"WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy has successfully completed an unprecedented test of harvesting the vast storehouse on Alaska’s North Slope of methane hydrate, essentially natural gas locked in ice crystals under the permafrost.

"If the Potomac River has gotten more attention than the Anacostia in the past 50 years, it’s partly because the Potomac supplies 90 percent of the region’s drinking water. That amounts to an average of 486 million gallons a day, according to the Potomac Conservancy. The Potomac watershed, which includes 14,670 miles of land that drains to the river, covers parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District, Maryland and Virginia. In the 1950s, reports of stench and dangerous levels of pollution clouded the Potomac’s reputation. But the 383-mile river wasn’t always in such bad shape."

"Edison International announced Wednesday that Midwest Generation will shutter Chicago's Fisk and Crawford coal plants in September, ahead of schedule and years before a state-imposed deadline to clean up or shut down the plants.

"PITTSBURGH  -- In a lawsuit over gas industry secrecy, doctors, scientists, researchers and advocates filed court documents supporting two newspapers seeking access to information that could shed light on the health impacts of gas development, including the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing or fracking. ...