AP - J.D. Salinger supposedly spent the latter half of his life writing for his own pleasure, composing each day in a pine house in the hills that overlooked towering maple trees, plowed hay fields and the neighboring mountains of Vermont.

AP - Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, now taints at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — raising concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants.

AP - In the small New Hampshire town where recluse J.D. Salinger hid from the world, he lived in bucolic isolation in a hilltop home with commanding southerly views across the Connecticut River, Vermont's ski resorts visible in the distance.