Travel briefs: Green hotels, teacher shortage, retirement tryout, airline fares

U.S. hotel companies are competing to out-green each other nowadays. The proof? In the past few weeks, two major chains have announced ambitious environmental goals. On April 14, Marriott Inter-national announced that it had retooled its 31-year-old Bethesda, Md., headquarters to win LEED Gold status the second-highest environmental rating awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council and …