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Forecasters predicted Hermine would reemerge over the Atlantic by Saturday afternoon then strengthen to "near hurricane intensity."
National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen told BuzzFeed News that the storm is expected to become "post-tropical," meaning it will no longer have a warm core. Still, it will be powerful.
"Whether it's a tropical or a post-tropical system, that isn’t going change the impacts," Feltgen said. "We still have it strengthening to hurricane force."
Hermine was expected to continue moving up the eastern seaboard, potentially impacting major population centers.
In response to the looming threat, the National Weather Service issued a tropical storm warning for all of Delaware and coastal New Jersey. Flooding was possible late Saturday and into Sunday in the region, including on the Delaware River in Philadelphia.
A tropical storm watch was also issued for New York City, Feltgen said. The storm was expected to become extremely slow moving off the mid-Atlantic coast, and water could begin to "pile up" along the coasts, increasing the chance for flooding, he said.
If there is one glimmer of hope, it's that the storm's path is still very much up in the air. The National Weather Service reported that "there remains quite a bit of uncertainty with the track east of our coasts Sunday through Monday," meaning it's possible Hermine could move away from land and miss the East Coast.
Episode 5 of 16 and Pregnant introduced us to 16-year-old Lori Wickelhaus of Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Lori, who attends a Catholic girls’ school, was adopted and has to decide if adoption is an option for her son-to-be.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Lori’s mom and dad were pushing open adoption really, really hard, which of course seemed to push Lori more and more towards keeping the baby and trying to raise him with Cory, who was still gung-ho about the idea at this point. But, after a visit to Cory’s apartment and a discussion about the feasibility of Lori moving in with him and his female roommate, Cory tells Lori’s dad over the phone that he realizes he and Lori wouldn’t financially be able to raise a child. This blindsides poor Lori, who realizes she will have to give her baby up for adoption without really feeling like it was her choice at all.
In the end, Lori does give Aidan up for open adoption and sees him rather often. I know there are a lot of folks out there that believe a child should stay with his or her birth mother regardless of the circumstances, but this seemed like one of those instances when adoption was OBVIOUSLY the best choice for everyone involved. As Lori’s dad Curt alluded to in the episode, Lori had issues getting by wee-to-week before she got pregnant and did not seem ready or able to take on the responsibility of raising a child even with the assistance of her parents.
What do you think? Did Lori make the right decision?
Want to stay up to date on Lori and Aidan? You can follow her official Facebook fan page HERE.
BRUSSELS — EU leaders agreed Friday to commit euro 2.4 billion ($3.6 billion) a year until 2012 to help poorer countries combat global warming, as they sought to rescue their image as climate change innovators and bolster the talks in Copenhagen.
All 27 members of the European Union agreed to commit money to a short-term fund for poorer countries, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said after two days of difficult talks at a summit in Brussels.
Britain, France and Germany will each contribute about 20 percent of the money. But with many cash-strapped eastern EU states balking, donations by some were thought to be only a token to reach a unanimous agreement.
Critics said the EU was merely repacking aid promised earlier in different forms and sidestepping key climate change issues to produce a favorable headline.
Britain is promising the most at $650 million each year — saying this reflects its links to former members of the British Empire affected by climate change. It is also is pushing to raise that figure and the overall EU figure higher at the Copenhagen talks next week.
"(This) really does make possible an agreement where Africa and the developing countries can see that their needs are being taken seriously," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
France and Germany followed with pledges of $622 million (euro 420 million) each a year.
The money goes toward a global $10 billion annual fund for short-term help to poor countries, particularly in Africa, adapt to the effects of global warming before a new climate treaty being negotiated in Copenhagen comes into force in 2012.
The money would help poorer countries protect their coasts, adjust crops threatened by drought, build water supplies and irrigation systems, preserve forests and move from fossil fuel to low-carbon energy systems such as solar and wind power.
Yet the $10 billion-a-year pales in comparison to the huge stimulus packages and bank bailouts paid by many EU governments in the wake of the global financial meltdown. Financier George Soros, speaking Thursday in Copenhagen, dismissed that figure as inadequate for the scope of change facing poor countries.
