Insect's spread threatens hemlock forests (AP)

CHIMNEY ROCK, N.C. - Within the serene forests that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to southern Appalachia every year, a quiet massacre is under way. A tiny pest small enough to float on the breeze — a bug called the hemlock woolly adelgid — is slowly poisoning the majestic hemlock trees that make up much of the green canopy in the rugged region, threatening the scenery that visitors admire from the overlooks of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the cliffs of Chimney Rock Park. "They ...