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FuelEU: BIMCO’s new clause and its implicationsTULSA, Okla. (AP) — Tulsa fired football coach Kevin Wilson on Sunday and will elevate wide receivers coach Ryan Switzer on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. The Golden Hurricane lost to South Florida 63-30 on Saturday, dropping their record to 3-8. The school's decision concludes Wilson's two-year tenure with a 7-16 record, including 3-12 in American Athletic Conference play. “With the rapidly evolving landscape of college athletics, we know the importance of positioning our football program and athletic department to thrive and excel in the upcoming years,” athletic director Justin Moore said in a statement. “Our standard will be to play in bowl games every season, compete for conference titles, and build a program that everyone connected to the Golden Hurricane will be proud of." Wilson spent six years as Indiana’s head coach, going 26-47 from 2011 to 2016. He then joined Urban Meyer’s staff at Ohio State and stayed on under Meyer’s successor, Ryan Day, before taking over at Tulsa. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up . AP college football: and The Associated Press

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Popular Science Announces the Best Innovations of 2024Carter's single White House term still stirs controversy after more than 40 years

On June 20, 1979, President Jimmy Carter invited reporters up to the White House roof for a ceremony to inaugurate the installation of 32 solar water-heating panels. America was in the midst of an energy freak-out, with long lines at gas stations and not-crazy fear that the U.S. economy was going to be starved by its dependence on foreign oil. And Carter was paying the price: his approval rating was 28 percent, the lowest of his presidency. On that summer day, Carter acknowledged that “some few Americans have reached a state of panic.” But instead of pandering to Americans and promising more oil and gas, he challenged them, insisting that “America was not built on timidity or panic.” Carter announced that he was committed to spending more than $1 billion “to stimulate solar and other renewable forms of energy,” in the expectation that within two decades 20 percent of the nation’s energy would be generated by solar power. “In the year 2000,” Carter told the crowd on the rooftop that day, “this solar water heater behind me... will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy.” Then he added, prophetically, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” Obviously, America did not take the road toward clean energy that Carter pointed toward on that day. In 1979, the U.S. relied on fossil fuels for about 90 percent of primary energy consumption. Today, fossil fuels still provide about 80 percent of the power consumed in America. But America’s failure is not Jimmy Carter’s failure. In fact, Carter had a visionary understanding of the road ahead, which only grows more profound with each passing year. “President Carter belongs at the top of any list of the greatest environmental presidents in American history,” says Gus Speth, chairman of Carter’s Council on Environmental Quality and a pioneering figure in the environmental movement. Editor’s picks The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time It is a fair claim. Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark off to explore the West, vastly expanding scientific knowledge of the natural world. Teddy Roosevelt was a rugged outdoorsman who created more than 190 million acres of new national forests, parks, and monuments. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” plan was also responsible for the creation of the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. Impeached crook Richard Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency and the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Barack Obama passed the Clean Power Plan and signed the Paris Climate Agreement. Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will funnel $370 billion into climate and energy projects over the next decade. But it was Carter who first addressed the essential fact of our time, which is that modern life as we know it today has been both created by and is being destroyed by our entanglement with fossil fuels. “The challenge facing this country is the moral equivalent of war,” Carter said in 1979. He was talking about the threat from OPEC oil producers to strangle the U.S. economy with high oil prices, not the threat of rising CO2 pollution to cook the planet. But it hardly mattered. He was the Greta Thunberg of the 1970s, saying bold, politically blunt things about greed and consumption and fossil fuel addiction that nobody wanted to hear. And this was all the more remarkable because he was not a Swedish teenager. He was the President of the United States. Carter grew up barefoot and poor on a farm in southwestern Georgia. The farm had no electricity or running water, no diesel-fueled tractors, and of course no air-conditioning. He sweated in the fields with the other farmhands and felt the red dirt between his toes. He fished in the nearby rivers and lakes and learned to castrate a pig before he was old enough to drive and ate family meals of slaughtered steer brains mixed with scrambled eggs. But Carter was also a pragmatist. When he was 11, his father installed a windmill on their farm, giving them running water for the first time and showing young Jimmy the power of renewable energy. In the Navy, he became a nuclear engineer and risked his life to defuse a meltdown in an experimental nuclear reactor in Canada. Related Content Jimmy Carter, U.S. President and Prolific Humanitarian, Dead at 100 Trump EPA Pick Lee Zeldin Is Fossil Fuel’s Inside Man The Battle Against Trump 2.0 Begins in the States Green Energy Depends on Copper. 