May 24--Participants across the country in the Better Buildings Challenge reduced their energy intensity by 2.5% last year, achieving about $58 million in annual energy savings.

Those results are contained in a progress report published by the Department of Energy.

New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced the results at an energy efficiency conference this week.

May 24--The region's public transit authority says a private proposal to extend light rail to Virginia Beach contains "as many questions as answers," doesn't address the regulatory complications it could trigger, and features a questionable choice for its lead design firm.

The comments by Hampton Roads Transit staff, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, also challenge the completeness of cost estimates and say the proposal's financing structure may not relieve the city of as much risk as it purports to.

HRT, which operates The Tide and would run the Virginia Beach extension, submitted its comments to Beach officials after reviewing the unsolicited proposal that Shucet's team submitted to the city in early April.

May 22--GLADES COUNTY -- Jeff Allen calls himself a private citizen who loves to fish on Lake Okeechobee, but he's also the chairman of a broad-based group that's trying to improve the lake and add recreational opportunities.

When Charlie Crist was governor, the state signed an agreement with the Lake Okeechobee Habitat Alliance Inc. to lease and manage more than 2,700 acres of land located at Curry Island, where Fisheating Creek joins Lake Okeechobee.

The group's volunteer cadre helped clean up Curry Island of old tires and dumped construction materials and set up wood duck boxes, but to reduce the high nutrient level of creek water before it reaches the lake, they needed a treatment system to suck out the phosphorus and nitrogen.

SEATTLE _ Real-estate agent Joseph Ho climbed the gilded staircase of a Hunts Point, Wash., mansion listed for almost $5 million, shooting video on his Apple iPad tablet and narrating in Chinese.

Ho made sure to capture a blue-sky fresco in the formal dining room _ "It'll remind them of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas" _ and a yacht-ready dock.

In the process, they are accelerating the real-estate market's recovery, sometimes edging out other buyers with all-cash offers, and deepening ties between Seattle and China.

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. - A truck hauling an oversized load of drilling equipment hit an overhead bridge girder on the major route between Seattle and Canada, sending a section of the interstate into the river below as the driver watched the structure collapse in his rearview mirror.

"He looked in the mirrors and it just dropped out of sight," Cynthia Scott, the wife of truck driver William Scott, said Friday from the couple's home near Spruce Grove, Alberta, just west of Edmonton.

"I spoke to him seconds after it happened.

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. - The trucking company involved in a Washington state bridge collapse says it received a state-issued permit to carry its oversized load across the bridge.

He said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Washington state Department of Transportation had approved of the company's plan to drive a piece of drilling equipment along Interstate 5 to Vancouver, Wash.

A truck hauling a too-tall load of drilling equipment hit an overhead bridge girder on the major interstate between Seattle and Canada, sending a section of the span and two vehicles into the Skagit River.

May 24--It's almost a miracle that so few died in this week's catastrophe in an Oklahoma City suburb.

In comparison, 158 were killed by a similar twister two years ago in Joplin, Mo. Perhaps better warnings and shelters helped tornado-prone Oklahoma escape the worst -- for which America is grateful.

Debate erupted between Washington Republicans -- who generally defend polluting industries and deny that manmade "greenhouse gases" are causing global warming that produces ever-worse storms and weather calamities -- and Democrats who hold opposing views.

May 24--Drivers and mechanics for the Westmoreland County Transit Authority could take a strike vote in the summer if negotiations for a new labor contract produce no results, union officials said Thursday night.

More than two dozen members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1738 gathered for a meeting of the transit authority board to complain about the pace of negotiations and safety and maintenance concerns with the bus fleet.

Rank-and-file members are employees of National Express Transit, the private company that holds the contract to operate the authority's bus fleet.

May 23--MOUNTAIN VIEW -- The world is fast approaching a tipping point after which the damage caused by climate change can't be undone, Gov. Jerry Brown told a technology summit Thursday.

Some environmentalists, however, say Brown's actions don't match his rhetoric -- particularly his recent decision to divert $500 million in cap-and-trade fee revenues away from clean-energy and pollution-abatement projects to help California balance its books.

"The governor is right on the rhetoric, but he needs to put our money where his mouth is," said Bill Magavern, the Coalition for Clean Air's policy director.

