he wasn't a title contender when NASCAR's championship race began.When it became clear he actually was a viable threat, he kicked it into another gear and vowed to go for broke in his pursuit of Carl Edwards.Did he ever.Stewart used a powerful and relentless drive - some might suggest the best in NASCAR history - on Sunday in the season finale to seize his third NASCAR champi...

Five suspects – four men and a woman – have been identified in a crime operation in which a large amount of gasoline stolen from a gas station was being resold.One of the suspects, Tommy Ray Thomas Jr., 21, Weans Road, Walterboro, has been arrested and charged with larceny. The other four are at large and Orangeburg County Sheriff’s deputies are looking for them, the office sa...

Energy Department officials are considering shipping some plutonium from the Savannah River Site near Aiken to a federal storage site in New Mexico.The Augusta, Ga., Chronicle reported (http://bit.ly/uLdU0q) the plan would send about 1,100 pounds of plutonium from old nuclear weapons to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.Much of the 34 metric tons of plutonium from old nuclear warh...

Boeing's much-anticipated 787 carried its first passengers Wednesday on a four-hour, 8-minute flight filled with cheers, picture-taking and swapping of aviation stories.The new long-haul jet aims to change with the way passengers think about flying with larger windows, improved lighting and air pressure and humidity that closer resembles that on the ground.It's not the fastest jet or the largest j...

An Orangeburg County gas station has lost about 2,200 gallons of fuel in a series of thefts this month.And, although the thief or thieves also stole three surveillance cameras from the roof of the Five Chop Road gas station, at least one of the thefts in which 300 gallons were taken was caught on camera.That incident, on Oct. 4, shows a blue truck with containers in the back. The thefts involved t...

Traffic is back to normal in the southbound lanes of Interstate 85 in Gaston County after a fiery crash killed a South Carolina truck driver.Police in Gastonia say one tractor-trailer rear ended another near mile marker 16 at 1:47 a.m. Thursday. The victim was identified as 45-year-old Eric Fitzgerald Lee of Greenville, S.C. His rig crashed into a tractor-trailer driver by 47-year-old Tomas Herrer...

Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews has received federal money to hire two deputies whose sole job will be to help reduce the county’s No. 1 ranking in the state for drunk-driving fatalities.The $189,589 annual grant from federal Office of Highway Safety will pay the salaries of two officers as well as the costs of two patrol cars, fuel, equipment and training, the sheriff said in a statement...

Authorities say a plane returned to the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport without any problems after its nose gear failed to retract after takeoff.Airport spokeswoman Rosylin Weston said the United Airline fight was on its way to Chicago around 6 a.m. Monday when the pilot couldn't get the nose gear back up.Weston says the plane circled the airport a few times to burn fuel and landed 23...

Wildfires sweeping through parts of Texas and Oklahoma have destroyed dozens of homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate, and although officials don't yet know what ignited the blazes, a summer heat wave and drought have left both states with the perfect fuel: parched ground and dry vegetation."We're in severe drought conditions, so just the tiniest little spark can start a wildfire," Texas...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu stepped briefly into USC’s innovative energy research district Tuesday, touring a portion of the multimillion-dollar development the university hopes will spearhead the way to world leadership in fuel cell technology.Chu voiced his support for fuel cells as an alternative energy, saying critics had misrepresented his position amid budget discussions.Chu’s ...

A tractor-trailer truck driver is suspected of fueling up his rig and driving off without paying the bill, which came to more than $770, according to a Fort Mill Police report.The report states on Aug. 15 the man pumped his rig full of diesel at the Love’s truck stop on Sutton Road in Fort Mill. When he attempted to pay the clerk with a credit card, the card was declined, the report states. T...

As Bank of America Corp.’s stock has tumbled and clawed back in recent days, city leaders, business owners and others with a stake in the company are waiting to see what happens next.The stock market swings have delivered a familiar feeling of anxiety to a city pummeled by the financial crisis. Local leaders and business owners say they aren’t as fearful this time. But they acknowled...

WASHINGTON — Their return home was as elite and secretive as their mission, which ended Saturday in a devastating helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan. In a war defined by instant information, cutting-edge technology and a nuanced counterinsurgency, the 30 American service members and eight Afghans killed when an insurgent shot down their Chinook helicopter west of Kabul remained anonymo...