40 Billion Pounds Are Under an Apache Holy Site He also happened to be president during an energy crisis, when many Americans first woke up to the political and economic consequences of their fossil-fuel powered lives. As gas stations shut down in the 1970s and prices spiraled, Americans were at once terrified and angry. “Carter understood the dangers of fossil fuels from the geopolitics of it, which smacked him upside the head,” says Dan Dudek, a former senior economist with the Environmental Defense Fund. “How much of an environmental motivation he had for his actions is tough to say. But does that matter?” Whatever Carter’s motivation may have been, his record on energy and environmental issues is clear. In his four years in office, he signed 15 major pieces of environmental legislation, including the first toxic waste cleanup and the first fuel-economy standards. His two major legislative accomplishments, the National Energy Act of 1978 and the Energy Security Act of 1980, transformed the energy landscape of America. “So much happened in his four years and we still live with his administration’s effects today,” says Michael Webber, the Josey Centennial Professor in Energy Resources at the University of Texas, Austin and the author of Power Shift: The Story of Energy . Among other things, the legislation created the Department of Energy, which elevated energy to a cabinet-level priority and dramatically increased funding for energy research and development. The legislation also began the deregulation of gas and power sectors, which opened the door for cheaper, cleaner power. “The decarbonization and decentral­ization that is well on its way in the electric utility industry today can be credited in large part to the policies started in the Carter Administration,” says James Van Nostrand, a law professor at West Virginia University and author of The Coal Trap: How West Virginia Was Left Behind in the Clean Energy Revolution. Van Nostrand points to the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 (PURPA), which was part of the National Energy Act and broke up the power of electric utilities and encouraged competition in electricity generation markets. “All the competition that currently exists in the wholesale power markets can be traced back to the original incarnation of PURPA in 1978,” says Van Nostrand. PURPA also encouraged small power production facilities, primarily cogeneration and hydro. “A lot of what we know about distributed energy resources can be traced back to encouraging cogeneration, which is a much more efficient way to generate electricity, by capturing the waste heat and using it for some other industrial process,” says Van Nostrand. PURPA also required state regulators to think differently about how electricity is priced, encouraging time-of-use rates and requiring utilities to use load management techniques, which we now know today as demand response, to reduce energy usage. None of this came without a fight. “The influence of the oil and gas industry is unbelievable,” Carter once complained, “and it’s impossible to arouse the public to protect themselves.” Although Carter’s biggest accomplishments were in transforming the energy landscape, he also did more to protect America’s wild places than any president since Teddy Roosevelt. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), which Carter engineered through a clever usage of executive power in the Antiquities Act, provided various levels of protection to 157 million acres — an area roughly the size of California and Oregon combined. Carter’s energy and environmental legacy is not unblemished or uncontroversial. Gus Speth credits Carter for halting a headlong rush to build a new fleet of breeder reactors for electricity generation. “He stopped the plutonium economy before it could get started,” Speth argues. But other energy experts fault Carter for banning the reprocessing of nuclear waste, which essentially killed the evolution of nuclear power in the U.S. “As our one and only nuclear engineer president, he gutted the American nuclear industry forever with his decision not to reprocess nuclear waste,” Webber says. “He knew too much and the risks that reprocessing would enable loose weapons grade materials in a decade rife with terrorism made him nervous; we pay the price for that today.” Carter is also responsible for the Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 , which Webber calls “one of our worse energy policies ever.” Webber argues that the legislation banned new natural gas power plants, leading to the development of 80 gigawatts of coal instead. “That’s had huge greenhouse gas and air pollution consequences that still live with us today,” Webber says. On climate, Carter understood the threat of rising CO2 pollution as well as any scientist of his time. “Carter had started studying the issue in 1971,” biographer Jonathan Alter has said. “I found in his files from when he was governor underlinings in the journal Nature about carbon pollution and global warming. Other politicians played golf — Carter played tennis — but he was reading scientific journals. That’s how he got his jollies.” By the time Carter took office, the risks of climate change were becoming well-documented throughout the federal government. Barely six months into Carter’s term, Frank Press, the President’s science adviser sent him a memorandum summarizing the threat from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the warming that would result from it. “The urgency of the problem derives from our inability to shift rapidly to non-fossil fuel sources once the climatic effects become evident not long after the year 2000; the situation could