Laura Bush admits that she, as the wife of a former president, has a pretty big pulpit, and she says she's decided to use it to push, pull, gather and encourage Texans toward common conservation goals.

She has started by being one of the founders and the public face of "Taking Care of Texas."

Bush was in Austin this week to deliver the keynote address at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Lone Star Land Steward Awards banquet, and she graciously carved out time to talk with me about the organization and what it's designed to do.

May 23--The Santa Fe Southern Railway won't be running tourist trains between Santa Fe and Lamy this summer.

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway reached Lamy in 1879, but it took two more years to build a 16-mile spur into the capital city.

In 2005, the state purchased the real estate, tracks and signals from Santa Fe Southern, so the New Mexico Rail Runner Express passenger trains could use the last four miles of the track into Santa Fe.

May 23--As Wave Transit braces for the possibility New Hanover County could slash its funding, officials have proposed cutting two routes -- one to the north and another to Carolina Beach.

Halting the recently launched bus to Pleasure Island, which only began in February, would also reduce Wave's countywide presence.

During a Thursday meeting of the Cape Fear Public Transportation Authority, a board that oversees Wave, Finance Director Joe Mininni said the county is only planning to give Wave $140,000 for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

May 23--At an elementary school bus stop the morning of May 15, a group gathered to pick up a passenger who wasn't allowed to disembark on his own.

He just happened to be the superintendent of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa public schools.

"We put on his bus pass that he must be met, which is why we're here," joked Jeanne Briggs, an administrative assistant for the director of transportation.

May 23--Oneonta planners revisited answers pertaining to storm-water drainage, traffic and noise Wednesday night as they continued considering environmental factors of a proposed student housing complex.

The Oneonta Planning Commission, which met in Common Council Chambers at City Hall, is reviewing an Environmental Assessment Form in a mandated State Environmental Quality Review of the proposed Hillside Commons.

Newman Development Group of Vestal proposes building a 330-bed student apartment complex on Blodgett Drive near the State University College at Oneonta.

May 23--The month of May has been designated as Childhood Drowning Prevention Month, by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.

As the summer approaches, parents need to be reminded of water safety.

"Many people don't know the right thing to do in water emergencies or how to keep their loved ones safe in the water," according to a news release from the American Red Cross.

May 23--On the job for less than three weeks, Reading Parking Authority Executive Director Patrick B. Mulligan got his job assignments at Wednesday's board meeting:

Attend Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer's economic development summit today, when Spencer will lay out a plan on how the authorities can help.

"The mayor is asking that this get priority," board member Lawrence P. Murin, also a special assistant to Spencer, said of the parking plans.

May 23--What the last Board of County Commissioners undid on the undeveloped parts of the 2,200-acre Lake Linganore-Eaglehead planned development, this board could now restore.

Oakdale Investments came back for rezoning and a new 25-year contract with the county that sets development rights and responsibilities.

A group of about 20 speakers, representing three times that many people, gave the Frederick County Planning Commission reasons to grant the rezoning and the agreement, and reasons not to.

May 23--The Hutchinson City Council agreed to spend another $15,000 on the effort to save the Southwest Chief Amtrak route across southwest Kansas and to set up a special benefit district to pay for improvements to Ring Levee C west of the city on Tuesday.

The decision on the Southwest Chief keeps Hutchinson in a coalition of cities including Newton, Dodge City, Garden City, Trinidad, Colo., and La Junta, Colo., that have hired the Washington, D.C., law firm of Alston and Bird to lobby Congress for funds to maintain tracks along the route.

City Manager John Deardoff told the council that he can't predict the odds of success, but "we want to be able to say we did all we could."

Piped water has made life easier for this Laotian boy, who no longer has to help his parents fetch water from afar.

But many are also calling on lawmakers to ensure that, during the coming implementation phase, U.S. aid is targeted primarily at the poorest communities in developing and middle-income countries.

"Achieving water security for regions, nations, and individuals is one of the greatest development challenges confronting the world today," the new , released Tuesday by USAID, the country's main foreign aid arm, states.

May 23--NASHVILLE -- A legislative committee Wednesday approved Tennessee's first regulations for the use of "fracking" to extract oil and natural gas from wells after hearing several environmentalist complain the rules don't go far enough.

