Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 76
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — As New Mexico's elected leaders wrangle over raising taxes to plug a budget shortfall, major multinational energy companies have quietly spent more than $13 billion in recent months on assets in the state's oil and gas hot spots. The new wave of investment bodes well for the industry being able to generate much-needed revenues for the struggling state over the long haul, analysts said. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's Global Ratings on Tuesday predicted a turnaround in economic output for New Mexico in the near t...
(THE CONVERSATION) Arctic lands and waters hold irresistible allure for global oil companies. Despite opposition from environmental groups and President Obama’s 2016 ban on drilling in federal Arctic waters, exploration in Alaska has revealed massive new volumes of oil. This comes at a time of low oil prices, when many observers felt the Arctic would remain off limits. Alaska has proved precisely the opposite. Although it has gone largely unnoticed outside the industry, foreign firms are partnering with American companies to pursue these new po...
HONOLULU (AP) — Honolulu officials say they are moving forward with plans to sell biogas produced at the city's sewage plant to Hawaii Gas Co. The gas company says it plans to spend about $5 million on equipment to clean the sewage plant's biogas before adding it into their pipelines. It also wants to construct approximately one mile (1.61 kilometer) of new pipeline to connect its purification system to the company's existing synthetic natural gas pipeline. Hawaii Gas would buy gas from the city at $2 a therm, the Honolulu Star Advertiser r...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A resilient China, rising commodity prices and sturdy financial markets are offering a sunnier outlook for the global economy and helping dispel the gloom that has lingered since the Great Recession ended. That's the picture sketched Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, which predicts that the world economy will grow 3.5 percent this year, up from 3.1 percent in 2016. The IMF's latest outlook for 2017 is a slight upgrade from the 3.4 percent global growth it had forecast in January. The IMF expects the U.S. economy t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. industrial production posted a solid gain in March, reflecting a record rebound in utility output. But a closely watched gauge of manufacturing posted its first setback in seven months as auto production dropped sharply. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that industrial production rose 0.5 percent, propelled by an 8.6 percent surge in utility output, the largest on records dating to 1939. The utility gain reflected a return to normal demand for heating in March after an unusually warm February had cut demand. M...
TORONTO (AP) — Canada's ambassador to Washington says President Donald Trump is wrong when he says Canada's trade practices in the dairy industry are "very unfair." Ambassador David MacNaughton said in a letter Tuesday night to the governors of Wisconsin and New York that Canada is aware of their letter to Trump asking him to address Canada's dairy practices. MacNaughton says the facts don't bear out that Canada's policies are the cause of financial loss for U.S. dairy farmers. Trump said Tuesday that a trade dispute with Canada has left d...
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Progress is being made eradicating a microscopic pest that has been threatening Idaho's $900 million potato industry the last decade, federal officials say. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said viable potato cyst nematodes can no longer be detected in three additional fields. The agency on Friday released the first quarter report for 2017 on the Pale Cyst Nematode Eradication Program that said 20 of the 27 infected fields have now reached that step in a lengthy process to return to production. About 9,300 acres (3,700 h...
IONIA, Mich. (AP) — A U.S. Army veteran's three dogs who were accused of killing a farmer's goats and cat in Michigan have been pardoned from euthanization. Ionia County District Court Judge Raymond Voet decided Monday there wasn't enough evidence to prove Mario and Luigi, the mixed pit bull service dogs Allen Hustin depends on to comfort him, killed three goats inside a pen where they were found after escaping their own backyard in July 2016. The two dogs, registered with the U.S. Army, were released from the Ionia County Animal Shelter t...
HUBBARD LAKE, Mich. (AP) — Bovine tuberculosis has been found in a small herd of beef cattle in Michigan's northeastern Lower Peninsula. The state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development says Tuesday that the Alcona County herd was identified through routine surveillance testing. An informational meeting with cattle producers in Alpena and Alcona counties will be held April 25 at the Hubbard Lake Community Center in Hubbard Lake. State officials say the bacterial disease primarily affects cattle, but it can be spread between wildlife p...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas' plan to resume capital punishment after nearly 12 years seemed on its way to being blocked by rulings related to the lethal drugs it wants to use, but in the end arguments over the inmates' mental health led to them being spared. As state officials prepare to carry out a double execution Thursday ahead of a drug expiration deadline and despite the setback the U.S. Supreme Court delivered late Monday, lawyers for those condemned men look to be taking a different approach: claiming the prisoners are actually i...
