"Toyota, the biggest player in hybrid-electric cars, has launched a cut price Prius as the Japanese firm fights back following one of the worst years in its history.

Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota USA, unveiled the Prius C at the second day of the North American International Automobile Show (NAIAS) at Detroit's Cobo Center. For a second year in a row the car show has been dominated by hybrid and electric car launches, although sales have so far been disappointing.

"In 2014, when expansion of the Panama Canal is complete, a new generation of superlarge cargo ships will begin calling on the East Coast. Cities like New York; Savannah, Ga.; and Miami are vying for the new business, as they race to deepen their ports and expand their facilities to accommodate the new ships."

"DETROIT -- Transit providers across the United States will receive a share of $928.5 million in federal funds for more than 300 public transportation projects in urban, suburban, and rural areas, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Monday."

"Seattle is the home of the U.S. Coast Guard's entire fleet of polar-class icebreakers.

Both of them.

Capt. George Pellissier commands both the Polar Sea and the Polar Star. He has spent much of his career on these ships, which were built in Seattle in the 1970s.

"A 10-knot limit off the West Coast could prevent deaths, advocates tells the U.S. Department of Commerce. Shippers oppose the limits."

"'Share the Road' has one potential fatal flaw: It involves sharing, which a lot of purported adults haven't really mastered. Matthew Shaer's exhaustive history of the NYC bike lane struggle, in this week's New York magazine, shows just how much people have to mature before a community -- even Brooklyn -- can become truly bike-friendly. Step one: Stop calling bike lanes 'homegrown terrorism.'"

"To accelerate construction of a national high-speed intercity passenger rail network, the Obama administration plans to invest $53 billion over six years, Vice President Joe Biden announced Tuesday."

"A truce called in a bidding war for Canada's Baffinland Iron Mines sets the stage for an environmental battle over the Arctic project and the impact of shipping the ore through ocean ice to world markets."

"LOS ANGELES — This auto-obsessed city — a place where people love their cars almost as much as they hate the traffic — has embarked on the biggest expansion of its mass transit system in decades, an effort to change the way people navigate its sprawling and clogged streets and freeways."

"The Obama administration plans to reallocate money designated for high-speed rail if the states granted the funds reject them."

As newly minted GOP governors vow to reject billions stimulus money going to their states for high-speed rail, the incoming chair of the House Transportation Committee envisions redirecting the money to the Eastern rail corridor that brings tourists to his state.

"Republicans running for governor in a handful of states could block, or significantly delay, one of President Obama’s signature initiatives: his plan to expand the passenger rail system and to develop the nation’s first bullet-train service."

Cyclists thrive where autos rule: Los Angeles, where smog and freeway have hitherto defined a lifestyle.

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has a 'critical responsibility' to the flying public to develop environmentally responsible solutions to the nation's most pressing aviation problems, NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. said Wednesday."

"If the Chevy Volt's $40,000 price tag sounds a bit too steep, you could always go the do-it-yourself route of Oregon teenager Ashton Stark. He just finished a yearlong conversion of his grandfather's 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle into an electric car."