"When the Oregon state inspector got close enough to the hulking black rail car with the red placard warning about flammable liquids inside, he heard hissing."

"Dozens of freight trains roll through downtown Parkville each day, their blaring horns annoying to anyone with ears. But the chief of the Southern Platte Fire Protection District, Richard Carrizzo, has far more chilling concerns these days."

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the year before it filed for bankruptcy, Freedom Industries paid more than $6 million to its former owners and to companies affiliated with its current owners, court filings show."

"If an oil train explosion on the scale of last year's deadly crash in Quebec roiled a U.S. town, would railroads have enough emergency personnel and equipment ready to respond? In most cases, transportation regulators don't know."

"Around 100 tonnes of highly radioactive water have leaked from a storage tank at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, operator Tokyo Electric (Tepco) says."

"Bitter cold in the United States might appear to contradict the notion of global warming, but with Britain's wettest winter and Australia's hottest summer, extreme weather events have pushed climate change back on the political agenda."

"The head of nuclear safety for the cleanup of the former nuclear weapons site at Hanford, Wash., was fired Tuesday after allegations she made over several years that the construction project was ignoring serious safety problems."

"WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is set to announce on Wednesday that he will finish a $6.5 billion loan guarantee this week and another soon for $1.8 billion to help three Georgia electric companies build the first new nuclear reactors in the United States in three decades."

"Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin is urging federal health officials immediately to conduct more lab studies on the chemicals that spilled into a public water supply last month. The governor also asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its partners for guidance on long-term health monitoring for the nine counties exposed to the chemicals."