Colo. requires info on fracking chemicals

Colo. requires info on fracking chemicals

DENVER

Environmentalists and regulators in Colorado will have more information than any state about what chemicals energy companies are pumping into the earth as they try to extract gas from rock formations deep underground.

Starting in April, energy companies will have to disclose the concentrations of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, which some environmentalists and residents fear is contaminating groundwater and tainting the air.

Colorado regulators unanimously approved the new rules Tuesday.

US-born blogger faces Syrian charges

BEIRUT

Syrian authorities have charged a U.S.-born Syrian blogger with trying to incite sectarian strife, activists said Tuesday, while regime forces fired on a funeral procession in a restive northwestern region, capping a bloody day of attacks that left at least 28 people dead.

Razan Ghazzawi is the latest among dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers who have been detained since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began nine months ago, triggering a brutal crackdown that the U.N. estimates has killed more than 5,000 people and put thousands into security lockups.

First suit filed in Nev. copter crash

LAS VEGAS

The first wrongful-death lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Nevada on behalf of the families of a honeymooning couple from India killed in a Las Vegas sightseeing helicopter crash that also took the lives of the pilot and a Kansas couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

The civil lawsuit names Las Vegas-based Sundance Helicopters Inc., the operator of the twilight flight that crashed Dec. 7 near Lake Mead.

US drone crashes in Seychelles

NAIROBI, Kenya

An American military drone that had been used to monitor piracy off the East African coast has crashed at an airport on the island nation of Seychelles during a routine patrol, officials said.

The U.S. Embassy in Mauritius said the unmanned U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper was not armed and that Tuesday’s crash caused no injuries. The crash sparked a fire that was quickly extinguished.

Residents evacuated; water tank cracked

ROCHESTER, N.H.

A fracture and leak in the city’s 1 million-gallon water tank led officials who feared it would collapse to evacuate homes, a nearby pediatrics practice and a small airport Tuesday.

The leak is at the base of the water tank, which is on the ground, not atop a tower, Rochester City Manager Daniel Fitzpatrick said. The tank didn’t appear to be at risk of collapsing, but there was a potential that it could, Fitzpatrick said in an email to city employees.

City officials were draining the green cylindrical tank and advising the city’s 30,000 residents their water pressure would be reduced.

ACLU sues Wis. over photo-ID law

MADISON, Wis.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state of Wisconsin on Tuesday over a new law requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification, charging that the measure violates the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit says that the state is infringing on some citizens’ right to vote and to be treated equally under the law and amounts to a kind of poll tax on voters who lack the documents needed to get an approved ID.

Republican lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker, who is named in the lawsuit along with a long list of other state officials, have said they believe the measure will withstand a court challenge.

Combined dispatches