LIVE
Home Blog Page 2006

Bezos Sues Nasa Over Deal With Elon Musk’s Spacex

Angel Gimalo
-
0
Bezos Sues Nasa Over Deal With Elon Musk’s Spacex

Jeff Bezos’s space firm Blue Origin is suing Nasa over a decision to award a $2.9bn (£2.1bn) lunar lander contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The former Amazon boss’s firm said there were “fundamental issues” with the deal, calling it unfair.

The row stems from a decision in April to hand the deal to one company, not two as expected, because of a funding shortfall.

Nasa is yet to comment, but it has the backing of a federal watchdog.

In a court filing on Friday, Blue Origin said it continued to believe that two providers were needed to build the landing system, which will carry astronauts down to the Moon’s surface as early as 2024.

It also accused Nasa of “unlawful and improper evaluation” of its proposals during the tender process.

“We firmly believe that the issues identified in this procurement and its outcomes must be addressed to restore fairness, create competition and ensure a safe return to the Moon for America,” Blue Origin said.

At the time of the award, Nasa’s human exploration chief, Kathy Lueders, admitted that the space agency’s current budget precluded it from selecting two companies. That was after Congress granted it only $850m of the $3.3bn it requested for the project.

Nasa also cited the proven record of orbital missions by Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm as a factor in the award. Cost is also thought to have played a role: SpaceX’s bid was the lowest-priced by some distance.

In July, Mr Bezos offered to cover up to $2bn of Nasa’s costs in order to be reconsidered for the contract, but he was rebuffed.

US watchdog the Government Accountability Office (GAO), meanwhile, rejected a complaint from Blue Origin and defence contractor Dynetic, saying that Nasa had not “acted improperly” in handing the contract to just one firm.

Nasa must file a response to the legal action by 12 October. SpaceX is yet to comment on the lawsuit.

Under its Artemis programme, Nasa hopes to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.

Astronomers See Galaxies In Ultra-High Definition

Angel Gimalo
-
0
Astronomers See Galaxies In Ultra-High Definition

Astronomers have captured some of the most detailed images ever seen of galaxies in deep space.

They are in much higher definition than normal and reveal the inner workings of galaxies in unprecedented detail.

Many of the images could yield insights into the role of black holes in star and planet formation.

The researchers say that the pictures will transform our understanding of how galaxies evolve.

The images are of the radio waves emitted by the galaxies. Researchers often study the radio waves from astronomical objects rather than the visible light they give off because it enables them to see things that would otherwise be blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere or dust and gas in faraway galaxies.

Many regions of space that are dark to our eyes, actually burn brightly in the radio waves they give off. This allows astronomers to peer into star-forming regions or into the heart of galaxies.

What is new is that the team has dramatically improved the resolution of radio images by linking together more than 70,000 small antennae spread across nine European counties.

US Factory Production Rebounds At Fastest Pace In 4 Months

Angel Gimalo
-
0
US Factory Production Rebounds At Fastest Pace In 4 Months

U.S. factory production in July posted the strongest gain in 4 months, reflecting a surge in production at auto plants that are still wrestling with major supply chain problems.

Manufacturing output increased 1.4% last month following a decline of 0.3% in June, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday. It was the best showing since a 3.4% gain in March.

Overall, industrial production — which includes manufacturing, utilities and mining — posted a 0.9% increase, the best performance since a 2.8% surge in March.

OXNARD, CALIF. — FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2015: Rio Mesa HS students at Haas Automation in Oxnard, Calif., on Oct. 2, 2015. (Brian van der Brug / {NAM})

The mining sector, which includes oil and gas production, rose 1.2% as producers continued to ramp up production in response to rising prices for crude oil.

Output in the utility sector fell 2.1% in July, as near record-high temperatures in the West were offset by cooler temperatures in other parts of the country.

About half of the 1.4% gain in manufacturing output came from a 11.2% rise in the productions of motor vehicles and parts, reflecting the fact that many auto plants trimmed or cancelled their typical shutdowns in July for retooling.

The Fed reported that auto production continues to be constrained by a persistent shortage of computer chips.

While the gain in factory output in July was double what had been expected, many economists said that output in coming months will likely moderate given the on-going problems with supply chains and labor shortages.

Traction motors stand before being installed on General Electric Co. (GE) Evolution Series Tier 4 diesel locomotives at the GE Manufacturing Solutions facility in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016. The U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to release durable goods figures on October 27. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

“With many sectors still suffering from severe shortages of raw materials and workers, we suspect growth will slow again over the coming months,” said Andrew Hunger, senior US. economist at Capital Economics.