grow out of control before alternate energy sources and other remedial actions become effective.” Although Press did not call for emergency action, he advised Carter that “we must now take the potential CO2 hazard into account in developing our long-term energy strategy.” Other climate reports followed, including one in 1979 by a group of top scientists headed by meteorologist Jule Charney, titled “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment.” The Charney report, which is now remembered by historians as a prime example of how well scientists understood the threat of climate change nearly a half-century ago, stated that when the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere doubled, the planet would most likely warm by three degrees Celsius — a calculation that is remarkably close to the best estimates today. “A warming ... will probably be conspicuous within the next twenty years,” the report read, calling for early action: “Enlightened policies in the management of fossil fuels and forests can delay or avoid these changes, but the time for implementing the policies is fast passing.” Another report at the very end of Carter’s presidency by the White House Council on Environmental Quality reached similar conclusions. None of it was news to Carter, who directed the National Academy of Sciences to prepare a comprehensive, $1 million analysis of the greenhouse effect. “Carter was the first leader anywhere in the world who considered [climate change] a problem,” says Alter. Although Carter talked about the risks of rising CO2 levels in several speeches, he never launched a campaign to directly confront climate change — in part because he was too consumed with the energy crisis in real-time and in part because he was too consumed with the politics of getting re-elected. If he had won a second term, would he have sounded the climate alarm? It would have been a complicated call for Carter, if only because he had backed coal — the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels — and synthetic fuels as a way to get off imported oil. But it’s hard to imagine that Carter would not have pushed global warming forward as a major issue. “It’s been enormously frustrating to realize that if we had started with Carter and continued after his administration, we could have been on a smooth trajectory to reduce fossil fuel use,” Speth says. “If that had happened, we could be getting out of the fossil fuel business right now. But, of course, that’s not what happened.” What happened was Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the anti-Carter, a president who saw consumption as next to godliness and economic growth as a religious force. He ripped the solar panels off the White House roof and they ended up on a farm in Maine, at the Smithsonian, and at a solar exhibit in China. He cut clean energy research and reduced taxes on oil and gas and made America safe again for fossil fuel barons. “The big oil companies finally have a friend in the White House,” the New Republic reported soon after Reagan took office in 1981. And in many ways, America has never looked back. Carter had imaged that by 2020, America would be creating 20 percent of its electricity from the sun. The hard reality: In 2022, solar generated about 3 percent of U.S. electricity (all non-hydro renewables — wind, solar, biomass, geothermal — generate about 14 percent). Even more disturbing is the fact that U.S. CO2 emissions are about the same today as they were in 1976 when Carter took office. If you consider historical emissions, the U.S. is by far the largest contributor to the climate crisis. And without U.S. leadership, the climate crisis has only accelerated. From 1980 to 2019, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere grew from 339 parts per million to 419 ppm. “America’s energy policy of the last four decades is the greatest dereliction of civic responsibility in the history of the Republic,” Speth argues. Carter himself never gave up the fight. When he was 92, he installed 3,852 solar panels on his land in Plains, Georgia, which create enough electricity to power half of the town. It was a powerful reminder, if such a reminder were needed, that when Carter installed the solar panels on the White House in 1979, he had been right about the direction the world was going, even if he had been wrong about the timing. Perhaps the most enduring aspect of Carter’s legacy on energy and the environment is that it forces us to remember that where we are today has been a choice. Carter did his part, both as president and as a citizen. It’s not too late for us to do ours.Share Tweet Share Share Email As industries around the world harness the power of AI and automation, few face as complex a challenge—or as urgent a need for digitization—as American healthcare. Outdated legacy systems and decades of fragmented patient data have left the sector lagging in adoption. The question looms: how can healthcare bridge its widening digital divide? Harsha Penubadi , a leading authority in cloud infrastructure, has spent his career unravelling this question. After optimizing cloud systems for global tech giants, from leading large-scale cloud migrations at ClearObject Inc. to enhancing technologies for early childhood education at TCC Solutions, he channeled his expertise into genetic testing infrastructure. Today, he shares his insights into healthcare’s digital future and the challenges that must be addressed to achieve it. Overhauling Healthcare’s Digital Foundations “It’s rebuilding the house while you’re living in it,” Penubadi says, describing the monumental effort required to modernize healthcare’s digital infrastructure. While other industries—like manufacturing and retail—grapple with similar hurdles, the stakes in medicine