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BROOKE COUNTY, W.Va. - UPDATE 10:00 a.m. Jan. 27 The cause of a gas line explosion in Brooke County remains under investigation. Enterprise Products, L.P., released firefighters around 4:30 p.m. Jan. 26, but many were told to remain on standby for hours. Authorities shut off power in the area of Arch Hill Road in Colliers, WV, with some residents receiving their power through a substation. Follansbee Fire Chief Larry Rea said the weather helped the fire from becoming more of a problem. Enterprise Products, L.P., said they are working with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to determine the...

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The outages began early Sunday morning. Authorities gave no estimate for how many people the blackout affected, though electricity went out in nearly every major city in this country of 180 million people. A spokesman for the Ministry of Water and Power, Zafaryab Khan, said a militant attack on a transmission tower in the southwestern Baluchistan province cause the blackout. Khan said that caused a power surge that eventually affected wide swaths of the power distribution system.

In just a few short weeks, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will make its historic flyby of Pluto and its moons. Solar panels are unable to operate in the dim nether regions of the outer solar system, and instead, New Horizons employs something that every spacecraft that has thus far ventured beyond Jupiter has carried in its tool kit: a plutonium-powered Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, or RTG. ... One of the first spacecraft that sported an RTG was the Transit-4A satellite launched on June 29th, 1961. Another similar satellite in the series, Transit-5BN-3, was lost shortly after launch along with its plutonium-fueled...

A group of influential U.S. foreign-policy strategists, including five former confidants of President Barack Obama, warned the White House Wednesday they would oppose a nuclear agreement with Iran if tough terms weren’t included in a final agreement. Among the requirements identified by the former diplomats, military officers and lawmakers were intrusive snap inspections of Iran’s nuclear and military sites, a resolution of questions surrounding secretly developed nuclear-weapons technologies and a phased reduction of international sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The group also called on the White House, in a public statement, to make clear to Iran the U.S. would use...

On June 20, the victim Jim Prosperie posted about the incident on his Facebook page, writing, “I was hit by an axe while performing a drum solo live on National TV … words I never imagined saying! This happened last Sunday and I have been reluctant to post but starting to receive inquiries from concerned family and friends. I am thankful to God that the double sided blade only hit broadside on the outer elbow with significant impact and a couple of cuts as it fell along my wrist. It could have been much worse or fatal. Focusing on full...

Long tailbacks ensued as migrants tried to gain access to the vehicles. Television footage showed migrants entering the back of vehicles. Truck drivers were previously told not to stop within a 60-mile (97km) radius of the port town. President of the IRHA, Verona Murphy, said urgent action is needed to protect the safety of Irish truck drivers. “We feel that it will be the death of one of our drivers before action is taken. The level of policing at Calais is appalling and nobody is taking control of the situation,” she said. “We’re calling on the Government to make robust...

In a speech on Tuesday night, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted Iran would only dismantle its nuclear infrastructure if economic sanctions were lifted first. He also ruled out a freeze on research and development for 10 years, as well as inspections of military sites. The demands appear to undercut a framework deal announced in April. They could also limit the ability of Iran's negotiating team to make key concessions as the self-imposed 30 June deadline approaches. As supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has final say on all state matters.

ULA was formed in 2006 as a 50:50 joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that combined their existing expendable rocket fleet families – the Atlas V and Delta IV – under one roof. ... “In their mind that meant having two independent rocket systems that could essentially do the same jobs. So we have both the Atlas V and the Delta IV. But in a competitive environment you can well imagine that that requirement drives your costs significantly higher than they need to be.” ULA actually offered three rocket families after the merger, when only one was really needed....

Illegal migrants desperate to get in to Britain have exploited the closing of Calais and travel chaos on both sides of the Channel. Thousands of migrants who have massed at the French port used a wildcat strike by French ferry workers to try and clamber on to Britain-bound lorries that were left queuing for hours. By late afternoon, hundreds of migrants lined junction 42 of the A16 motorway, the main entrance for cars and lorries taking the Eurotunnel to the UK, approaching trucks in small groups and trying to board by all possible means. Vastly outnumbered by the migrants, riot...

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told an audience Tuesday gathered at a White House conference “normal people,” not “climate deniers” will win the debate on global warming.rWhat do you think? McCarthy’s remarks came as she was talking about the reasons why the EPA put out a report on the negative health impacts global warming will have on public health. She said the agency puts out such reports to educate the public, not answer critiques from global warming skeptics.rWhat do you think?

