Seattle Calls for Safeguards Amid Boom in Oil Train Shipments
Seattle officials called on Wednesday for more safeguards for crude oil trains traveling through the city in increasing numbers, warning some rail infrastructure was antiquated and could contribute to a catastrophic accident. An oil tanker accident in the city could be "a catastrophe for our community in terms of risk to life, property and environment," Seattle's Office of Emergency Management said in a report. Citing a series of devastating accidents linked to oil train derailments, including one in Canada that killed 47 people in a city in Quebec last year…
Double Solar Storms Headed to Earth
A rare double burst of magnetically charged solar storms will hit Earth Thursday night and Friday, raising concerns that GPS signals, radio communications and power transmissions could be disrupted, officials said on Thursday. Individually, the storms, known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, wouldn't warrant special warnings, but their unusual close timing and direct path toward Earth spurred the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center to issue an alert. The first CME, which burst from a magnetically disturbed region of the sun on Monday night…