are uniquely high: inefficiencies can directly impact patient outcomes. Penubadi’s success at Myriad Genetics illustrates how modern infrastructure can transform healthcare delivery. Through improvements to their infrastructure, he reduced the time-to-market for their genetic testing applications by 40%, enabling earlier disease detection and faster clinical decisions. Remarkably, these gains were achieved without altering testing procedures—hinting at the untapped potential in healthcare’s digital groundwork. “Patient journeys are highly standardized, which make them great candidates for machine learning,” Penubadi explains. “But most current systems are a patchwork of outdated platforms and tools. There’s a lot to be gained just by improving what’s under the hood.” Strengthening these foundations, he says, is essential to unlocking the potential of AI. This principle extends to notoriously inefficient systems like electronic health records, where infrastructure shortcomings can compromise patient safety . Robust infrastructure can lower error rates and enhance data integration—all while laying the groundwork for more ambitious, integrated solutions. Scale & Resilience for Better Patient Outcomes “Healthcare has always been a data-intensive industry,” Penubadi observes. “What’s changed is the scale and speed.” Centralizing this data and facilitating rapid retrieval—whether it’s during critical patient care or from long-term archives—is where infrastructure modernization needs the most attention, he continues. Penubadi’s previous work managing the infrastructure which handled large-scale genetic datasets highlights this balance. At Myriad, he introduced fault-tolerant infrastructure that reduced detection and resolution times by over 35%, preventing service disruptions that could endanger patients. This scalability is also key to emerging solutions like telemedicine and predictive health analytics, which surged in importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. These technologies promise to expand access to care, but their success hinges on platforms that can manage unpredictable surges in demand without compromising performance or reliability. AI as a Pillar of Infrastructure While AI often grabs headlines for its cost-saving potential, Penubadi emphasizes its role as an integral part of the infrastructure itself. “Every efficiency gain we achieve has a ripple effect on patient outcomes,” he explains. From predicting system failures to optimizing critical care backend processes, AI can improve operational reliability while freeing up resources for clinicians. Cloud-based AI systems, in particular, offer scalability and flexibility, removing the constraints of physical infrastructure. These systems also support public health initiatives, such as smart diagnostic platforms and remote clinical deployments, while generating new opportunities in fields like data science and AI engineering. On the clinical side, Penubadi points to partnerships like OpenAI’s collaboration with Color Health, which demonstrates the potential of AI in personalizing patient care. Generative AI can help in the development of treatment plans—a crucial advancement in fields like oncology, where individualized care can improve survival rates. Innovation Meets Responsibility As automation and AI take center stage, regulatory and ethical considerations grow increasingly important. Federal initiatives, including the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation, reflect the growing need for equitable and secure development. Meanwhile, reports from the Government Accountability Office have long emphasized the importance of transparency and effective oversight in AI-driven healthcare . Penubadi emphasizes that these regulatory frameworks must treat the underlying infrastructure with equal weight. “Regulation is really an extension of infrastructure,” he explains. “Systems must be designed to safeguard patient data and ensure AI transparency. They directly enable accountability.” By embedding these principles into infrastructure design, Penubadi says, the healthcare industry can build stronger public trust—a critical factor in its digital transformation. A Networked Future for U.S. Healthcare The future of American healthcare , according to Penubadi, will largely depend on its ability to embrace modern infrastructure. While he expresses optimism about the road ahead, he emphasizes the importance of building resilient systems that support innovation without compromising safety or reliability. “The technologies we adopt today will determine what kind of care we can deliver tomorrow,” he says. “If we focus on strengthening the foundation now, we can build a healthcare system that’s prepared for the challenges—and opportunities—that come next.” Related Items: Digital Infrastructure , Healthcare Share Tweet Share Share Email Recommended for you Revolutionizing Maternal Care: How M.O.T HER’s Advanced AI is Transforming Motherhood Mental Stress: Symptoms, Prevention, and Physical Body Effects The Future of Health and Life Insurance: Exploring Innovative Insurtech Solutions CommentsA general election candidate has said the Social Democrats' plans for a €10 million fund to bring Palestinian children to Ireland for medical treatment is a natural continuation of the solidarity Ireland has shown to Gaza. The €10 million fund to bring Palestinian children to Ireland would be for education, cultural exchanges and medical treatment. Advertisement The proposal is contained in the party’s ‘Positive Neutrality’ policy document, which was launched by foreign affairs spokesperson Gary Gannon, and Patricia Stephenson, the Social Democrats general election candidate in Carlow-Kilkenny. The policy highlights how, in government, the party would