"A huge cloud of ash from a volcano in Iceland turned the skies of northern Europe into a no-fly zone on Thursday, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded."

Parts or all of Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine were ordered closed more than 60 times in 2009 and 2010, and the mine was repeatedly cited in recent months for allowing potentially explosive coal dust to accumulate, according to newly released government documents."

"The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will produce an above-average eight hurricanes, four of them major, posing a heightened threat to the U.S. coastline, the Colorado State University hurricane forecasting team predicted on Wednesday."

Rescuers continue to search for four missing miners in West Virginia. "The company that owns the West Virginia coal mine where at least 25 workers died this week has pressed its employees for higher productivity rates, sometimes at the expense of safety, according to regulators, lawyers who have sued the company and documents."

Rescue operations continue at the West Virginia mine where an explosion killed 25. "The Massey Energy Company, the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia and the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine, has drawn sharp scrutiny and fines from regulators over its safety and environmental record."

"113 facilities in the Houston area have been identified as potential targets, yet nearly a decade after 9/11, securing them remains a work in progress."

"MONTCOAL, W.Va. -- Twenty-five miners were killed Monday after a huge explosion at a Massey Energy mine in Raleigh County, the worst mine disaster in the United States in more than a quarter-century."

"As flood waters recede in rain-soaked New England, March's record-smashing storms highlight the need for planners in the region to place an increased emphasis on reducing flood risks and boosting their communities' resilience to floods."

"Impacts from a decade of extreme storms on the coastline of the northern Gulf of Mexico have left many coastal areas vulnerable to future storm events, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned [Thursday]."

"ANACORTES, Wash. -- Officials say four workers are injured and three are missing in an explosion and fire at the Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes."

"The Red River rose three feet on Tuesday, getting closer to causing major flooding at Fargo, North Dakota for the second straight spring in the key U.S. wheat-growing state."

"A settlement of up to $657.5 million has been reached in the cases of thousands of rescue and cleanup workers at ground zero who sued the city over damage to their health, according to city officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs."

"A former foreman at one of West Virginia's largest underground coal mines admitted Wednesday that he lied about conducting a key safety test, as a federal criminal probe continued into allegations that Patriot Coal officials covered up evidence of explosive methane levels at their Federal No. 2 Mine in Monongalia County."

The Pacific "ring of fire" -- the zone where tectonic plates crunch -- doesn't stop at the equator. It extends through the U.S. Pacific Northwest, which is also vulnerable to intense quakes. States like Oregon are just beginning to retrofit potentially lethal buildings, and the seismic clock is ticking.

"They ran for blocks when they saw the big truck with the Minnesota license plate roll by. Little girls and old women, little boys and young men, all chasing the shiny silver tanker down streets of Cite Soleil, one of the world’s worst slums. Past fly-infested garbage piles, by canals reeking of raw sewage, they carried buckets, pans, pots, tubs — anything that could hold what has become gold in the ruins of Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake: clean water."