The news at a glance ... United States

Skamania County, Wash.

Volcano death: A man who had previously climbed Mount St. Helens 68 times died this week after he plunged 1,500 feet into the volcano’s crater. Joseph Bohlig, 52, was with a companion and was posing for a picture about five feet from the crater’s edge when the snow cornice he was standing on gave way. He landed, buried in snow, on a 70-degree slope along the south crater wall, and was able to blow his emergency whistle for help. But two separate helicopter efforts to rescue him were thwarted by high winds, unstable rocks, and small avalanches, forcing Bohlig to spend the night in the crater. His body was recovered the next day.

Indianapolis

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Bayh calls it quits: Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana said he would not seek a third term this year, increasing the chances that his party could lose control of the Senate. Bayh is among the Senate’s most prominent centrist Democrats and was on President Obama’s shortlist of vice-presidential candidates in 2008. But this week he said he’s stepping down because the Senate has become paralyzed by “too much brain-dead partisanship and strident ideology.” Bayh’s surprise resignation sparked a new debate about partisanship in Washington, with both parties blaming each other. He’s the third Democratic senator to bow out in recent weeks, following Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, and Democrats fear that they may lose their majority to Republicans.

Lanham, Md.

New nukes: President Obama embraced a new era of nuclear power this week when he announced plans to underwrite the first U.S. nuclear reactors to be built in more than 30 years. In a speech to electrical-union officials, Obama said the White House had approved an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to help Southern Company build two reactors at an existing plant in Burke County, Ga. “Nuclear energy remains our largest source of fuel that procures no carbon emissions,” Obama said. “We’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” There are currently 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S., supplying 20 percent of the country’s energy.

Huntsville, Ala.

Campus slaying: A Harvard-educated neuroscientist, angry that she had been denied tenure, shot six colleagues, killing three of them, during a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville last week, police said. Dr. Amy Bishop had been sitting quietly for about 40 minutes when, witnesses say, she suddenly shot the person sitting next to her with a 9 mm handgun, then methodically shot the others. After her gun apparently jammed, she left the room and was quickly arrested. Two of the surviving victims remain hospitalized in critical condition, while one has been released. In 1986, Bishop shot and killed her brother in Braintree, Mass.; that incident was ruled accidental, but police now plan to reopen the case. Bishop was also questioned in a 1993 case involving an unexploded pipe bomb sent to a colleague at Children’s Hospital Boston.

New York

Clinton hospitalized: Former President Bill Clinton underwent surgery last week to clear a clogged coronary artery, reporting afterward that he felt “absolutely great.” After Clinton, 63, had experienced chest discomfort for several days, doctors found that one of four grafts he received in a quadruple-bypass operation in 2004 was blocked. In an hour-long procedure at New York–Presbyterian/Columbia hospital, surgeons inserted two stents, tiny wire-mesh tubes that help the flow of blood. He was discharged after an overnight stay. Doctors said that Clinton did not have a heart attack and that he hadn’t resorted to his old habit of overindulging in fatty foods. Clinton, who serves as the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, planned to immediately resume his work on Haitian relief.

Savannah, Ga.

Mother discharged: The Army has discharged a single mother who says she did not deploy to Afghanistan because she had nobody to care for her baby. Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old cook stationed at Hunter Army Airfield, reportedly missed her flight last November when her mother reneged on an agreement to care for Hutchinson’s 10-month-old son. She was arrested and could have faced a court-martial. But in the military version of a plea bargain, the Army last week instead demoted her to private, gave her an “other-than-honorable” discharge, and denied her some benefits. More than 70,000 single parents are on active duty in the U.S. military.