allocate €10 million to fund and facilitate grassroots community initiatives to bring Palestinian children and young people to Ireland for education, cultural exchange, and/or specific medical treatments. As part of this same scheme, there would be an exchange programme for Palestinian public servants to be mentored in Ireland, including sponsored attendance at the Institute of Public Administration. Ms Stephenson told BreakingNews.ie: "The context of what's happening in Gaza is so extreme, that to give humanitarian aid in situ when there aren't medical centres operating anymore and all those challenges, this plan is an action of solidarity within that context. Advertisement "Over the last 1,000 days of the war in Ukraine, the support people across Ireland have given to Ukrainians has been remarkable. These would be short-term schemes. A lot of them are children and young people who would come for specific training programmes and medical support. I know there are huge challenges around housing and the healthcare system, but these would be targeted to those most in need." Ms Stephenson said a lot of Irish people want to do more to support Palestinians who are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" as a result of the Israel-Hamas war. People have expressed so much solidarity with the Palestinian people, and I think there are a lot of people who want us to do more. Advertisement "I think it's really important for solidarity, it's in line with what we do in humanitarian aid anyway. It's a different modality in bringing people here, but it's in line with our 2030 sustainable development goals, our commitment to tackling global injustices. "I think it fits with the spirit of Ireland. People have expressed so much solidarity with the Palestinian people, and I think there are a lot of people who want us to do more. This would be an example of doing more." Six months ago, Ms Stephenson met with Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. She said he noted Ireland's solidarity, but also said any help possible would be welcomed. Advertisement "I know it's hard to understand what that [solidarity] does for people in Palestine. We've seen the horror on our phones, but international solidarity helps people to keep going under this horrible oppression, and it is having an impact. He also said you can do more, you can pass the Occupied Territories Bill. This would be a further step to support those children who are facing unimaginable trauma. "We're in favour of the Occupied Territories Bill." The proposal is contained in the party’s ‘Positive Neutrality’ policy document, which was launched by foreign affairs spokesperson Gary Gannon, and Patricia Stephenson, the Social Democrats general election candidate in Carlow-Kilkenny. The policy also includes additional funding for the Defence Forces, and legislation that would mean any significant changes to Ireland's neutrality would be put before a Citizen's Assembly and possibly a referendum. Advertisement It also pledges to stop the transfer of military equipment through Ireland bound for war zones. "The protests in Shannon have been large. I don't think anyone in Ireland is behind participating, in any way, in the delivery of military equipment to Israel. We're furious it has been done, and it puts our stance on neutrality into question. "In terms of Gaza, people are concerned about weapons being flown over the country. That is an active conversation that comes up regularly when I'm canvassing, brought up by people on their own volition."

Jason Whitlock claims Colorado players rented out a strip club TWICE before heavy Alamo Bowl defeat READ MORE: College football star stomped on by Arkansas' Fernando Carmona By ERIC BLUM Published: 22:50 GMT, 29 December 2024 | Updated: 22:50 GMT, 29 December 2024 e-mail View comments Nearly a day after Colorado football was blown out by BYU in the Alamo Bowl, Jason Whitlock believes he has revealed the reason the Buffaloes were shellacked - they rented out a strip club twice before kickoff. Colorado lost 36-14 on Saturday night to BYU, with the Big 12 teams facing in the postseason but not the regular season in a matchup where Deion Sanders' team rarely looked composed. It marked the final collegiate appearance of Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders. 'So I missed all of the Colorado-BYU game yesterday. What are the best takeaways? I've been reliably told that the CU offensive players rented out a strip club 2 nights during their bowl trip,' Whitlock said on social media. Whitlock, who has been synonymous with drumming up controversy and blasting his opinion on social media, no matter how bizarre it made seem to some, has not revealed his 'reliable' source. No one from the Colorado program has responded to Whitlock's claim. Whitlock has claimed that Colorado football players rented out a strip club in San Antonio The Buffaloes looked terrible in their bowl game against BYU, with some looking for excused So I missed all of the Colorado-BYU game yesterday. What are the best takeaways? I've been reliably told that the CU offensive players rented out a strip club 2 nights during their bowl trip. — Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) December 29, 2024 The bowl game took place in San Antonio, with the infamous River Walk, and the accompanying entertainment district, only a mile away from the Alamodome. Read More Referee left bloodied after suffering gruesome cut in wild brawl at college football game Whitlock also has not commented on the situation any further after posting his claim on social media. Texas law states patrons must be 21 or older to enter a strip club, which would eliminate several players on the Buffaloes offense from attending the alleged night on the town. Colorado responding to the claim is unlikely to happen in an official capacity, with Deion Sanders defending his team a possible avenue to retort against Whitlock. However, with Colorado's season ending, it may be until February's national signing day when Sanders holds his next press availability. Colorado Share or comment on this article: Jason Whitlock claims Colorado players rented out a strip club TWICE before heavy Alamo Bowl defeat e-mail Add commentThe U.S. believes journalist Austin Tice is alive after disappearing in Syria in 2012, Biden says