The vote effectively marks the last hurdle for putting the rules promulgated by the Department of Environment and Conservation into effect next month.

It came after the Republican majority on the Joint Government Operations Committee rejected a Democratic effort to also ask TDEC to consider adding provisions to the rules in the future.

WASHINGTON - House lawmakers are moving to protect Capitol Hill's budget even as they're moving to slash other programs like education, health research, water projects and housing aid for the poor.

The GOP-controlled panel is giving Congress a budgetary reprieve after three consecutive years of cutting Capitol Hill's operating budget.

The House budget has dropped by 15 percent to $1.2 billion over that time from the record levels established when Democrats controlled Congress.

May 22--OLIVIA -- The Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative met all of its water quality requirements while processing a record sugar beet crop in 2013.

Louis Knieper, manager of environmental affairs, told the Renville County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday that the sugar cooperative is making considerable strides in meetings its surface water protection requirements.

Under the terms of a 2004 agreement, Renville County, acting as the ditch authority and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, must approve the permit allowing the company to discharge into County Ditch 45, the headwaters of Sacred Heart Creek.

May 22--The Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors will likely approve tonight a county plan to pursue federal funds to improve the Ettrick train station.

County board Chairwoman Dorothy A. Jaeckle said she's "just about positive" the resolution voicing the board's support for the grant application will pass.

The county would use the funds to upgrade transportation links with the station by paving the parking lot, adding a bus stop and taxi stop, building paths to connect the station with the community and Virginia State University, and widening the road leading to the station.

May 23--An angry crowd of I-77 toll lane opponents booed and shouted down members of the agency that sets Charlotte area road priorities Wednesday night after they were given 10 minutes to say why they feel tolls from Charlotte to Mooresville are a bad idea.

MUMPO later voted unanimously to amend the agency's 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan and 2012-2018 Transportation Improvement Program to include the $550 million toll lane project.

The vote was crucial to the N.C Department of Transportation moving forward with the planned toll lanes.

May 22--A key Rohnert Park nonprofit, Sonoma County Adult and Youth Development, will shut down its homeless prevention program, which the city had funded with redevelopment housing funds that have been eliminated.

SCAYD will continue to offer counseling and youth job education and employment services, but as of June 30 it will stop providing emergency grants for rent, security deposits and household bills.

"The city did what they could considering the deficit they face but there are many people who will be directly affected by this loss," said Jim Gattis, SCAYD's executive director.

Located between Rosalia and Oakesdale, the $17 million

The facility can also unload about 40,000 pounds of grain per hour.

McCoy and Marshall in Spokane County, where the track meets up with the main Burlington Northern Santa Fe line.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's nominee for transportation secretary - Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx - received a friendly reception from senators of both parties Wednesday laced with warnings that the nation needs to make a host of transportation improvements with no clear way to pay for them.

Foxx told a jammed Senate confirmation hearing that he will look for "partners" in local and state government to help find creative ways to finance air, rail and highway improvements.

While senators pressed him for commitments on a host of issues from passenger rail improvements in the Northeast to funding air traffic control towers as small airports, the mayor from North Carolina nimbly steered away from controversy.

New Jersey Transit and PATH rail commuters were plagued with delays of up to an hour during the evening rush hour on Tuesday because of signal problems, spokeswomen for both services said.

NJ Transit suffered the worst of the delays, up to an hour at the height of the rush hour, on its Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Montclair-Boonton lines, in addition to the Midtown Direct service on the Morris and Essex line, said Courtney Carroll, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Carroll said she did not know what caused the signal problems, but that they had occurred on the section of track operated by Amtrak, going into Penn Station in New York City, starting around 5:20 p.m.

May 22--Planners are revamping the Cape Fear region's transportation priorities, and they want the public's help.

The Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which encompasses all of New Hanover County and parts of Brunswick and Pender counties, is asking for public input as part of its Cape Fear Transportation 2040 Plan.

The plan will prioritize transportation projects across various modes, including road, rail, air, bike and pedestrian, among others.

May 22--The head of the South Florida Water Management District resigned Monday, leaving after just two years and creating another leadership shakeup for the far-reaching agency charged with guarding against flooding and leading Everglades restoration.

