Pennsylvania

Plant experts predict widespread wheat scab

Plant experts are predicting a widespread outbreak of wheat scab, a fungus that withers the grain and produces a chemical that can sicken humans and livestock.

Wheat scab, also known as Fusarium head blight, is present every year in small amounts but this year probably will cover crops from the mid-Atlantic to as far west as Missouri or Arkansas, said Erick DeWolf, assistant professor of plant pathology at Penn State University. The disease, a brown filmlike covering, is already abundant in Virginia.

The fungus robs the grain of nutrients, turning the kernels into pale, pruned ghosts of their potential selves. It also produces a chemical called deoxynivalenol, or vomitoxin, that poses a health risk to both human beings and animals.

Colorado

Driver found dead after bulldozer rampage

Friends said Marvin Heemeyer hadn’t been seen much lately, and now they know why: He was turning a bulldozer into an armor-plated vehicle that was impervious to SWAT team bullets.

On Friday, the muffler shop owner drove his contraption through town and within two hours had knocked down or damaged nine buildings before the machine ground to a halt in the wreckage of a warehouse. He then apparently shot himself, said Grand County Sheriff Rod Johnson. No one else was injured.

City officials said Heemeyer was angry over a zoning dispute and fines for city code violations at his business in the town about 50 miles west of Denver.

On Saturday, crews used a crane to remove Heemeyer’s body from the improvised tank.

Connecticut

USS Jimmy Carter sub christened at shipyard

President Carter was filled with emotion Saturday as the most advanced nuclear submarine in the U.S. Navy was named after him at a Connecticut shipyard.

“This is a very wonderful day for me, to see my wife break the champagne on undoubtedly the finest and most formidable ship in the world,” said Carter, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the only submariner to be elected president.

Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, blessed the Seawolf-class nuclear submarine and its crew, then hesitated for a moment before cracking the bottle of champagne against the sail of the USS Jimmy Carter.

Amid much fanfare and cheers, a crowd of 4,500 Navy personnel, submarine workers and their families gathered at the Electric Boat shipyard for Saturday’s christening ceremony.

Seattle

Lowest tides in 19 years draw throngs to beach

From barnacles to limpets, crabs and sea stars, the lowest tides in 19 years are revealing all sorts of unusual creatures trapped in tidepools — to the delight of beach-combing masses.

Hundreds of people hit the sands Friday, with many more expected to head out over the weekend.

There are 36 factors that affect the tides, from the Earth’s proximity to the sun and the moon to the moon’s angle in relation to the equator, said Richard Strickland, who teaches oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Every 19 years, those factors line up just so — creating the lowest low tides and the greatest differences between low and high tides, he said. Virtually everywhere outside of the tropics will have seen the lowest low tides in 19 years between about Friday and today, he said.