The Senate on Thursday narrowly approved a sweeping five-year plan to trim a variety of federal benefit programs and to allow drilling for oil and natural gas in a wilderness area of Alaska, increasing the chances that the energy industry and Alaska officials will achieve a long-sought goal.
A river the color of pale toffee coursed through a valley, carrying several types of rare fish. A young orangutan, a member of a threatened species, dangled merrily by one leg from a tree.
The United States Forest Service announced Wednesday that it would begin a nationwide process of designating which trails are suitable for use by off-road vehicles, a move intended to limit damage to national forests.
Five Hawks Elementary School in Prior Lake is surrounded by 33 acres of prairie, wetlands and forest. Though the land had been used informally by teachers for the past 20 years, recent donations have allowed it to become a formal part of the class day.
Original publish date: 10/24/05
A shortage of rail cars, rising fuel prices and increasing freight rates are slowing the shipment of some pulpwood logs from the eastern Upper Peninsula to mills in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The delays are putting the value of the logs in jeopardy, timber producers and economic officials say.
Nineteen conservation organizations asked Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch on Tuesday to join a lawsuit filed by three other states trying to overturn a Bush administration policy allowing logging and road building in the nation's remaining roadless areas.