Faith E. Wachter doesn’t normally spend as much as $17 on shampoo in a single shopping trip. But by stocking up on hair-care products recently, the Ellicott City, Md., resident saved more than $4 on gasoline for her car — and just in time for a drive to the beach.As they look for ways to spend less on fuel, more shoppers are headed to the supermarket.Several chains – such as Bi-Lo a...

A fire that has charred more than 800 acres in the Myrtle Beach area was apparently caused by fireworks.Scott Hawkins of the South Carolina Forestry Commission says a witness reported seeing fireworks in the sky in the area where the blaze started July 3.The fire is now completely contained and not threatening any structures but Hawkins says it will continue to burn until there's a good rain in th...

A major wildfire in Arizona's eastern mountains burned out of control early Friday after charring more than 603 square miles of timber, destroying dozens of structures and keeping thousands of evacuees away from their homes.Crews Thursday made progress in burning up fuel ahead of the fire as part of a strategy to choke it on its northern flanks. Smoke from the burn operations puffed shades of blac...

The annual "100 Deadly Days of Summer" are upon us.With Memorial Weekend, the summer travel season officially begins, and AAA Carolinas is projecting a heavy traffic load this year. Last year, in the 78-hour period from 6 p.m. on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to Monday at midnight, 10 people died on South Carolina roads, the South Carolina Department of Public Safety said.In conjunction with ...

Engine trouble forced a plane flying from Georgia to South Carolina to make an emergency landing on a Greenwood County road, where the plane lost a wing.No injuries were reported when the plane came down about 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.Greenwood County emergency management director Pat Patterson says the plane carrying two people left St. Simons Island, Ga., and was flying to Greenville when it began to e...

Fort Jackson's forestry division is doing a controlled burn on 4,000 acres of the basic training base in Columbia.The State of Columbia reported that the fort is conducting the burn on Sunday and warning residents about expected large columns of smoke coming from the 52,000-acre base.The burn will help reduce potential fuel for an out-of-control wildfire. It also helps stimulate the germination of...

Fort Jackson will be conducting a prescribed burn of nearly 164 acres today close to Leesburg Road.Controlled or prescribed burning, also known as hazard reduction burning, is used at Fort Jackson in forest management. Controlled burning is conducted during the cooler months to reduce fuel buildup and decrease the likelihood of serious hotter fires. Controlled burning stimulates the germination of...

The Forestry Branch at Fort Jackson is holding a controlled burn this morning of nearly 164 acres close to Leesburg Road.Area residents should expect to see smoke from the fires.Controlled burning is used during cooler months to reduce fuel buildup and decrease the likelihood of serious hotter fires in forests and wooded areas.From Staff Reports

Setbacks mounted Wednesday in the crisis over Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear facility, with nearby seawater testing at its highest radiation levels yet and the president of the plant operator checking into a hospital with hypertension.Nearly three weeks after a March 11 tsunami engulfed the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, knocking out power to the cooling system that keeps nuclear fuel rods from overhe...

Workers discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan’s crippled nuclear complex, officials said Monday, as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tons of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control.Officials believe the contaminated water has sent radioactivity levels soaring at the coastal complex and caused more radiation to seep into soil and seaw...

With the click of a mouse, Sandy Freund Kasper sent a command to NASA's comet-hunting Stardust space probe to burn all its fuel, starting a sequence that would shut the spacecraft down after a 12-year run."Like saying goodbye to a friend," said Allan Cheuvront, the Stardust program manager for Lockheed Martin, who has worked on the probe since 1996, when it was still in the design stage."It's been...

Workers reconnected power lines to all six reactor units at Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear plant Tuesday, its operator said, marking a significant step in bringing the overheated complex under control.In making an announcement after days of anxious waiting by the public, Tokyo Electric Power Co. cautioned that much work needed to be done before the electricity can be turned on. Workers are chec...

Officials raced Monday to restore electricity to Japan’s leaking nuclear plant, but getting the power flowing will hardly be the end of their battle: With its mangled machinery and partly melted reactor cores, bringing the complex under control is a monstrous job.Restoring the power to all six units at the tsunami-damaged complex is key, because it will, in theory, power up the maze of moto...

Fort Jackson will conduct a prescribed burn of about 600 acres today, close to Leesburg Road. The initial burn was set to begin at 10:30 a.m. with a different section to be ignited at noon.While the burn is near Leesburg Road, smoke is expected to drift toward Screaming Eagle Road and U.S. 601.Controlled or prescribed burning is a technique used at Fort Jackson in forest management. Controlled bu...