Federal agency approves use of Ohio gas pipeline

Federal agency approves use of Ohio gas pipeline

COLUMBUS

A federal agency has given a company permission to begin using completed sections of its high-pressure natural gas pipeline in Ohio.

The Columbus Dispatch reports the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has told Dallas-based Energy Transfer it can use its completed 191-mile long pipeline from Carroll County in eastern Ohio to Defiance in northwest Ohio.

The project is designed to carry 3.25 billion cubic feet of gas per day from Appalachian shale fields to Canada and states in the Midwest, Great Lakes and Gulf Coast.

FERC also gave Energy Transfer permission to use 3.5 miles in Harrison County and 19 miles connecting Harrison County to Carroll County.

NASA’s space champ returns to Earth, logs 665 days aloft

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla

Astronaut Peggy Whitson returned to Earth late Saturday, wrapping up a record-breaking flight that catapulted her to first place for U.S. space endurance.

Whitson’s 665 days off the planet – 288 days on this mission alone – exceeds that of any other American and any other woman worldwide.

She checked out of the International Space Station just hours earlier, along with another American and a Russian. Their Soyuz capsule landed in Kazakhstan shortly after sunrise today — Saturday night back in the U.S.

Whitson was the last one carried from the Soyuz. She immediately received a pair of sunglasses to put on, as she rested in a chair on the barren, wind-swept Kazak steppes. Medical personnel took her pulse, standard practice. She then received a bouquet of flowers with the greeting, “Welcome back, Peggy.”

N. Korea: Leader inspects H-bomb

SEOUL, South Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a new, “super explosive” hydrogen bomb meant to be loaded into an intercontinental ballistic missile, Pyongyang’s state media said today, a claim to technological mastery that many outside experts will question but that raises the possibility of an imminent nuclear bomb test.

Photos released by the North Korean government showed Kim talking with his lieutenants as he observed a silver, peanut-shaped device that was apparently the purported thermonuclear weapon destined for an ICBM. What appeared to be the nose cone of a missile could also be seen near the alleged bomb in one picture, which could not be independently verified and which was taken without outside journalists present. Another photo showed a diagram on the wall behind Kim of a bomb mounted inside a cone.

2 injured at power plant released from hospital; 2 died

SHIPPINGPORT, Pa.

Authorities say two contractors who inhaled toxic fumes at a Pennsylvania power plant that killed two other workers have been released from the hospital.

Enerfab Corp. chief executive officer Scott Anderson says the employees were discharged from the hospital Friday. He says a 43-year-old worker still hospitalized “continues to show signs of improvement.” There was no word on the status of a fourth injured worker.

Police said the contractors were in a “confined, well-type” area at the Bruce Mansfield Power Station in Beaver County when hydrogen sulfide gas was released Wednesday. Police said 34-year-old Kevin Bachner and 42-year-old John Gorchock were unable to reach safety and were killed.

Associated Press