Eric M Johnson News

Four women dockworkers have filed federal discrimination claims against the shippers' association that runs 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast, saying they unfairly lost pay and seniority after becoming pregnant. Male dockworkers who temporarily left to serve in the armed forces got benefits denied to women on pregnancy leave, one of the workers, Tracy Plummer, said in an interview. Another woman with a complicated medical history said she tried to work during pregnancy for fear of losing seniority and suffered a miscarriage, according to her complaint.

A freight train on a CSX Corp line derailed in southern Pennsylvania on Wednesday, the company said, and local authorities said a freight car struck a garage which caught fire and they ordered the evacuation of nearby residents. No injuries were reported after the derailment in Hyndman, about 100 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The company said trains and shipments would be delayed between Connellsville, Pennsylvania, and Cumberland, Maryland. Harry Corley, an emergency management coordinator for Bedford County, said six cars derailed, crashing into a local garage that caught fire, and was still burning. Corley said he did not know what the train was carrying. A U.S. government agency later said the train was hauling propane tanks.

The U.S. federal government has killed more than 1,000 seabirds on an Oregon island since May to protect endangered salmon as part of a plan that environmentalists say is flawed and are seeking to stop with a lawsuit. So far, 1,221 adult cormorants have been killed and more than 5,000 nests destroyed, U.S. officials said on Friday, adding the killing was expected to continue until mid- to late October when the seabirds migrate for the winter. "Government agents are racing about in their boat blowing birds out of the sky," said Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland. The government workers started culling the birds on May 24 as part of a multi-year plan to kill 11,000 double-crested cormorants, which U.S.

U.S. Coast Guard and police boats cleared a way through protesters in kayaks at a Seattle-area port on Tuesday so a drilling ship could head for the Arctic on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell. The Noble Discover is the second drilling ship Shell has sent to the area in recent days. The activists, who have staged frequent demonstrations during the past two months against Royal Dutch Shell's oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea off mainland Alaska, said 21 protesters in kayaks took to the waters just beyond the Port of Everett north of Seattle where the oil rig launched for sea. The activists had entered the safety zone around the Noble Discover and were intercepted by small boats of the U.S.

U.S. environmental activists said they planned to protest on Tuesday against the launch of the second of two oil rigs central to Shell's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. The Washington state activists, who have staged frequent demonstrations over the last two months against Royal Dutch  Shell's oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea off mainland Alaska, said they expected the rig to leave a Seattle-area port in the early morning and were planning a water-borne protest. Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company could begin drilling for oil in the Arctic off Alaska as early as the third week in July, when it expects sea ice to begin clearing.

Emergency crews recovered on Friday the bodies of nine people from the wreckage of a sightseeing plane that remains teetering on a steep rock face after crashing in Alaska, a rescue official said. Eight passengers and the pilot were killed when the aircraft, an excursion flight booked via a cruise ship, went down during a tour of the Misty Fjords area of southeast Alaska on Thursday afternoon, flight operator Promech Air said. A helicopter pilot spotted the wreckage against a granite rock face about 800 feet (240 meters) above Ella Lake, according to an Alaska State Trooper report. The bodies were recovered by a team of eight crew members…

Seattle activists say police have dismantled a tent on Monday used as a staging area to organize local protests over Royal Dutch Shell Plc's  use of the city's port as a home base for a drilling rig that could depart this week for the Arctic. Over the last month, activists have staged demonstrations against the oil company's Arctic drilling plans, including on May 16 when hundreds of protesters in kayaks and small boats fanned out on a Seattle bay. Seattle police dismantled but did not seize the 16-foot (5-meter) by 32-foot (10-meter) logistics tent central to organizing the launch of a planned rig-stopping flotilla, said Backbone Campaign Executive Director Bill Moyer. He said discussions with the U.S.

Alaska's lone road to North Slope oil field operations remains closed for the third time in two months while emergency crews continue to redirect flooding from an adjacent river, state officials said on Friday. Alaska Governor Bill Walker's office said he would sign a second disaster proclamation while in Deadhorse, the base of operations for several oilfields, after a three-day tour of drill sites that included a fly-over of the flooded area. Production and pipeline operations have not been affected by the closure, said BP Plc spokeswoman Dawn Patience, operator for the Prudhoe Bay field. A 10-mile stretch of the Dalton Highway leading into Deadhorse shut down early on Monday morning and state transportation officials had hoped to re-open the roadway on Friday.

A man missing at sea for 66 days has been rescued in a disabled boat off the North Carolina coast, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday. A German-flagged vessel alerted the Coast Guard at about 1:30 p.m. that it had spotted the 37-year-old man and the vessel some 200 miles (320 km) east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and took him aboard. The man, identified as Louis Jordan of South Carolina, was then airlifted from the ship and was being sent to a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, the Guard said. He was initially reported missing by his family on Jan. 29, the Coast Guard said. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Paul Tait)

A Pacific storm pounded Southern California with heavy rain and high winds on Friday, triggering a small tornado, flash floods and mudslides that prompted the evacuation of hundreds of homes, damaged dozens of others and disrupted passenger rail services along the coast. One person was found dead on Friday in a rain-swollen flood-control channel in the Orange County town of Garden Grove, which could mark the third storm-related fatality on the West Coast since Thursday. Separately, rescue teams saved two people after they were swept away in the fast-moving Los Angeles River near a homeless encampment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in Twitter messages.

A faulty Valve Pump station at a Petroleum Pipeline Ruptured Early on Thursday in an Industrial corner of Los Angeles, spewing Crude Oil 40 Feet (12 meters) into the Air, onto the Roof of a strip club next door, and leaving four people sick from the fumes. An Estimated 10,000 gallons of Oil gushed from the Pipeline before it was shut down and the spill was halted, soaking an Area about a half-Block Long, Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Jaime Moore Said. The Company that runs the Pipeline, Plains All American Pipeline LP, a Unit of Plains Pipeline LP, put the Volume of the spill at "less than 450 barrels (18,900 gallons)" based on Current field Inspections.

A Mexican man convicted in the 2012 killing of a U.S. Coast Guard officer, the first on-duty death since 1927, was sentenced on Monday to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole, a newspaper reported. A federal jury had convicted 42-year-old Jose Meija-Leyva, of Ensenada, of second-degree murder, among other charges, in the death of Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III, the U.S. Attorney's office said in February. "The defendant had a choice to simply flee and attempt to evade capture, but chose to aggressively attempt to disable the Coast Guard small boat before making his getaway," prosecutors argued, according to the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

China hit back at the United States over the disputed South China Sea on Tuesday, after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said recent Chinese moves in the waters were "provocative". Tensions rose in the resource-rich sea last week after China moved a giant oil rig into an area also claimed by Vietnam. Each country accused the other of ramming its ships near the disputed Paracel Islands. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting rival claims to parts of it from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. "He (Kerry) said China's introduction of an oil rig and numerous government vessels in waters disputed with Vietnam was provocative," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.