HOUSTON (AP) — Former President George H.W. Bush has been hospitalized in Houston for four days with a recurrence of a case of pneumonia he had earlier in the year, a family spokesman said Tuesday. The 92-year-old former president and father of former president George W. Bush has been in Methodist Hospital in Houston since Friday for observation because of a persistent cough, Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said in a brief statement. He said doctors diagnosed a mild case of pneumonia that has been treated and resolved. The former president "is in ve...
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A new research program at Penn State aims to improve the health of neglected and abused children and test an innovative approach to screen kids for head injuries. Penn State said Tuesday it will establish the Center for Healthy Children at its main campus, supported by nearly $8 million from the National Institutes for Health. The university is putting in more than $3 million. The program will supplement the university's Child Maltreatment Solutions Network , established in response to the Jerry Sandusky child m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump railed against President Barack Obama's decision to bring patients with Ebola to the United States for treatment in 2014. Now that Trump is president, his administration is preparing for similar, and possibly larger-scale, evacuations. The State Department and Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday they led an unprecedented inter-agency drill last week to test their preparedness to deal with a new outbreak of Ebola or another deadly, highly infectious disease. In the drill, 11 simulated patients w...
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Facebook wants you to sit in your bedroom wearing a headset and take a virtual vacation with faraway friends and family. Or use your smartphone's camera to spruce up your dinky apartment, at least virtually. The promise of augmented and virtual reality was a big focus of Facebook's annual conference for developers on Tuesday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the gathering of programmers and other tech folks by talking about augmented reality tools he envisions on Facebook. Augmented reality involves the overlay of computer...
NEW YORK (AP) — Google Earth is getting a revival, as the 3-D mapping service reorients itself to become more of a tool for adventure and exploration. A central feature in the new Google Earth is Voyager. Google has partnered with such groups as the BBC and NASA to add video clips, photos and text narratives to three-dimensional representations of particular locations. The Jane Goodall Institute, for instance, lets you journey to spots in Tanzania that inspired its founding chimpanzee expert. You can also get overlays of chimpanzee ranges a...
Just as virtual technology has become a common tool for anyone planning to repaint or redecorate a home, a growing array of apps can make landscaping easier too. But know when to use them, and when it would be easier to pull out an old-fashioned pencil and a sheet of graph paper — or to seek out a professional. "We've seen an increase in virtual interior design services within the last two years, so it's only natural that this functionality would make its way to the exterior of the home as well," said Stephanie Sisco, Real Simple magazine's h...
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Board of Education is voting again this week on revised science curriculums requiring students to "evaluate scientific explanations" on the "complexity" of human cells and on the origin of DNA. That's language which academics say deliberately casts doubt on the theory of evolution. It's been cheered by religious conservatives, however. They argue it encourages high school students to think critically about science. In February, the board scrapped anti-evolution rules asking students to consider "all sides" of s...
CAIRO (AP) — Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered more than 1,000 statues and 10 sarcophagi in an ancient noble's tomb on the west bank of the Nile River in Luxor. The Antiquities Ministry said Tuesday that the tomb was built for a judge during the New Kingdom period, from roughly 1,500 to 1,000 B.C. The tomb comprised an open courtyard leading to two halls, one containing four ancient coffins and the other including a chamber that houses six. The head of archaeological mission, Mostafa el-Waziri, says another chamber was found containing t...
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — An Austin police officer whose duties included administering Breathalyzer tests has been fired after a self-administered test indicated he had reported for work drunk. His supervising sergeant is suspended for 60 days. A memo released Tuesday showed the officer reported for his shift one day last October, then drove his patrol car to the Travis County Jail for a self-administered breath test required by his certification. The results showed a blood-alcohol concentration of .064-0.65 percent. The officer drove back to his s...
METAIRIE, La. (AP) — An alligator has been wrangled after crawling out of a storm drain in Louisiana. WWL reports (http://bit.ly/2pbVXFK) a 7-foot (2.13-meter) alligator emerged from a drain in Jefferson Parish on Monday after heavy rains. The drain was located behind an elementary school that wasn't holding class because of spring break. The alligator did move around, but Bucktown resident Hazel Porter described it as mainly "just chilling." Video obtained by WWL shows a group of Bucktown residents detaining the alligator by lassoing its n...
