| | |
| Next-generation GPS satellite launched into orbit Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 06:58 PM PST  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A U.S. Global Positioning System satellite was launched into orbit on Thursday, buttressing a 31-member navigation network in constant use by the military, civilian agencies and commercial customers worldwide. The satellite, built by Boeing, was carried into space aboard an unmanned Delta 4 rocket, which blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 8:59 p.m. EST/0159 Friday GMT. The Delta 4 rocket was built and launched by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, under contract with the U.S. Air Force. Once in position 12,000 miles above the planet, the new satellite will replace a 16-year-old member of the GPS constellation, one that already has lasted more than twice as long as expected. Full Story | Top |
| California senate leader: Carbon tax would return revenue to poor, transit Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 06:54 PM PST By Rory Carroll SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A carbon tax proposal outlined on Thursday by California Senate leader Darrell Steinberg would raise an estimated $3.6 billion in its first year, revenue he said would go into the pocketbooks of the state's poorest residents as well as public transportation. The tax, which would apply to fuels like gasoline, would start at 15 cents a gallon in 2015 and rise to 24 cents a gallon in 2020, Steinberg said in a speech at the Sacramento Press Club. Poverty in the state is growing and money raised by the tax would be returned to low- and moderate-income working people via a federal tax credit, Steinberg said. The tax would halt plans to bring fuels under the state's cap and trade program next year, a policy that since the beginning of 2013 has regulated the emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from large stationary sources, such as power plants and cement factories. Full Story | Top |
| Vitol pays $2.6 billion for Shell's Australian refinery, petrol stations Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 06:46 PM PST  By Byron Kaye and Cezary Podkul SYDNEY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Vitol SA is buying Royal Dutch Shell's Australian downstream businesses for about A$2.9 billion ($2.6 billion) in its biggest acquisition, as the oil trader looks to grab a share of the country's lucrative oil product market. The purchase, which includes a refinery and 870 service stations plus Shell's bulk fuels, bitumen and chemicals businesses, will pit Swiss-based Vitol against rival Trafigura Beheer , which became Australia's largest independent fuel retailer last year. Australia has become one of Asia's biggest fuel importers as oil majors have shut older refineries and turned away from the relatively small market in favor of higher yielding opportunities elsewhere. Shell, attempting to win round investors after a major profit warning early this year, said in January it was targeting $15 billion of disposals over the next two years as it tries to deliver more attractive returns to shareholders. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. proposes new safety rules for farm pesticide use Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 05:55 PM PST Farm workers, children and other people working or living near farm fields would have more protection from hazardous pesticides under changes proposed on Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Today marks an important milestone for the farm workers who plant, tend, and harvest the food that we put on our tables each day," Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator, said in a statement. EPA is proposing revisions to the agency's 22-year-old "Worker Protection Standard" that EPA officials say will help protect approximately 2 million U.S. farm workers and their families from exposure to pesticides used to protect crops from weeds, insects, and disease. The EPA said pesticides are beneficial tools in agriculture when used in proper concentrations and with proper protections. Full Story | Top |
| Elevated radiation found in air near New Mexico waste site Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 05:28 PM PST Testing of surface air near an underground nuclear waste site in New Mexico's desert showed elevated levels of radiation but did not pose a threat to humans or the environment, a U.S. Department of Energy official said on Thursday. Trace amounts of man-made radioactive elements such as plutonium were found at an air-monitoring site half a mile from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and are tied to a radiation leak in the underground salt formation where waste from defense research and nuclear weapons production is stored, said Joe Franco, manager of an Energy Department field office that oversees the plant. Energy officials said over the weekend that there was no apparent surface air contamination from the accidental release of radiation that caused an air-monitoring alarm below ground to go off about 11:30 p.m. local time on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Exclusive: Argentina, Repsol to sign $5 billion YPF deal - source Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 04:03 PM PST  Argentina and Repsol SA will sign a definitive $5 billion settlement over the seizure of YPF SA within days, a source involved in the talks said on Thursday, ending a bitter two-year bilateral dispute. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez nationalized Repsol's majority stake in the country's largest energy company in 2012, sparking a row with Spain, tension within Repsol's boardroom and a freeze on international investment in the Vaca Muerta shale field. After 18 months of conflict, the two parties struck a preliminary compensation deal last November, but spent the past six weeks ironing out the details of a settlement that is half the $10.5 billion Repsol was seeking in international courts. A deal, to be paid in U.S. dollar denominated bonds, had been complicated by Repsol's demands for guarantees on the paper, a challenge for a country that has been shut out of international debt markets since a sovereign default in 2002. Full Story | Top |
| Obama budget proposal to drop Social Security cuts Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 03:30 PM PST  By Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday dropped a measure to trim cost-of-living increases in Social Security from an upcoming budget proposal in an election-year move that may insulate fellow Democrats facing heat from senior voters. The White House said Obama's budget proposal for the 2015 fiscal year, to be released on March 4, will not include a plan he made last year that represented an effort to gain some Republican support and break through congressional gridlock. Dropping the offer this year is a sign Democrats are girding for November congressional elections and in no mood to risk supporting proposals that could cost them votes from seniors on Election Day on November 4. Obama had offered to make a controversial change in how the government calculates inflation for Social Security and other federal benefits in a way that could lead to cuts in benefits for some Americans. Full Story | Top |