Power planners have found nuclear energy does not stack up for Australia even after considering new parameters, with large-scale solar and big batteries still the lowest-cost option. or signup to continue reading In the draft generation cost update released on Monday, scientists and energy officials warn taxpayers will need deep pockets and a lead time of at least 15 years to develop nuclear energy generation. For the seventh straight year, renewables were the lowest-cost of any new-build electricity-generating technology. After a global energy crisis and equipment supply crunch several years ago, large-scale solar and lithium battery storage have weathered the inflationary period the best of all technologies. The cost of batteries recorded the largest annual reduction, with capital costs down by one-fifth. Rooftop solar costs are also coming down. The draft GenCost 2024-25 Report comes as the coalition pushes for an end to Australia's nuclear ban and promises to have reactors online in as soon as 10 years if elected in 2025. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, eyeing sites in seven regional centres, has pledged to release the coalition's nuclear costings "this week". But nuclear energy generation would be 1.5 to two times more expensive than large-scale solar, according to the analysis released by the national science agency CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator. A one-gigawatt nuclear plant has a price tag of roughly $9 billion, but the bill would double to $18 billion as the first of its kind. Operators would also need to establish new connection points to safely supply the national electricity grid, experts warn. Advocates have demanded greater recognition of the potential cost advantages of nuclear's long operating life compared to solar panels and wind turbines, but CSIRO chief energy economist and GenCost lead author Paul Graham said he found none. "Similar cost savings can be achieved with shorter-lived technologies including renewables, even when accounting for the need to build them twice," Mr Graham said. Nuclear's capacity factor - referring to how much of a year a reactor could operate at full tilt - remains unaltered at 53-89 per cent based on verifiable data and consideration of Australia's unique electricity generation needs. Nor would the often-touted United Arab Emirates example of a relatively quick 12-year nuclear construction time-frame be achievable here, the report found, because Australians require consultation. An increase in gas generation costs in the update included a premium for hydrogen readiness that was not included in previous data. All new gas turbine projects, including Kurri Kurri in NSW, are expected to include the capability for hydrogen blending and eventual conversion to hydrogen firing when supply becomes more readily available. The draft report is open for feedback until February 11, with a final version due in the second quarter of 2025. Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our . AdvertisementNew research highlights need to break down silos in healthcare risk management to improve outcomesPRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. is set to sign into law on Monday a bill seeking a P20-billion increase in the government’s annual fund for rice farmers, according to Senate President Francis Joseph “Chiz” G. Escudero. Mr. Escudero said the bill, which will amend Republic Act No. 11203, the Rice Tariffication Law, will extend the implementation of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) and expand its funding to P30 billion yearly from P10 billion currently. With the bill’s signing, the “country’s rice farmers will receive greater support through the provision of farm machinery and equipment, free distribution of high quality inbred certified seeds, and other interventions,” he said in a statement. The law extends the life of the RCEF, which was set to expire this year, until 2031. RCEF, which is intended to modernize the rice industry, is funded by import tariffs generated under the 2019 rice tariffication law, which liberalized rice imports. The law stripped the National Food Authority (NFA) of its power to import, allowing private traders to bring in rice with no restrictions. They must pay a 35% tariff on grain sourced from Southeast Asia. “An increase in the annual allocation to the RCEF will also be instituted, from the current P10 billion to P30 billion until the year 2031,” Mr. Escudero said. Under the bill, a buffer stock of rice will be maintained, equivalent to 30 days at any given time, “to sustain disaster relief programs of the government during natural or man-made calamities and to address food security emergency situations on rice,” the Senate leader said. The bill seeks to strengthen the Department of Agriculture, through the Bureau of Plant Industry, to conduct a “stronger inspection and monitoring” of warehouses and agricultural facilities to ensure a stable supply of rice in the market and ensure the quality of rice being sold to consumers. “We want to avoid a situation where the price of rice shoots up unnecessarily due to smuggling or hoarding. This has long been a problem in the country that should be addressed immediately,” Mr. Escudero said. The new law also authorizes the Agriculture Secretary to designate importing entities, except the NFA, to import rice when there is an extraordinary increase in rice prices. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

