"Namie, JAPAN — Eight months ago, people left this place in haste. Families raced from their homes without closing the front doors. They left half-finished wine bottles on their kitchen tables and sneakers in their foyers. They jumped in their cars without taking pets and left cows hitched to milking stanchions.

Now the land stands empty, frozen in time, virtually untouched since the March 11 disaster that created a wasteland in the 12-mile circle of farmland that surrounds the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"Grain farmers in the Midwest may want to pinch themselves."

"On July 26, monitors detected something amiss in the already crippled building that shields the reactor at Progress Energy's nuclear plant. The pile of shattered concrete outside meant the utility faced a new problem. The building was still falling apart — a development Progress was in no hurry to reveal to state regulators."

"VANCOUVER -- A Canadian environmental organization has launched a new automated system to draw public attention to the number and size of the oil tankers that transit Vancouver's Burrard Inlet."