With the 0.9% gain in July, overall industrial production is now 6.6% above its July 2020 level but still 0.2% below its February 2020 pre-pandemic peak. However, the manufacturing sector is now 0.8% above its pre-pandemic peak.

Industries operated at 76.1% of capacity in July, up from 75.4% of capacity in June.

In addition to the strong gain in auto and parts production, machinery output was up 1.9% in July, computers and electronics showed a 1.1% gain and aircraft production rose 1.9%.

Thousands Evacuated In French Riviera Due To Forest Fire

Angel Gimalo
-
0
Thousands Evacuated In French Riviera Due To Forest Fire

French President Emmanuel Macron said firefighters have been able to “stabilize” the blaze that raced Tuesday through forests near the French Riviera, forcing thousands of people to flee homes, campgrounds and hotels in a picturesque area beloved by residents and tourists alike.

It was the latest blaze in a summer of wildfires that have swept across the Mediterranean region, leaving areas in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Algeria and Spain in smoldering ruins.

The wildfire started Monday evening, in the height of France’s summer vacation season, about 40 kilometers (24 miles) inland from the coastal resort of Saint-Tropez.

Fueled by powerful seasonal winds coming off the Mediterranean, the fire had spread across 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of forest by Tuesday morning, according to the Var regional administration.

Some 6,000 people were evacuated from homes and a dozen campgrounds while others were locked down in a holiday center for Air France employees. At least 22 people suffered from smoke inhalation or minor fire-related injuries and two firefighters were among the injured, officials said.

Macron, who has been vacationing in a nearby coastal fortress, visited the fire zone on Tuesday.

“The worst has been avoided,” Macron said, praising the efforts of over 900 firefighters and the deployment of 11 water-dumping planes.

The destroyed landscape is “absolutely terrible in terms of biodiversity and of natural heritage … but lives have been protected,” he said.

Water-dumping planes and emergency helicopters zipped back and forth Tuesday over hills lined with chestnut, pine and oak trees. Images shared online by firefighters showed black plumes of smoke leaping across thickets of trees as the flames darted across dry brush.

Carlo Zaglia, spokesman for the region’s firefighters, described “a violent fire” raging in the low mountain range of the Maures, making it “very difficult for firefighters to reach the trees and battle the fire.”

One evacuee told France-Bleu that smoke enveloped his car as he returned to his campsite and he barely had time to grab his baby daughter’s milk and basic belongings before fleeing. Another told BFM television about escaping as his hotel caught fire.

Local authorities closed roads, blocked access to forests and urged caution. Officials warned that the fire risk would remain very high through Wednesday because of hot, dry weather. Temperatures have reached 40 degrees C (104 F) in recent days.

Such extreme weather is expected happen more frequently as the planet is warming. Climate scientists say there’s little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms.

Intense heat and wildfires have also struck other Mediterranean countries in recent weeks, with fires killing at least 75 people in Algeria and 16 in Turkey.

In Greece on Tuesday, hundreds of firefighters backed by water-dropping planes were battling a large forest fire that forced the evacuation of a nursing home and several villages northwest of Athens. Hundreds of wildfires have burned across Greece t his month, fueled by the country’s longest and most severe heat wave in decades.

Also Tuesday, Israeli firefighters worked for a third consecutive day to contain a wildfire that has consumed a large swath of forest west of Jerusalem.

Worsening drought and heat — linked to climate change — have also fueled wildfires this summer in the western United States and in Russia’s northern Siberia region.

Today in History – August 17 – 38th Parallel Demarcates North Korea And South Korea

Angel Gimalo
-
0
Today in History – August 17 – 38th Parallel Demarcates North Korea And South Korea

1590 Governor of Roanoke Island colony, John White, returns from England to find no trace of the colonists he had left there 3 years earlier [or Aug 18, 1591]

1903 Joe Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University & begins the Pulitzer Prizes in America

1945 Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declare Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) independent from the Netherlands

1945 Korean Peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel north from 1945 until 1950 and along the Military Demarcation Line from 1953 to present.

1947 The Radcliffe Line, the border between Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan is revealed

1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony he had an “improper physical relationship” with the intern and on the same day admits before the nation he “misled people” about the relationship

Today in Film & TV

1979 “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” directed by Terry Jones, starring Graham Chapman, Mickael Palin, & John Cleese, premieres in US theaters

Today in Music

1876 Richard Wagner’s opera “Götterdämmerung” premieres in Bayreuth

Today in Sport

1933 MLB player Lou Gehrig plays record 1,308th consecutive game

Do you know this fact about today? Did You Know?

