One hundred fifty miles south of Denver a helicopter returns with fire managers who viewed the charred landscape from the air.

NPR: Western Wildfires Prompt Thousands of Evacuations

The other was headquartered in a town called Chegdomyn, straddling a rail spur that ran a few hundred miles north from the major city of Khabarovsk, one of the main stops on the Trans-Siberian railroad.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: North Korea, evil as usual

Just 6 weeks after the Costa Concordia ran aground off Italy, another one of their cruise ships, the Costa Allegra has caught fire and is now adrift two hundred miles southwest of the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

FORBES: Fire Breaks Out on Costa Cruise Ship, Vessel Adrift in Indian Ocean

The company that has been producing oil from the tar sands the longest is known as Suncor. (Suncor used to be a part of Sun Oil, now Sunoco, but today it is owned and operated independently.) One day this summer, I went to take a tour of its operations, which sprawl across several hundred square miles.

NEWYORKER: Unconventional Crude