Greenpeace was also critical of Friday's announcement, saying EU leaders were avoiding more important decisions on longer-term climate financing for poor nations and on greenhouse gas emissions cuts.
"Climate change will not end in three years . . . so neither should the flow of cash," said Joris den Blanken, the environmental group's climate expert.
ActionAid, which focuses on development aid, said the EU was failing to pony up "real money" and that many EU states had "a track record of repackaging or re-announcing existing aid."
Reinfeldt conceded that the commitments announced Friday include new money as well as aid promised earlier.
The EU leaders also pledged Friday to reduce their emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 — but only if other leading polluters make comparable commitments first. Reinfeldt said Europe was waiting for deeper emission cuts from U.S. and Canada.
Two years ago, the EU was ahead of the pack when it pledged to cut 20 percent of emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 and to increase that to 30 percent if other big polluters made similar promises. Japan and Russia have now outpaced Europe with 25 percent cuts. The U.S. is promising a 3 percent reduction from 1990 levels.
Not all EU states are behind the drive to cut carbon emissions. Poland's prime minister Donald Tusk said his nation would only start making major emissions cuts after 2020, when new nuclear power stations could allow Poland to wean itself off cheap — and polluting — coal.
On other issues, EU leaders also called for more debate on a global financial transaction levy, saying banks must do more to contribute to "the society they serve." They didn't say whether the money should go toward development or a global bank bailout fund.
Brown said there was "growing support" across the world for such a levy and that EU leaders also backed Britain's plans for a one-time tax of 50 percent for all bonuses over 25,000 pounds ($40,800). But no firm EU-wide action was taken.
On foreign policy, the EU leaders said they would support new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and welcomed the injection of new U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
THE HSE MUST reach its savings targets, the Minister for Public Expenditure has said, despite a report suggesting that it will fall short by €200 million.
The Irish Times reported yesterday that a confidential consultancy report furnished to government found that the HSE will fall short of the €290m in savings outlined in the Haddington Road agreement by almost €200m.
Minister Brendan Howlin stressed that every department was involved in discussions on the savings plan and understand what work is necessary.
“Like every other Department, [the HSE] are going to live up to the targets,” he told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics.
The savings in cash terms are being made, have to be made, and will be made again this year.
Minister Howlin emphasised Haddington Road is working, and that “savings dividends” made in other departments are already being pumped back into “frontline services”, such as recruiting more teachers and gardaí.
Speaking on the same programme, Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Public Expenditure Sean Fleming said that an independent report is needed on all savings outlined in Haddington Road as some “never stacked up from the very beginning”.
Howlin was reluctant to say whether the government will have more leeway with Budget 2015 as a result of continued economic recovery.
An ESRI report last week suggested that €2 billion in budget cuts could be avoided, leading to other cabinet colleagues to speculate that tax cuts could be on the table.
“It’s far too early to be talking about it now,” Minister Howlin said.
“There is optimism now, there are people getting back to work… there is growth in the economy”.
He said that might give the government “scope to look at the choices”.
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About Me Kind, sincere, intelligent, short, silly and cute.
My Philosophy Live by the golden rule.
What Gives Me Hope Seedlings, trees, music!
Quotation Judge not the color of ones skin but the content of their character.
AND HERE IS A PHOTO OF..
With kind regards to you and your..
REDMOND, WA (December 19, 2012): Paizo Publishing® LLC, leading publisher of award-winning fantasy roleplaying games and novels, announces the release of Blood of the Night (MSRP $10.99), a Player Companion book for the best-selling Pathfinder® Roleplaying Game.
With Blood of the Night players can add a thirst for blood to their characters with new rules for vampiric hunger, along with new powers associated with the most-ravenous undead. For vampire hunting, Blood of the Night will expand players’ arsenals with the latest and most-effective in undead-fighting gear, tactics and character options.
“Whether you want to play a vampire or slay a vampire, The Blood of the Night player companion is your go-to resource for incorporating the blood-sucking undead into your Pathfinder game,” says Erik Mona, Publisher.
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game builds on more than 10 years of system development and the largest open playtest in the history of tabletop gaming to create an unparalleled fantasy roleplaying experience. Players need only the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook to play, but Paizo Publishing produces a wide range of books and accessories to enhance your Pathfinder experience, from hardcover rules compendiums to complete campaigns to packets of beautiful full-color maps. For more information, please visit paizo.com.
