Yesterday, the French agency BEA, which investigates airplane accidents, released its final report on the fall of Air France 447 in June 2009. After three years of analysis and millions of dollars to recover the plane's black boxes from the South Atlantic Ocean, which I covered for the New...

Whatever else one thinks of Yucca Mountain, the view from on top is breathtaking: To the west, you can spot Mount Whitney, the highest point in the continental U.S.; to the south, Death Valley, the nation's lowest point; and in between, and all around, the sweeping vista of the Amargosa...

Way up high in the Shenandoah Mountains where I live, it is difficult to maintain illusions about the natural world.

It is dying.

Maybe this is hard to see from a distance. Maybe from the confines of Senator Inhofe's dank office in Washington, D.C., or the musty bowels of the...