A second strong solar storm this week is predicted to slam Earth Wednesday, causing fluctuations in the power grid and GPS while sparking bright auroras across the world. According to SpaceWeather.com, a “coronal mass ejection” erupted Monday and is expected to hit the Earth with electromagnetic radiation starting Wednesday at about 10 p.m. PDT and until Thursday. At the same time, a geomagnetic storm that began Monday continues to rage on at severe levels, pushing glowing polar auroras to places where most people can easily see them.

Chances are, you’ll soon be hearing that we’re tacking on an extra second to the very end of June 30th, though the reason why is a bit more complex... The whole affair was addressed in 1956 by the International Committee for Weights and Measures, which defined what was known as the ephemeris, or astronomical second as a fraction—1/31,556,925.9747th to be precise—of the tropical year set at noon on January 1st 1900. Now, this decision relied on measurements contained in Simon Newcomb’s 1895 book Tables of the Sun to describe the motion of the Earth. Extrapolating back, a day was exactly...

Have you ever experienced the frustration of being stuck behind a slow-moving lorry without a good enough view to overtake? Of course you have, but Samsung has come up with a solution. The Korean technology firm has fitted cameras to the front of its lorries and video screens to the back. That way, any car following can see what's ahead of the lorry and whether or not it's safe to overtake.

Humanity has looked up to the "Man in the Moon" for millennia, but this could be one of our first views of the "Person in Pluto." The views are getting better and better as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft approaches Pluto for its July 14 flyby — and the pictures have begun revealing surface details. Ian Regan, an image-processing enthusiast from Plymouth, England, combined four images from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager with color data from the probe's Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera to produce an eerie colorized view of Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon.

Instead of accepting their application for benefits to begin at age 70, the agency's representative instead gives the person a six-month retroactive payment! This act resets the person's entitlement back to what it was six months prior and wipes out half a year of Delayed Retirement Credits (DRCs). The person loses 4 percent off their monthly benefit check in exchange for a six-month lump-sum payment they didn't ask for and don't want. ... "Based on SSA regulations, retroactivity is automatically applied to applications filed after FRA unless retroactivity is expressly restricted by the claimant," he wrote. "If this is a...

Despite the outrageous and unlikely tale that the documents told, Serpo very quickly became a sensation within certain ufological quarters and provoked massive debate – in magazines and journals, on radio shows, and at online forums. There is, however, one issue that has, for the most part, been overlooked and forgotten. In early 2006, a source that used the named “Chapman,” and who maintained they had a background with the British Ministry of Defense, claimed to know all about the Serpo files and what they really represented. Chapman explained: “…these are NOT real events that are being described here, although...

In the 1970s, a British housewife earned fame as a composer and pianist with music she said was communicated to her by the spirits of dead, famous composers. Some musical experts of the time were convinced this was true, as Rosemary Brown’s compositions did seem to be of a caliber and style to be expected from these composers. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was her chief instructor, but she also purportedly received music from Ludwig van Beethoven, Fryderyk Chopin, Claude Debussy, J.S. Bach (whom she found intimidating), Franz Schubert, and more. Even those who scoff at the idea of spirit...

Around 1,400 passengers of the Polish airline LOT were grounded at Warsaw's Chopin airport on Sunday after hackers attacked the airline ground computer systems used to issue flight plans, the company said. The computer system was hacked in the afternoon and fixed after around five hours, during which 10 of the state-owned carrier's national and international flights were canceled and about a dozen more delayed, spokesman Adrian Kubicki said.

A former child actor who starred in one of the “Star Wars” movie prequels faces charges after leading South Carolina deputies on a high-speed chase. Colleton County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kyle Strickland said Sunday deputies on Wednesday arrested a 26-year-old man they confirmed through a former talent agent was Jake Lloyd. He played young Anakin Skywalker in the 1999 movie “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.”

Facebook's photo-sharing app Moments will not be made available in Europe due to concerns about its use of facial recognition, it has been revealed. The app, which allows users to share mobile-phone photos with friends without posting them publicly, was launched in the US this week. The Irish data regulator said that users must be given a choice about whether they want it, with an opt-in. There is currently no timetable for such a feature, said Facebook. Richard Allen, Facebook's head of policy in Europe said: "We don't have an opt-in mechanism so it is turned off until we develop...