Steam

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

Note: Talk about a simple recipe. Talk about fabulous taste. Times Food Editor Russ Parsons wrote in June about the easy trick of steaming salmon in the oven, a technique he learned years ago from Paula Wolfert. Spring's wild salmon, which has a "rambunctious" taste, Parsons wrote, is ideal for this recipe. Yet any salmon filet will do; served with the cucumber salad, this dish is a natural for stress-free entertaining. Active Work Time: 5 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 25 minutes * Easy 1 (3-pound)

I found "Scotland By Train" very interesting. The antique steam engines have been restored to operation by Britain's steam enthusiasts. Their ranks have grown during the last few years as an active hobby and are only outnumbered by gardeners and fishermen. To add to the variety of routes and locations of steam train travel, British Rail just announced that steam will return to the North Wales route for the first time in 20 years, with travel from Crewe, England, to Holyhead, Wales. This exciting development will allow some of the finest preserved engines to flex their power.

Sacramento might not have a major league baseball team, but the commissioner will pay close attention to a battle there this week between the Angels and StubHub. At issue: Who owns a ticket? Long gone are the days when fans had to buy tickets at the box office or from the neighborhood scalper. As teams shift from paper tickets to bar codes - for downloading and printing at home or scanning from a smartphone - technology enables any fan to be a ticket broker. The Angels and StubHub are the latest combatants in a national debate over whether teams and concert venues can control what fans do with a ticket once they buy it. At stake: the $4 billion fans spend each year to buy sport and concert tickets from parties other than the original seller, according to the Sports Business Journal.

There's something missing in many American kitchens that always has been an essential cooking tool in the kitchens in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and countless other parts of the world. Remember the pressure cooker? Is it finally slowly being rediscovered? Again? "It's a cycle, and the cycle has turned with more women in the work field . . .

San Diego Gas & Electric plans to eventually close an uneconomical, underground steam system that has supplied steam to as many as 100 downtown buildings during the past 46 years. The steam loop, which sends wisps of steam up through manhole covers throughout downtown, now serves 41 customers, including Home Federal Savings & Loan, the Westgate Hotel, the San Diego County Courthouse and the City Concourse, most of which use it to heat air and water.

In the last seconds before everything degenerated into tourists' shrieks, mariachi bands and great hisses of steam that made words impossible, two of the great old locomotives of the past met Friday afternoon on railroad tracks northeast of downtown. One coming from the west, the other from the east, the two steam locomotives traveled side by side Friday for the last half-mile of railroad tracks into Union Station to kick off the terminal's 50th anniversary celebration. The locomotives had thundered through mountain and desert to get to Union Station, where a crowd of about 1,000 railroad buffs, spectators and workers cheered as the two pampered survivors of the age of steam came to rest.

Let's face it. When it comes to a spa visit, men frequently get the short end of the loofah. No amount of salt crystals and elbow grease can scrub away the fact that the spa experience is predominantly tailored to pamper, knead, wax and unwind women. But there are some local places where guys can comfortably cool their calloused heels, seek out some steam and solitude, and kick back for a few hours without feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Here are a few worth exploration: Beverly Hot Springs If the possibilities emanating from naturally heated, mineral-rich waters bubbling up from 2,200 feet below the surface of Los Angeles, a bubbling man-made rock waterfall and the warming sun streaming through a skylight into a hushed grotto just off Beverly Boulevard in East Hollywood don't nudge you toward Nirvana, you'll probably never get there.

SACRAMENTO — California's largest oil company failed to warn employees of the dangers in an oil field where a worker was sucked underground and boiled to death last year, state authorities found — and then they fined the firm $350. The small regulatory penalty, levied after a first investigation cleared Chevron, has angered labor leaders and reignited a debate over the risks of the extraction technique that led to the worker's death. The method, in which a rush of steam heats the ground and loosens oil deposits, yields much of California's crude.

A U.S. Open tennis tournament that had something for everybody this year offered up one more juicy tidbit on its last day Monday. Roger Federer lost. That hasn't happened here in six years and 40 matches. He's like USC with a lead at halftime, Tiger with a five-foot putt. But the man who played in all four Grand Slam tournament finals this year, winning the French Open and Wimbledon and extending his men's record for most major titles to 15, ran up against a new sheriff in town.

