Dangerous breach feared at nuclear plant

 

A suspected leak in the reactor core could unleash uncontrolled quantities of radiation. 

Breach suspected at troubled Japanese power plant

 

 TOKYO – Two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a crisis at a nuclear plant, the government said Friday there is a suspected breach at a reactor — another setback that would mean radioactive contamination at the facility is more serious than once thought.

Japanese leaders defended their decision not to evacuate people from a wider area around the plant, insisting they are safe if they stay indoors. But officials also said residents may want to voluntarily move to areas with better facilities, since supplies in the tsunami-devastated region are running short.
The escalation in the nuclear plant crisis came as the death toll from the quake and tsunami passed the grim milestone of 10,000 on Friday. Across the battered northeast coast, hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed still have no power, no hot meals and, in many cases, no showers for 14 days.
The uncertain nuclear situation again halted work at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, where authorities have been scrambling to stop the overheated facility from leaking dangerous radiation. Low levels of radiation have been seeping out since the March 11 quake and tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling system, but a breach could mean a much larger release of contaminants. The most likely consequence would be contamination of the groundwater.

Baseball team's unlikely new giveaway

 

Seattle hopes to lure fans to the stadium with a mixture of stuff that past crowds left behind.

Get your free compost! Mariners plan to give away garbage

If you think about it, most ballpark giveaways aren't very eco-friendly. Cheap caps, thin T-shirt and flimsy seat cushions are inevitably thrust to the back of a closet and then they find a landfill a few years later. Not exactly a good use of resources.
The Seattle Mariners are trying to change that process this year, however, with an unusual series of "compost night" giveaways that will end up helping the environment.

Are you ready for opening day? Not until you follow Big League Stew on Twitter and Facebook!

Yes, instead of getting the usual Ichiro(notes) bobblehead for their desks at work, Mariners fans will head home with bags of soil matter and fertilizer that will hopefully grow their gardens at home (and not, say, end up on the field as a form of protest during another 100-loss season by the Mariners).
Even better, the compost will be made up of garbage that fans left behind during previous games at Safeco Field.
From The Seattle Times:

Not just any compost, mind you, but small bags of compost made from food waste, packaging material, drink cups, utensils and other stuff discarded during past Mariners games and transformed into a garden-friendly mix by Cedar Grove Composting.

Think of it as taking a little bit of the ballpark home, said Scott Jenkins, Mariners vice president for ballpark operations.
"We've had a culture of consumption," said Jenkins. "We need to have a culture of conservation."

Maybe that culture is changing now. In 2008, the Washington Nationals opened the first green stadium in the United States. Three years later, the Seattle Mariners and other Pacific Northwest franchises are working with the Green Sports Alliance so they can take their own steps toward preserving earth's natural resources.
In addition to salvaging all that tonnage of ballpark material for later use, the GSA views this promotion as an opportunity to bring awareness to sports fans who may not understand the importance of, or participate in the act of recycling. They also hope the knowledge they gather from this project will provide other franchises and venues with enough information and inspiration to make similar changes.

Video of locked-out Obama lights up Web

 

An awkward moment at the White House prompts flashbacks to another classic presidential mix-up.

They’re just like us: Even presidents get locked out

President Obama returned to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night expecting to face tough questions on Libya, Japan's earthquake recovery and other major international crises. But a more personal issue stood in the way: he appeared to be locked out of the White House.

What Syria's unrest means to world, U.S.

 

Another wave of pro-democratic protests hits a country with a long history of oppression.

Unrest in Syria: What you need to know

The uprising in Libya, which provoked military intervention by the United States and its allies to avert a brutal government crackdown, has dominated this week's headlines. But meanwhile, there's new unrest in yet another Middle Eastern nation--one with perhaps greater strategic implications for the United States
Could the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad be set to go the way of the dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, which were toppled last month by massive popular protests? And what would that mean for the U.S.?