Michael Wines

Oklahoma was rocked Wednesday night by two of the state’s largest earthquakes in recent years, further fueling scientists’ concern that the continued burial of oil and gas wastes in seismically active areas was courting a much more powerful earthquake.

A sharp earthquake in central Oklahoma last weekend has raised fresh concern about the security of a vast crude oil storage complex, close to the quake’s center, that sits at the crossroads of the nation’s oil pipeline network.

The National Forest Service is planning the largest auction of Tongass National Forest trees in a decade, and conservationists have been quick to lash out against the plan -- as loggers and sawmill operators in the area struggle to stay afloat.

Here in West Virginia, residents were still reeling from the chemical spill that left more than 300,000 people without usable water for days, many of them still frightened and unsure whether official assurances that they could once again drink tap water or bathe their children were true.