CLEVELAND — Right-hander Michael Kopech had Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow Tuesday, the White Sox said Wednesday. The procedure was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles.
Kopech will miss all of next season but is expected to make a full recovery in time for spring training in 2020.
His replacement in the Sox’ rotation, right-hander Dylan Covey, pitched six scoreless innings Wednesday — his best outing of the season, he said — but watched what would have been his sixth victory go up in flames when Jason Kipnis belted a walk-off grand slam against rookie right-hander Ian Hamilton with one out in the ninth inning to give the Indians a 4-1 victory.
‘‘Tough loss right there,’’ manager Rick Renteria said after the Sox fell to 0-8 this season at Progressive Field.
Rookie Daniel Palka hit his team-leading 26th home run — his fourth round-tripper in his last three games — against Indians starter Carlos Carrasco in the sixth. The 1-0 lead held up until the ninth, when Kipnis got his 1,000th career hit in grand style.
Hamilton hit Yan Gomes with a slider on his first pitch to load the bases before Kipnis hit a 3-2 changeup into the right-field seats.
Covey got 13 ground-ball outs and retired the last 13 batters he faced.
Kopech, meanwhile, faces a long road to recovery.
Renteria said slugger Jose Abreu was released from the hospital and was doing well at the team hotel. Abreu was admitted to the hospital Tuesday with an infection in his right thigh.
The Sox host the Cubs for three games starting Friday.
The infection stemmed from a hair follicle on his thigh.
Catcher Welington Castillo, who hyperextended his left elbow on a swing last weekend in Baltimore, was scratched from the lineup and replaced by Kevan Smith. Castillo irritated the injury in the batting cage, Renteria said.
• Outfielder Nicky Delmonico (neck) is still ‘‘a little stiff, but he’s coming around,’’ Renteria said.
(Reuters) - Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) expects to face challenges this year due to uncertainty over the impact of a global trade war on the United States and China, its major markets, the company’s chief executive said on Sunday.
SABIC will continue to boost its presence in its major markets — the U.S. and China, he added.
SABIC’s biggest shareholder, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), is in talks to sell its majority stake to Saudi national oil giant Aramco.
Benyan said he views Aramco’s move to “positively”, but further details are a matter for PIF and Aramco, which aims to become a global leader in chemicals.
SABIC results are closely tied to oil prices and global economic growth because its products - plastics, fertilisers and metals - are used extensively in construction, agriculture, industry and the manufacturing of consumer goods.
In 2018, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI)futures slumped nearly 25 percent, while Brent tumbled more than 19.5 percent.
The Rail Delivery Group, a rail company umbrella organisation, launched a fares consultation in June with watchdog Transport Focus.
Rail passengers have struggled for too long with a confusing ticketing system and poor service, consumer campaign group Which? says.
Campaigners say trust in the rail industry is at an “all time low” and want reforms which are passenger-led.
Which? has called for improvements after rail company bosses said they had received nearly 20,000 responses to a public consultation on Britain’s train fares system.
“Rail passengers have struggled for too long with a confusing ticketing system, poor service and severe delays and cancellations,” said Alex Hayman, Which? Managing Director of Public Markets, on Monday.
“The Government and industry need to prove that they are serious about making rail work for passengers.
Bosses say they will make proposals for an “easier” fares system to ministers and hope the consultation will help them understand “what the country wants to see”.
A few months ago passengers were offered a guide to buying rail tickets which was 14 pages long.
National Rail’s “guide to tickets” listed four “main types of ticket”; outlined eight discount railcards; devoted two-thirds of a page to “anytime tickets – fully flexible” tickets; spent most of a page explaining “off-peak – semi-flexible” tickets; gave detail about “GroupSave” tickets, “group travel”, “Rover and Ranger” tickets and “combined rail and bus tickets”; and a section headed “getting the cheapest fare” contained an explanation which was more than 120 words long.
If I were in America, the TSA agent would have called in backup on the spot and I would have received a long questioning. I had just asked the airport security agent if I could leave my laptop open as it rolled through the x-ray scanner. I pointed to the black thumb drive-looking thing sticking out of my USB port. I told them all I wanted to do was test the radiation levels using the attachment, the MiniPix USB particle camera.