Melissa Meeker, in a letter to the district board's chairman, said she was stepping aside as executive director after accepting a "new opportunity" that will allow her to focus on "international issues."

She also helped craft a new $880 million Everglades restoration plan aimed at resolving a lingering legal fight over Florida's failure to meet water quality standards.

May 21--A broad group of consumer and environmental advocates, business officials and nonprofit leaders urged Georgia Power to add more renewable energy to its electricity mix over the next two decades.

Georgia Power has no plans to increase its use of solar power beyond a program announced last year.

Clean energy advocates said at a hearing Tuesday that consumers could be saving money and breathing cleaner air if the utility beefed up its renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs.

May 22--RUMFORD -- In February, the Maine Department of Transportation presented its $1.812 billion Work Plan for 2013, 2014 and 2015 to the Legislature.

The bulk of the projects and costs are in Oxford County.

Thirty-five projects from paving to bridge replacement total more than $25.3 million, according to the plan.

May 21--NEW HAVEN -- Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, state Department of Housing Commissioner Evonne Klein, Mayor John DeStefano Jr., and other state and local officials Tuesday announced $13.8 million in grants to fund 11 affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization programs in Connecticut, according to a release.

These investments will bolster economic development and make Connecticut more a more competitive state."

New Haven will receive $1.5 million to expand its Neighborhood Renewal Program to include transitional neighborhoods--blocks situated between stable neighborhoods and those with greater need, the release said.

May 22--TWIN FALLS -- With summer temperatures quickly approaching, it's time to hit the road and soak up the sunshine.

Between individual city's road construction to-do lists and the Idaho Transportation Department's own set of projects, there are more than a dozen bridge resurfacings and reconstructions along with three large junction reconstructions.

Just north of the Perrine Bridge, ITD is in the middle of its second stage of the I-84/U.S.

May 21--SANTA CRUZ -- The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments and the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission are working together to host two workshops in Santa Cruz County to create an integrated land use/transportation plan.

According to the association's population projections, the tri-county region of Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties will grow by more than 150,000 people, 40,000 housing units and nearly 65,000 jobs by the year 2035.

One component of the land use/transportation plan, call the Sustainable Communities Strategy, aims to reduce transportation-generated greenhouse gases during theses growth years and promote new ideas on where people live and the ways they travel.

May 21--In all likelihood, Grays Harbor Transit will be eliminating weekend bus services, citing budget issues.

The change will leave little option, aside from some private taxi services, for public transportation on the Harbor on weekends.

"Our grants that we applied for did not come in like we thought they would," General Manager Mark Carlin told The Daily World.

May 21--The Park District of Highland Park has been awarded $25,997 from the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation to cover 30 percent of an environmentally friendly geothermal heating and cooling system at the Rosewood Beach interpretive center.

Rick Stumpf, the park district's Director of Planning and Projects, said construction on the project is expected to begin in late summer, with an schedule completion of early summer 2014.

The geothermal system consists of a series of wells drilled about 20 feet into the ground, where the earth's temperature remains somewhere between 50-60 degrees throughout the year, Stumpf said.

May 21--CHARLESTON -- Toll booths might some day mushroom along roads across West Virginia, giving motorists in other regions a taste of what driving has cost southern residents nearly six full decades.

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin is expected to get his first look July 1 at ideas put forth by a special panel he created in August to examine long-term highway needs.

Once the Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways issues its preliminary findings, members plan to conduct a number of regional meetings to see what residents across the state think about its proposals.

EU's planned solar duties against China "grave mistake": German vice chancellor

BERLIN, May 20 (Xinhua) -- German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said at the weekend that European Commission's agreement to back a proposal to levy punitive duties on Chinese solar panels is a "grave mistake."

Roesler told Welt am Sonntag newspaper in an interview on Sunday that punitive duties are the wrong instrument to deal with the dispute, adding that he expects the European Commission to prevent an all-out trade conflict and solve the dispute through a negotiation and dialogue.

Three days after a train crash near the Fairfield-Bridgeport line left more than 70 people injured and threw public transportation into near chaos, there's still a lot we don't know.

