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A fiery pileup turned a quiet Friday morning into a nightmare as an inferno raged inside an Interstate 80 tunnel in southwestern Wyoming claiming at least two lives, and leaving five others seriously injured, forcing a total shutdown of the highway. Anyone trapped in the tunnel would have been forced to escape on foot through the smoke and darkness. Rescuers desperately tried to reach victims, but the tunnel’s structure - now compromised by falling concrete and searing heat - turned into a death trap.

Scientists found that the level of carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, was much higher in rings from that year than usual. Some years later, looking at air samples from ice cores, scientists saw that there were elevated levels of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 as well. The common factor in all these elements is that they are created when extremely high-energy subatomic particles hit Earth's air and ground. .... The only way to get particles at energies like this is from space, where powerful magnetic fields in exploding stars...can accelerate the particles to such high speeds. But the 774 event was so...

Prices for generators, transformers, and other utility components are soaring. Hurricane Helene (and now Milton) will make the problem worse.. The reports about the damage caused by Hurricane Helene and the amount of water dumped on the region by the storm are gobsmacking. Last week, my friend, Jimmy Fortuna, an energy industry executive who lives in Asheville, sent me a text. He said, “Brother, I’m telling you, it’s like God’s own bulldozer went down these mountains and valleys. Maybe it did. Whole sections of town in Asheville and some whole towns in the mountains around us turned into mud flats.”...

The actor converted to Catholicism after filming Abel Ferrara's 'Padre Pio.'Shia LaBeouf has been received into the Catholic Church after taking the sacrament of confirmation, and is reportedly considering becoming a deacon. The Catholic News Agency reports that the Transformers star was confirmed Sunday by Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota. “We are thrilled to share that our dear friend Shia LaBeouf has fully entered the Church this past weekend through the sacrament of confirmation,” the Capuchin Franciscans from Western American Province said in a statement posted to Facebook. Friends, please join me and the Capuchin friars in continued prayer...

Empty dirt lots are scattered across American cities where developers once planned to build new homes. The problem isn’t that builders can’t find workers or obtain permits. They lack the electric transformers required to connect homes to the grid. “We were so concerned about things like lumber and appliances, and those all help. But then all of a sudden it was this power transformer—you can’t get them,” a home builder in Greenville, S.C., told a Fox affiliate in March. “We have 106 town-home sites and so we’ve only been able to get the first six going.” Transformers step up or...

*snip* Nationally, however, there is a shortage of distribution transformers that take electricity from high-voltage lines and reduce it to levels that can be used in homes and businesses, industry officials said.“It’s a critical component to the electrical grid that has been in scarce supply for a number of months now,” said Joy Ditto, president and CEO of the American Public Power Association. “We started to recognize it as a national concern in late winter, early spring, and the situation is getting worse.”It used to take about three months for a transformer to show up after being ordered, but now...

Multiple state officials are worried that supply chain shortages will worsen an already above-average hurricane season. On Saturday, Fox Business reported that transformers, which convert high voltage into low voltage usable in residential homes, are in short supply. "Transformers are a critical component for electric restoration and electric delivery. Some manufacturers were not even taking new orders for transformers because they have such a backlog already," Amy Zubaly, the executive director for the Florida Municipal Electric Association, told Fox. In Texas, similar concerns prompted CPS Energy to warn housing developers that new transformers may not be available for projects, replicating...

A judge in Tennessee has temporarily banned two federal agencies from enforcing directives issued by the Biden administration that extended protections for LGBTQ people in schools and workplaces, like allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice. US District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. on Friday ruled for 20 state attorneys general who sued last August claiming the Biden administration directives infringe on states' rights. The ruling could prevent students from participating in sports based on their gender identity or requiring schools and businesses to provide bathrooms and showers to accommodate transgender people.

U.S. power companies are facing supply crunches that may hamper their ability to keep the lights on as the nation heads into the heat of summer and the peak hurricane season. Extreme weather events such as storms, wildfires and drought are becoming more common in the United States. Consumer power use is expected to hit all-time highs this summer, which could strain electric grids at a time when federal agencies are warning the weather could pose reliability issues. Utilities are warning of supply constraints for equipment, which could hamper efforts to restore power during outages. They are also having a...