NoneStrong, Norway, Oakland schools among grant recipientsPolice arrested a 26-year-old man on Monday in the Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO after they say a Pennsylvania McDonald's worker alerted authorities to a customer who resembled the suspected gunman. The suspect, identified by police as Luigi Nicholas Mangione, had a gun believed to be the one used in Wednesday’s attack on Brian Thompson , as well as writings expressing anger at corporate America, police said. Here are some of the latest developments in the ongoing investigation: Mangione was taken into custody at around 9:15 a.m. after police received a tip that he was eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh, police said. Mangione was being held in Pennsylvania on gun charges and will eventually be extradited to New York to face charges in connection with Thompson’s death, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. In addition to a three-page, handwritten document that suggests he harbored “ill will toward corporate America,” Kenny said Mangione also had a ghost gun , a type of weapon that can be assembled at home and is difficult to trace. Officers questioned Mangione, who was acting suspiciously and carrying multiple fraudulent IDs, as well as a U.S. passport, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference. Officers also found a suppressor, “consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” the commissioner said. He had clothing and a mask similar to those worn by the shooter and a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting, Tisch said. Kenny said Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and that his last known address is in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mangione, who was valedictorian of his Maryland prep school, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a university spokesman told The Associated Press on Monday. He learned to code in high school and helped start a club at Penn for people interested in gaming and game design, according to a 2018 story in Penn Today, a campus publication. His social media posts also suggest that he belonged to the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. They also show him taking part in a 2019 program at Stanford University, and in photos with family and friends at the Jersey Shore and in Hawaii, San Diego, Puerto Rico, and other destinations. The Gilman School, from which Mangione graduated in 2016, is one of Baltimore’s elite prep schools. Some of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent people, including Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr., have had children attend the school. Its alumni include sportswriter Frank Deford and former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington. In his valedictory speech, Luigi Mangione described his classmates’ “incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things,” according to a post on the school website. He praised their collective inventiveness and pioneering mindset. Mangione comes from a prominent Maryland family. His grandfather Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. One of his best-known projects was Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978. The father of 10 children, Nick Mangione prepared his five sons — including Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione — to help manage the family business, according to a 2003 Washington Post report. The Mangione family also purchased Hayfields Country Club north of Baltimore in 1986. On Monday, Baltimore County police officers blocked off an entrance to the property, which public records link to Luigi Mangione’s parents. A swarm of reporters and photographers gathered outside the entrance. Luigi Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of Nick Mangione, according to his obituary. Luigi Mangione's grandparents donated to charities through the Mangione Family Foundation, according to a statement from Loyola University commemorating Nick Mangione’s wife’s death in 2023. They donated to various causes ranging from Catholic organizations to colleges and the arts. One of Luigi Mangione’s cousins is Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione. A spokesman for the lawmaker's office confirmed the relationship Monday. Police said the person who killed Thompson left a hostel on Manhattan's Upper West Side at 5:41 a.m. on Wednesday. Just 11 minutes later, he was seen on surveillance video walking back and forth in front of the New York Hilton Midtown, wearing a distinctive backpack. At 6:44 a.m., he shot Thompson at a side entrance to the hotel, fled on foot, then climbed aboard a bicycle and within four minutes had entered Central Park. Another security camera recorded the gunman leaving the park near the American Museum of Natural History at 6:56 a.m. still on the bicycle but without the backpack. After getting in a taxi, he headed north to a bus terminal near the George Washington Bridge, arriving at around 7:30 a.m. From there, the trail of video evidence runs cold. Police have not located video of the suspected shooter exiting the building, leading them to believe he likely took a bus out of town. Police said they are still investigating the path the suspect took to Pennsylvania. “This just happened this morning," Kenny said. "We’ll be working, backtracking his steps from New York to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” Kenny said. Associated Press reporters Lea Skene in Baltimore and Cedar Attanasio in New York contributed to this report.