Investigators are focusing their probe on a small section of rail where one train derailed and collided with another during rush hour Friday.

Three of the injured passengers remained hospitalized Monday at Bridgeport Hospital, one of them in critical condition.

May 21--Sidewalks, streets and other public transportation projects could get a boost in Oak Park if the village receives a federal grant trustees agreed to seek this week that could be worth millions.

The board of trustees Monday supported village staff's application for a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation that would go specifically toward enhancing public infrastructure in the village's downtown districts, which include Lake Street from Harlem Avenue to Euclid Avenue, north and south of Lake Street and public streets that connect the Downtown Oak Park Business District and the Hemingway Business District and the Pleasant District.

The village has applied for the same grant at least two times in the past unsuccessfully, said Village Manager Cara Pavlicek, but Trustee Ray Johnson said Monday some communities apply up to eight times before being rewarded money.

A deadly tornado hit suburban Oklahoma City on Monday.

They're not easy to incorporate in the large computer simulations scientists use to gauge the impact of global warming.

And when scientists ponder the key weather ingredients that lead to twisters, there's still no clear answer about whether to expect more or fewer twisters.

May 21--The light continues to fade at Solar Power Inc.

Reporting another quarterly loss Monday, the Roseville solar-energy developer said it has burned through much of its cash and again warned shareholders it's in danger of going out of business.

Solar Power is a victim of an industrywide bust in the solar business, caused largely by massive overproduction on the part of Chinese solar-panel manufacturers.

May 21--New signals at 46 intersections that adapt to the flow of traffic could reduce congestion significantly in steadily growing Lexington, a study Monday says.

The proposal sets the stage for town leaders to decide if modern technology is a quicker and cheaper way to lessen bottlenecks instead of $80 million in new roads.

"It certainly has the potential to be our long-term solution," Mayor Randy Halfacre said.

It's a sultry day in Naperville, and the heat bounces off the station platform concrete.

Right on cue, warning bells go off and a silver Amtrak train glides in: the California Zephyr, bound for Rocky Mountain country, San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean.

Cross-country train travel maintains a certain romance, and the Zephyr is one of Amtrak's iconic trains that stops in the suburbs.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Commuter rail service between Connecticut and New York City is expected to resume in full by Wednesday morning rush hour, five days after a derailment and crash injured scores of passengers, transit authorities said Monday.

The crash in Fairfield at rush hour Friday evening injured 72 people, including one who remained in critical condition Monday.

Commuters struggled Monday to find transportation, and many commuters reported rides to work and back home far longer than on typical days.

May 21--On Friday evening at rush hour, two Metro-North railroad trains, one heading east out of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, the other heading west out of New Haven toward the Big Apple, approached each other on parallel tracks near Bridgeport.

In the busiest rail corridor in the country, trains pass each other all the time.

That meant the two active tracks were getting a lot of business.

SAUGATUCK, Mich. - The windswept dunes lining Lake Michigan's western shoreline seem to invite peace and serenity.

The point where the Kalamazoo River flows into the great lake has proved a sandy battlefield pitting Aubrey McClendon, co-founder and former CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp., against an active group of locals intent on stopping his residential development plans there.

The Saugatuck Dunes are a local treasure known nationally, a place where artists came to paint for more than a hundred years, but the good vibes end there.

May 20--It's just a 4-mile stretch of country road, but Highway 156 is a vital link between the Monterey Peninsula and the Bay Area -- and now it could become the first toll road north of Los Angeles.

In a report released Thursday, the Transportation Agency for Monterey County says converting the outdated two-lane Highway 156 into a nearby four-lane toll road between Highways 1 and 101 could be mostly paid for by modest tolls, ranging from $1.60 to $2.50 a trip.

The potential impact could extend beyond the Central Coast, creating momentum to build more toll roads statewide, including over the Pacheco Pass parallel to Highway 152 and along Highway 12 through Solano and Contra Costa counties.

Monessen has been sued in two counties over the rezoning of an industrial tract along the Monongahela River where a proposed artist colony headquarters would be located.

The rezoning bans construction of new buildings or industrial facilities within 600 feet of the river.

Plant manager Paul Champagne said the company has pledged to invest $50 million to reopen the plant, adding as many as 180 jobs.