Transgender and non-binary footballers can now decide themselves whether to play for a men’s or women’s team instead of being bound by personal identification data, the German Football Association (DFB) said on Thursday. It said the ruling was included in the DFB match regulation for amateurs, the junior regulation and the futsal rulebook. “At its core this ruling says that players with a personal (gender) status that is ‘diverse’ or ‘no reference’ and players who change their gender can take their own decision whether the will be issued an eligibility to play for a men’s or women’s team,” the DFB...

I was listening to Glen Beck's opening this morning and he briefly discussed gender roles and brought up Rachel Levine. He referred to Levine as 'her' and it got me thinking, these conservative commentators near always do that. This isn't picking on Beck, they nearly all do it. I see this as the verbal equivalent of 'bending the knee.' I know people do it out of a sense of kindness, like giving stuffed animals to members of MS-13 at the border. I think it is unhelpful. This is delusion, why should we feed into the delusions of people who are...

(CNN)The creator of the human-like robot toys Transformers, Henry Orenstein, died Tuesday at the age of 98 due to complications from Covid-19, his wife Susie Orenstein told CNN Saturday.... A Holocaust survivor who lived through five concentration camps in Poland during World War II, Orenstein came to America in 1947 where he later began his journey in creating toys, his wife said. Orenstein patented multiple toys in the 1960s, including the Suzy Cute Doll and Johnny Lightning toy cars.... ... Henry and Susie Orenstein worked to feed thousands of people in Israel through the Orenstein Project, an organization providing assistance...

Transformer explosions sparked by high winds created a colorful light display above Kenner, Louisiana before dawn and left the town without power on December 27.

After five bruising and very loud Transformers movies, each with diminishing returns even for fans of the Michael Bay-directed series, I assumed we were done with the toy-turned-franchise. Well, it turns out Bay was done, but the series lives on in another form as a prequel and origin story for its most lovable piece of heavy metal, Bumblebee, the B-127 robot disguised as a Volkswagen. Considering my lack of admiration for the previous editions, I had zero expectations for this one despite the fact it had a new, and very talented, director at the helm in Travis Knight (Bay is...

The summer tentpole is banking on a strong run overseas to make up for franchise fatigue in North America. Paramount and Hasbro's Transformers: The Last Knight easily topped the Wednesday box office chart with $15.7 million from 4,069 theaters, but that's the lowest opening day for any film in the franchise, including those titles that likewise debuted midweek. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) grossed $37.7 million when launching on a Wednesday, while Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) took in $62 million on its first Wednesday. Pre-release tracking suggests Transformers 5 will post a five-day domestic debut in the...

Actor and performance artist Shia LaBeouf is back with his latest art installation — a four-year-long live-stream set up at a New York City museum at which Americans concerned by Donald Trump’s presidency can film themselves speaking out in protest. The 30-year-old Transformers star unveiled his latest project Friday morning — hours before Trump swore the oath of office to become America’s 45th President — at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The installation consists of a camera set up on a wall, with the phrase “He Will Not Divide Us” scrawled on...

When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware. But a more traditional attack on a power station in California has U.S. officials puzzled and worried about the physical security of the the electrical grid--from attackers who come in with guns blazing. Around 1:00 AM on April 16, at least one individual (possibly two) entered two different manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose, and cut fiber cables in the...

....The video game “Dragon Age: Inquisition” soon introduced a transgender character, Amazon’s “Transparent” picked up a Golden Globe for its take on a transitioning retired professor, and even “South Park” won praise for an episode on gender identity. And then the Bruce Jenner story happened.

Transformers are the most vulnerable components in the power grid and they are under attack. The main components in our power grid distribution system are transformers. They step up the generated voltage to a higher level for more efficient transport over very long lines. Then they step the voltage back down in several stages for final consumption. These transformers are located at the power plants and thousands of substations. They are big and right out in the open. Weather does not bother them, but bullets do. They are the weak links in our power grid. Last year someone decided to...

The first footage from Michael Bay's fourth entry in the Transformers feature film franchise—Transformers: Age of Extinction—debuted Sunday night in a TV spot trailer which aired during Fox's Super Bowl broadcast.