A particle detector for physicists.
The Large Hadron Collider people want it back.
The MiniPix is a plug-and-play Geiger counter for your laptop. But rather than clicking like a Geiger counter, it takes pictures of the radiation that passes through its 256 by 256-pixel TimePix detector. It’s teeny and deceptively simple to use, but if you’re in space, you’ve just survived a nuclear apocalypse, or you’re a physics fan interested in how much radiation hits you on a daily basis, it’s about as fun as a product can get. If you’re not a physicist, you don’t need a four thousand dollar radiation camera like the MiniPix—but once you’ve got it, you’ll leave it on waiting for the highest-energy cosmic rays to blast it, or you’ll put a banana on top of it, or maybe even hunt for the most radioactive place in your city.
That’s what we eventually did. But before going out into the field, I had to figure out how the MiniPix device and its TimePix chip actually work.
The Minipix device detects ionizing radiation particles, the kinds of particles which knock electrons off of the atoms in the sensor. These electrons migrate into the electronics, which decide whether the hit was high enough energy to become a signal indicating a particle or if it was just random electrons causing noise.
You might remember some of the different kinds of ionizing radiation from school, but we’ll go over the ones you’ve heard of (and some other ones) real quick.
Ionizing radiation can come from radioactive elements like uranium decaying, it can be produced in high-energy particle physics experiments, or it can strike the Earth from space. Alpha particles are two protons and two neutrons stuck together. Some elements lose alpha particles through radioactive decay, and your smoke detectors use them to detect smoke. They’re mainly harmful if you inhale or ingest them, since skin can stop them, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Radioactive materials can also release beta particles, another name for electrons and their antimatter partner, positrons. These are more dangerous and can penetrate deeper into skin. Massless gamma rays consist of high energy light and requires layers of concrete to stop. In higher concentrations they can even cause cancer.
Cosmic rays can include even wilder particles, like entire atomic nuclei, muons (which are kind of like heavier electrons) and other heavier particles. Those particles are even cooler—they could come from the strangest events in the universe, like exploding stars.
The MiniPix can, theoretically, photograph all of these particles as they pass through the sensor. Its How-To guide would likely prove impenetrable for a non-physicist (I asked a physicist for help), but the setup is simple: it comes with another USB stick loaded with the Pixet software, whose installation is a painless process on any non-ancient Windows, Mac or Debian/Ubuntu Linux machine. On opening, you can change the image settings to make the particle tracks look prettier or assign colors to different energies that show up on the chip. You either set it to Frames or Integral, meaning either clear the frames after a given time range or sum them all up. Frames can give you a snapshot of the radiation of a short period of time, while integral can give you an overall view of the radiation for longer periods.
Then just hit the Start button.
After making it through security and learning that, yes, there were x-rays (but they’re shielded and not especially high-energy), I boarded the plane, which was a good start to really measuring ionizing radiation. Flying six miles up, travelers are exposed to the equivalent radiation of eight dental x-ray exams thanks to the cosmic rays, according to NPR.
Alphas showed up as big splotches, betas as long curls a single pixel wide, muons as straight lines, and high energy light like gamma rays as single pixels. Heavier particles can leave some crazy-looking tracks and blobs. Fifteen minutes left a concerning image of what the human body is subject to every time it hits 30,000 feet.
When I got home, I spent a few nights testing the chip with radiation from some everyday items like bananas and an old smoke detector: The banana didn’t leave a noticeable signal, but the radioactive americium source in the smoke detector produced a shower of alpha particles. Once I got the hang of it, I googled the most radioactive spot in New York City, the site of the old Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, now an auto repair garage and an EPA superfund site.
If I was going to really test the chip scientifically, I’d need a control and experimental trial. I went to the Mount Carmel cemetery next door and ran the chip for twenty minutes in the shade, picking up just some stray cosmic rays.
No one at the auto repair shop nor the store next door minded my coming in to test the radiation, since the EPA had only recently visited to install some shielding on the ground. And after another twenty minutes, the reading was clear: there was way more radiation here than at the cemetery only a few blocks away.