Projection in Paris of the very first animated cartoon, Fantasmagorie realized by Émile Cohl

California Drought Takes Toll On World’s Top Almond Producer

Angel Gimalo
-
0
California Drought Takes Toll On World’s Top Almond Producer

As temperatures recently reached triple digits, farmer Joe Del Bosque inspected the almonds in his parched orchard in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, where a deepening drought threatens one of the state’s most profitable crops.

Del Bosque doesn’t have enough water to properly irrigate his almond orchards, so he’s practicing “deficit irrigation” — providing less water than the trees need. He left a third of his farmland unplanted to save water for the nuts.

And he may pull out 100 of his 600 acres (243 hectares) of almond trees after the late summer harvest — years earlier than planned.

“We may have to sacrifice one of them at the end of the year if we feel that we don’t have enough water next year,” said Del Bosque, who also grows melons, cherries and asparagus. “That means that the huge investment that we put in these trees is gone.”

A historic drought across the U.S. West is taking a heavy toll on California’s $6 billion almond industry, which produces roughly 80% of the world’s almonds. More growers are expected to abandon their orchards as water becomes scarce and expensive.

Almond orchards are thirsty permanent crops that need water year-round, clashing with worsening drought and intensifying heat waves tied to climate change.

Scientists say climate change has made the American West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will keep making weather more extreme.

California almond production grew from 370 million pounds (nearly 168 million kilograms) in 1995 to a record 3.1 billion pounds (1.4 billion kilograms) in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

During that period, land planted with almond trees grew from 756 square miles (1,958 square kilometers) to 2,500 square miles (6,475 square kilometers).

In May, the USDA projected that California’s almond crop would hit a record 3.2 billion pounds (1.5 billion kilograms) this year, but in July, it scaled back that estimate to 2.8 billion pounds (1.3 billion kilograms), citing low water availability and record heat.

“A lot of growers are having to go through a stressful time to make the water they have last to keep their trees alive,” said Richard Waycott, president and CEO of the Almond Board of California, which represents more than 7,600 growers and processors.

Almonds are California’s top agricultural export. The industry ships about 70% of its almonds overseas, fueled by strong demand in India, East Asia and Europe, according to the board.

Largest Wildfire Moves Near California City

Angel Gimalo
-
2
Largest Wildfire Moves Near California City

Firefighters faced dangerously windy weather Tuesday as they struggled to keep the nation’s largest wildfire from moving toward a Northern California city and other small mountain communities.

Forecasters issued red flag warnings of critical fire weather conditions including gusts up to 40 mph (64 kph) from late morning to near midnight.

The warnings came after the Dixie Fire grew explosively from winds spawned by a new weather system that arrived Monday afternoon. It was about 8 miles (12.8 kilometers) from Susanville, population about 18,000, early Tuesday, said fire spokesman Doug Ulibarri.

Numerous resources were put into the Susanville area, where residents were warned to be ready to evacuate, said Mark Brunton, an operations section chief.

“It’s not out of play, and the next 24 hours are going to be crucial to watch as to what the fire is going to do there,” he told an online briefing.

To the east, spot fires became established south of the small community of Janesville, which had been ordered evacuated. Some structures were lost there, but a surge of firefighters was able to herd the fire around the majority of the town, Brunton said.

Firefighting managers warned to expect spot fires to up to 1 mile (1.61 kilometers) ahead of the main fire, said Ulibarri.

The Dixie Fire is the largest of nearly 100 major wildfires burning across more than a dozen Western states that have seen historic drought and weeks of high temperatures and dry weather that have left trees, brush and grasslands as flammable as tinder.

Climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Susanville is the seat of Lassen County and the largest city that the Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started, has approached since it broke out last month. The former Sierra Nevada logging and mining town has two state prisons, a nearby federal lockup and a casino.

Ash fell from the advancing fire and a Police Department statement urged residents “to be alert and be ready to evacuate” if the fire threatens the city, although no formal evacuation warning had been issued.

The weather forecast prompted Pacific Gas & Electric to warn that it might cut off power to 48,000 customers in portions of 18 California counties from Tuesday evening through Wednesday afternoon to prevent winds from knocking down or hurling debris into power lines and sparking new wildfires.

Most of those customers are in Butte and Shasta counties, which have seen a number of deadly and devastating wildfires in recent years, including the Dixie Fire.

The Dixie Fire has scorched more than 940 square miles (2,434 square kilometers) in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades since it ignited on July 13 and eventually merged with a smaller blaze called the Fly Fire. It’s less than a third contained.