| Exclusive: Argentina, Repsol to sign $5 billion settlement deal - source Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 02:06 PM PST  Argentina and Repsol will sign a definitive $5 billion settlement over the 2012 nationalization of the Spanish oil firm's majority stake in Argentine energy group YPF within days, a source involved in the talks said on Thursday. Under the terms of the deal, Repsol will receive various bonds with a total nominal value of around $5.5 billion, including already-issued Argentine dollar-denominated bonds and a new ad-hoc 10-year bond worth $3 billion, the source said. "The important part of this deal is that Argentina recognizes $5 billion of debt to Repsol over the expropriation," the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The agreement still needs approval from Argentina's Congress and from Repsol's board of directors and shareholders. Full Story | Top |
| TSX closes in on three-year high as BlackBerry, miners gain Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 01:57 PM PST  By John Tilak TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index reached its highest in nearly 3 years on Thursday, buoyed by a jump in shares of gold miners and in BlackBerry following Facebook Inc's planned acquisition of mobile-messaging service WhatsApp. The move by Facebook raised investor hopes that BlackBerry's own messaging platform might have been undervalued. "There's no denying that appetite for equities has come back in a big way," said Elvis Picardo, a strategist at Global Securities, who added that investors were also exercising caution. Fundamentals are still reigning." The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index closed up 90.64 points, or 0.64 percent, at 14,210.37. Full Story | Top |
| Wall St. rises on factory data; Tesla and Facebook jump Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 01:49 PM PST  By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday after a reading on manufacturing activity hit its highest in nearly four years, while news about Facebook and Tesla drove their shares to record highs. U.S. factory activity accelerated at its fastest pace in nearly four years in February, according to Markit's preliminary U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index, a bullish economic indicator following a string of weaker-than-expected reports. The stock market has selectively shrugged off tepid data, pinning recent weakness on the impact of extremely cold weather and massive snow rather than worsening fundamentals. Full Story | Top |
| Poor turnout in Libyan vote for constitution-drafting body Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 01:28 PM PST  By Ulf Laessing and Ghaith Shennib TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyans trickled to the polls on Thursday to elect an assembly to draft a constitution, with the paltry turnout reflecting deep political disillusion with the chaos pervading Libya since Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule ended in 2011. Less than 498,000 people cast ballots, the election commission said, out of one million who had registered to vote - a number far lower than the three million who did so before the 2012 parliamentary election. Live footage from Libyan television cameras in major polling stations across the North African country showed mostly empty rooms. Explosions rocked five polling stations at dawn in the eastern town of Derna, an Islamist stronghold, but no one was hurt. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. billionaire to pour $100 million into climate change fight Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 12:10 PM PST By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A California hedge fund investor has pledged $100 million in contributions to pro-environmentalist congressional campaigns, bolstering the battle against climate change. Billionaire Tom Steyer on Wednesday night hosted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and six other Democratic lawmakers for a fundraiser at his San Francisco home and is planning an ad campaign for candidates who support tough action on climate change. Steyer, founder of the hedge fund Farallon Capital, plans to spend $50 million of his own money and raise another $50 million from other donors for the November midterm elections. Steyer hosted Reid and some of Congress' most active climate change advocates: Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Tom Udall of New Mexico, and Representative Gary Peters of Michigan, according to a source who attended the dinner and who spoke on condition of anonymity. Full Story | Top |
| Saudi relation of 9/11 attacker pleads guilty to tanker bomb plots Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 11:31 AM PST By Medina Roshan FORT MEADE, Maryland (Reuters) - The brother-in-law of a September 11, 2001, aircraft hijacker pleaded guilty in a U.S. military court on Thursday to plotting with al Qaeda to blow up oil tankers in the Middle East. The guilty plea by Ahmed al Darbi, a 39-year-old Saudi, marks a victory for U.S. military prosecutors who have battled legal troubles surrounding the tribunal system at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. Judge Mark Allred, an Air Force colonel, accepted al Darbi's plea to all six war-crime charges, made through his attorney Ramzi Kassem. "This commission finds you guilty of all the charges and specifications," Allred told al Darbi, who had a short beard and wore a white shirt and tie. Full Story | Top |
| Big Antarctic glacier to keep raising seas, even without warming Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 11:04 AM PST  By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - A thawing Antarctic glacier that is the biggest contributor to rising sea levels is likely to continue shrinking for decades, even without an extra spur from global warming, a study showed on Thursday. Scientists said the Pine Island Glacier, which carries more water to the sea than the Rhine River, also thinned 8,000 years ago at rates comparable to the present, in a melt that lasted for decades, perhaps for centuries. "Our findings reveal that Pine Island Glacier has experienced rapid thinning at least once in the past, and that, once set in motion, rapid ice sheet changes in this region can persist for centuries," they wrote in the U.S. journal Science. A creeping rise in sea levels is a threat to low-lying coasts from Bangladesh to Florida, and to cities from London to Shanghai. Full Story | Top |
| Bones examined from Chevron fire site in Pennsylvania Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 10:10 AM PST By Elizabeth Daley Pittsburgh (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania coroner was attempting on Thursday to extract DNA from bone fragments thought to belong to a contractor who was working at a Chevron natural gas well when it exploded in Greene County last week. Ian McKee, 27, from Morgantown, West Virginia, was reported missing after the Lanco 7H well exploded on February 11, causing a fire that raged for five days and kept emergency crews from approaching the scene. The bone fragments, burnt during the blaze, were recovered on Wednesday. Chevron said that no drilling or fracking was taking place when the incident occurred, but it has no detail on the cause. Full Story | Top |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment