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The Trump administration on Friday announced that it would allow for the year-round sale of gasoline with higher concentrations of ethanol. The action addresses a rule the Environmental Protection Agency had in place preventing the sale of so-called E15 fuel, which contains 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline, between June 1 and Sept. 15. The purpose was to prevent air pollution and curb dependence on foreign petroleum, but the ban has stopped some retailers from selling E15 at all because of the need to change out pumps.

The company posted a $702 million loss attributable to common shareholders for the first quarter, slightly better than a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, the loss was $2.90 a share; analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting a loss of $1.15 a share.

They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible. I know this because, for the past week, I’ve been mingling with corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. And I’ve noticed that their answers to questions about automation depend very much on who is listening. In public, many executives wring their hands over the negative consequences that artificial intelligence and automation could have for workers. They take part in panel discussions about building “human-centered A.I.” for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — Davos-speak for the corporate...

25 Surprising Things About Alcatraz Only The Guards Knew Alcatraz holds a very special place in the minds of the US public. It has a certain image that has been carefully fostered by Hollywood films and more recently, by tourists’ visits to the site. It has a popular-culture reputation as an island prison designed to hold the most infamous and notorious of the nation's criminals. In the mind's eye, thugs and hooligans sit behind stone walls and plot various schemes for escape. And while all of this is accurate to a certain degree, there is so much more to...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Fossils of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains, scientists said Tuesday. The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod—long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land. The discovery included two complete skulls from other types of sauropods—an extremely rare find, scientists said.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West boarded a private 747 jet for a recent long-haul flight, sparking outrage over the extravagant method of travel. Kardashian, 38, showed off the spacious — and nearly empty — interior of the commercial-size airliner in a series of videos posted to her Instagram Stories. “No big deal, just taking a private 747,” Kardashian says, filming West, 41, walking up to the “double decker” plane. “This is how he does it now. Only 747s, private. I’ve never even heard of this, but whatever.” Travel & Leisure notes the plane could hold up to 660 passengers, and...

“JB Pritzker for Governor has a serious race problem,” the lawsuit said. “Contrary to the candidate’s many public avowals, rather than working to meaningfully address discrimination, racism is perpetuated, condoned and ratified by the Campaign.” The lawsuit, filed Oct. 16 in Chicago federal court, specifically alleges the black and Latino campaign workers are packed into majority minority neighborhoods, often in unsafe working conditions, and are denied benefits and advancement opportunities available to their white colleagues. Named plaintiffs in the action include Maxwell Little, Jason Benton, Jelani Coleman, Celia Colon, Kasmine Calhoun, Erica Kimble, Nathaniel Madison, Tiffany Madison, James B. Tinsley...

12, 2018 Hillary Clinton has given up her security clearance in the wake of the scandal over her handling of secret information on her email server, the Senate Judiciary committee revealed Friday. Chairman Chuck Grassley also revealed top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills and four others no longer have clearance. Mrs. Clinton’s clearance expired at the end of August. The others lost their access privileges in September

President Trump chalked up his announcement on boosting ethanol for farmers in Iowa to his record of "promises made, promises kept," while speaking in Iowa Tuesday night. "I made that promise to you during the campaign," Trump said. "I made that promise to you during the primaries. Promises made, promises kept." "We're going with E15 year-round," Trump said early in his speech, admitting that the full announcement would come later in his remarks. The plan would relax Environmental Protection Agency rules that restrict the sale of 15-percent ethanol fuel blends to eight months of the year. The EPA waiver for...

The White House on Monday rolled out a new plan that would allow higher blends of ethanol in vehicle fuels, amid concerns that the change could lead to more air pollution. The administration’s memo calls to extend the sale of E15 -- consisting of 15 percent of ethanol blended into gasoline -- year round. The fuel was blocked between June 1 and Sept. 15, as science shows burning ethanol in warmer temperature leads to heightened ground-level ozone pollution and smog. A senior White House official said the plan was part of President Trump’s free market plan. “This action is basically...

Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards were devised back in 1975, amid anxiety over the OPEC oil embargo and supposedly imminent depletion of the world’s oil supplies. Of course, barely 15 years after Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in 1859, a Pennsylvania geologist was saying the United States would run out of oil by 1878. In 1908, the US Geological Survey said we’d exhaust our domestic oil reserves by 1927; in 1939, it moved petroleum doomsday to 1952.Somehow, improved technology and geological acumen kept finding more oil. Then the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) revolution postponed the...

Amid growing demands from the corn lobby that the government mandate even more ethanol be blended into the nation’s gasoline supplies, new finding call such proposals into question. One of the chief claims of the corn lobby is that ethanol is a more “green” type of energy because it’s renewable. From there, the argument is extended to claim that it’s better for the environment all the way around. But the conclusions of a study underlying the latest EPA report on the environmental impact of ethanol (seven years in the making, dating back well into the Obama administration) concludes that the...

There are already 3 threads on this - enough, already.

A new scientific paper published by a researcher with a Ph.D in computational neuroscience, a nanotechnology researcher, and a moral philosopher theorizes that there is a “substantial probability” that outside of Planet Earth, there is no other intelligent life in the observable universe. The abstract for the paper states that the conflict between the apparently lifeless universe that we observe and the Drake equation, which suggests the sheer multitude of possible sites for intelligent life should yield a large number of potentially observable civilizations, arises from the use of Drake-like equations, which are not necessarily reliable. The paper notes, “But...

A TEAM of stem cell researchers have done the seemingly impossible and successfully combined artificial human cells with the embryo of a chicken in a shock new experiment aimed at trying to better understand developing life. ================================================================================== Until now, scientists have been unable to answer how certain cells in a developing embryo decide to become muscles or limbs, while others become bones and nerves. But now researchers led by Dr Ali Brivanlou, from Rockefeller University in New York, have achieved the unimaginable in a shock experiment. By grafting petri dish-grown human cells onto the embryo of a chicken the scientists...

Markle's mother is ready to open up about the racist abuse her daughter has suffered as a result of her royal relationship, it has been reported. Doria Ragland, 61, is said to be ready to share details of Ms Markle's struggle in a 'groundbreaking' interview with Oprah Winfrey. Ms Ragland, who will play a key role in her daughter's wedding, was seen leaving the TV mogul's $88million (£70million) California home last week. While the reason for the six-hour visit has not been confirmed, a US TV source has told the Mirror Online that the pair were discussing ideas for a...

.Mobile phones may be behind a surge in a deadly brain tumor, scientists say. Cases of glioblastoma in England soared from 983 to 2,531 between 1995 and 2015, figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal. The rise was across all age groups and came as cases of lower-grade tumors fell.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied on Thursday that the Iraq war was waged under a false pretext even though U.S. search teams have failed to find the chemical and biological weapons cited as justification for the invasion. During a radio interview, Rumsfeld expressed fresh confidence that such weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, and offered several explanations for why they have not been located. President Bush and other U.S. officials cited Iraq's allegedly large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and a program to develop nuclear weapons as justification for toppling President Saddam Hussein....

The innocent dead in a coward's war Estimates suggest US bombs have killed at least 3,767 civilians Seumas Milne Thursday December 20, 2001 The Guardian The price in blood that has already been paid for America's war against terror is only now starting to become clear. Not by Britain or the US, nor even so far by the al-Qaida and Taliban leaders held responsible for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. It has instead been paid by ordinary Afghans, who had nothing whatever to do with the atrocities, didn't elect the Taliban theocrats who ruled over them ...

Come on, you conservatives and Trumpists. Stop behaving like special snowflakes! Because when you complain, "I can't believe that President Trump signed that horrible omnibus bill!," you are descending into what I call the Women's Culture of Complaint. Yes, you are going along with what German sociologist Georg Simmel predicted would be a public square with a pronounced "feminine sensibility." The whole point of Donald Trump is that he is a man's man. That's why so many women dislike him; that's why we voted for him. Okay, so President Trump got out-Schumered on this one. And the wall ain't gonna...