Opinions Vary On Vice-Chancellors Position In Nigerian Universities

Rhoda Onuzulike
-
0
Opinions Vary On Vice-Chancellors Position In Nigerian Universities

Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, former Provost College of Medicine, University of Lagos, have both offered different opinions as concerns recognising a medical postgraduate fellowship as PhD degree for the position of a Vice-Chancellor in Nigerian universities.

The Senate representative on the Joint Council and Senate Selection Committee for the appointment of the Lagos State University’s 9th VC, Prof. Fidelis Njonkama, recently resigned after he failed to convince the Governing Council to include postgraduate Medical Fellowship as one of the criteria for the appointment of a substantive VC for LASU.

Osodeke, in an interview, maintained that a PhD was not the same as post graduate medical fellowship, saying PhD was academic while fellowship was professional.

“The university said that the minimum requirement is a PhD and medical fellowship is not the same and not equal. In the medical profession, they are saying it is medical fellowship but there are many people who have PhD in medical science. So, it is not correct, they are different field, one is professional and the other is academic. For example, ICAN is a professional certificate it is not the same thing as PhD. they are completely different. If LASU says that the minimum requirement they want is a PhD then the person who has a medical fellowship cannot say he has a PhD nor a person who is ICAN certified cannot say he has a PhD. I think we should get it right. The council has a right to set the minimum qualification they want.”

On the contrary, Ogunsola who was also a former Deputy Vice-Chancellor, UNILAG, said globally, medical professionals did not require a PhD but a fellowship to work in a university.

“When others are employed into a university, their entrance is by PhD but we come in with a fellowship. By the time the university has promoted you to a Professor, they cannot turn around and say because we didn’t accept you as a PhD you can’t become a VC they never had that contract with the medics. It is all over the world, in most places medics don’t do PhD, that is not how we come in. You can’t use a PhD to work in a university as a medical person and say you’re a surgeon. You cannot train medical students based on PhD; you don’t have the local standing. What brings you into the university is your fellowship, Now, what is a PhD? It is a degree that says you have been trained in doing research.
“The medical fellowship has incorporated into it research because you must do dissertation and even if you say the dissertation they did is not as long as the PhD, these professors have However, last week Friday, LASU rescinded its decision to make a PhD degree criteria for Medical and Dental professionals who wishes to apply for the VC position in the institution.spent a long time in the university and have advanced based on doing research,” she said.
However, last week Friday, LASU rescinded its decision to make a PhD degree criteria for Medical and Dental professionals who wishes to apply for the VC position in the institution.

Portugal Wildfire Forces Evacuation Of People

Angel Gimalo
-
0
Portugal Wildfire Forces Evacuation Of People

Hundreds of Portuguese firefighters on Tuesday struggled to control a blistering blaze that broke out in southern Portugal the day before, forcing the evacuation of around 60 people.

Portugal is the latest European nation to face extreme weather and fierce fires, which climate scientists warn will become increasingly common due to man-made global warming.

Firefighters managed to control the wildfire that broke out early Monday morning near the Spanish border in the touristic region of Algarve, but the blaze picked up again in the afternoon, spreading across around 3,000 hectares.

“The fire is progressing with intensity,” a local official of the national authority for civil protection said.

One firefighter was sent to hospital after being burned and two others were treated after inhaling smoke.

An agricultural building perched on a hill surrounded by orchards was engulfed by the flames, according to local reports.

As the flames spread through pine forests towards the coast, authorities closed the motorway that crosses Algarve, which remained cut off on Tuesday.

Faced with scorching temperatures, the government decided on Monday to extend the fire alert in place since Friday by 48 hours.

Spain, Italy, Greece, Algeria and Turkey have all experienced heatwaves and devastating wildfires this summer.

In 2017, fires killed dozens of people in Portugal.

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation To Go Commercial Within Six Months

Angel Gimalo
-
0
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation To Go Commercial Within Six Months

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will become a commercial company within six months, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva said on Tuesday.

This follows the signing of the Petroleum Industry Bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday.

Sylva, who was speaking at a press conference in Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital said a transitional committee is already in place to incorporate NNPC Limited.

All shares in NNPC Limited are expected to be vested in the government at incorporation and held by the Ministry of Finance.

Sylva noted that although the new petroleum act has deregulated the oil sector, subsidy policies will remain in place till further notice.

He said an implementation framework for actual deregulation will be established to mitigate the impact on ordinary Nigerians.

1...2,0052,0062,007...2,558Page 2,006 of 2,558
Kingschat

© 2025 LN247. All Rights Reserved