SAN ANTONIO - On the court here, surrounded by hostile screams and rattling balloons and at least one dude in a black Lucha Libre mask, the new Lakers were struggling to find themselves. Back in Newport Beach, their 140-character coach was doing his best to help. “Matador Defense on Parker. His penetration is hurting us.” “Gotta milk Pau in the post right now and D12. Will get good looks from it.” “Post. Post. Post.” Those were the direct quotes of Kobe Bryant sitting at home with his surgically repaired left leg elevated and his dander up during the Lakers' 91-79 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday in the playoff opener.

On night two of "The Voice" Season 4 battle rounds, six more sets of singers squared off in the ring, and the coaches listened closely, waiting for the right time -- the right person -- to steal.  Usher again proved himself to be a different sort of coach than we've seen on the show before: more exacting, less nurturing, willing to try a few tricks to elicit the best performances from his singers, a serious combatant, uninterested in joking around....

Most wildflower lovers set off on foot to find blooms along trails during spring in California. But those who travel to Gold Country near Sonora will have the option of hopping a vintage steam train to see blooms in style. Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown, which houses vintage trains and rail cars as well as a historic roundhouse, is offering Wildflower Train Rides on April 13 and 20. Rides are aboard the "movie star locomotive" (so named because it's been in so many films)

Put a bunch of brand new, high-tech tennis rackets in front of a handful of pretty good middle-aged 4.0 players (7.0 being Roger Federer and 1.0 being an untrained monkey), and they won't care what kind of Nobel Prize-winning innovations went into building them. But they will tell you what works. Here's how they rated the hottest new tennis technology, all about $200 retail, on a cold winter night in suburbia under the lights. The spinner Wilson Steam 99S: New racket with the fewest horizontal strings on the market (15, compared with the normal 19 or 20)

In response to a complaint filed by a former San Diego city attorney, an administrative judge with the California Public Utilities Commission has given Southern California Edison a March 15 deadline to file an accounting of its costs to replace steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear plant. The commission did not agree, however, to immediately stop collecting funds from ratepayers for the project. Problems with the replacement steam generators - installed in 2010 and 2011 - led to a shutdown of the plant that has stretched on for more than a year.

I know, it's a shame I didn't tell you about the Piggy Steamer in time to order it for Valentine's Day. Those are the breaks. This multipurpose silicone lid from the 141-year-old Japanese company Marna would make any cook of your acquaintance giggle. The piggy face lid covers a pot or floats on the surface of a soup to keep the contents from boiling too vigorously, and all the while, steam comes out the piggy's snout. Kind of like the "dragon's breath" at the Bazaar by José Andrés . Microwave, freezer and dishwasher-safe, this little piggy comes in four colors -- classic pink, white, black and yellow, at least on the Japanese company's site.

Attempts to control a nuclear reactor that exploded after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in northern Japan continued Sunday using sea water injections and steam releases to cool the reactor, authorities said. Photos: Scenes from the earthquake Friday's quake and tsunami left the No.1 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi power plant with a crippled cooling system, causing the reactor temperature and pressure to increase. "We are doing the two things at the same time - venting air out of the reactor and supplying water into the reactor," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said during a Sunday press conference broadcast and streamed live online by NHK. "Radiation released in the process is low enough not to affect people's health," Edano said.

  Total time: 35 to 50 minutes, plus soaking times for the rice Servings: 6 Note: This recipe is adapted from one by Nancie McDermott in her book "Real Vegetarian Thai. " She recommends the slender Thai oke loeng mangoes, which are unavailable here, but vendor Lampai Poomsuke finds Manila mangoes equally delicious. Long-grain sticky rice, also called glutinous or sweet rice, can be found at most Asian markets. Two good brands of canned coconut milk are Mae Ploy (which is creamier)

If what two federal lawmakers say is true, there's more to the shutdown at the San Onofre nuclear plant than the public has been told. According to Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a leaked internal report by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which manufactured the problem-riddled steam generators that forced the shutdown, indicates that concerns about the generators' design were raised before they were even installed but that only minimal fixes were made. Southern California Edison, which owns the plant, denies this, which leaves ratepayers and the public in the dark.

Southern California Edison, the operator of the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant, pushed back against two federal lawmakers who said that the utility company was aware of defects in the plant's replacement steam generators before they were installed. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week saying that a leaked report from steam generator manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries showed that Edison and Mitsubishi knew of problems with the design.