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Navy, Trump planning biggest fleet expansion to deter Russian, Chinese threats

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NewsHubIn this Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017 photo, a shipyard worker walks to his car at the end of the workday at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine.
(AP)
BATH, Maine – With President-elect Donald Trump demanding more ships, the Navy is proposing the biggest shipbuilding boom since the end of the Cold War to meet threats from a resurgent Russia and saber-rattling China.
The Navy’s 355-ship proposal released last month is even larger than what the Republican Trump had promoted on the campaign trail, providing a potential boost to shipyards that have struggled because budget caps that have limited money funding for ships.
At Maine’s Bath Iron Works, workers worried about the future want to build more ships but wonder where the billions of dollars will come from.
„Whether Congress and the government can actually fund it, is a whole other ball game,“ said Rich Nolan, president of the shipyard’s largest union.
Boosting shipbuilding to meet the Navy’s 355-ship goal could require an additional $5 billion to $5.5 billion in annual spending in the Navy’s 30-year projection, according to an estimate by naval analyst Ronald O’Rourke at the Congressional Research Service.
The Navy’s revised Force Structure Assessment calls for adding another 47 ships including an aircraft carrier built in Virginia, 16 large surface warships built in Maine and Mississippi, and 18 attack submarines built in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia. It also calls for more amphibious assault ships, expeditionary transfer docks and support ships.
In addition to being good for national security, a larger fleet would be better for both the sailors, who’d enjoy shorter deployments, and for the ships, which would have more down time for maintenance, said Matthew Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, which represents most of the major Navy shipbuilders.
„Russia and China are going to continue to build up their navies,“ he said. „The complexities aren’t going to get any easier. The Navy, more than any of the services, is our forward presence. We’re going to need this Navy. “
Many defense analysts agree that military capabilities have been degraded in recent years, especially when it comes to warships, aircraft and tanks.
The key is finding a way to increase Navy shipbuilding to achieve defense and economic gains „in a fiscally responsible way that does not pass the bill along to our children,“ said independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, a member of the Armed Services Committee.
Even when Trump takes office, no one envisions a return to the heady days during the Cold War when workers were wiring, welding, grinding, pounding and plumbing ships at a furious pace to meet President Ronald Reagan’s audacious goal of a 600ship Navy.
The Navy currently has 274 deployable battle force ships, far short of its old goal of 308 ships.
Lawrence J. Korb, a retired naval officer and former assistant defense secretary under Reagan, said the Navy’s request isn’t realistic unless the Trump administration is willing to take the budget „to levels we’ve never seen. “
„You never have enough money to buy a perfect defense. You have to make trade-offs,“ said Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
But investors apparently are betting on more ships.
General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works, Connecticut-based Electric Boat and California-based NASSCO, and Huntington Ingalls, which owns major shipyards in Virginia and in Mississippi, have both seen stock prices creep upward since the election.
„To the generic military shipbuilder, it’s a bull market right now,“ said Ronald Epstein, an analyst at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch division.
In Bath, the 6,000 shipbuilders aren’t going to count their eggs before they hatch.
„A lot of people are hopeful that it’ll happen,“ Nolan said. „But they’re taking a wait-and-see approach. They’ve heard it before and then seen it not come to fruition. „

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© Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/09/navy-trump-planning-biggest-fleet-expansion-to-deter-russian-chinese-threats.html
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China Express Delivery Industry Report, 2016

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© Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/china-express-delivery-industry-report-2016-300387729.html
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UK VW owners find remuneration over emissions scandal

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NewsHubThousands of Volkswagen owners in a UK are seeking remuneration from a carmaker following a emissions paraphernalia scandal.
Lawyers pronounced 10,000 owners had already voiced an seductiveness in suing VW.
They guess owners could get “several thousand” pounds in compensation.
Lawyers, headed by a organisation Harcus Sinclair, are requesting for a organisation lawsuit order, identical to a US category movement lawsuit, in a High Court after this month.
VW has approved regulating program to lie emissions tests heading to a remember of millions of cars worldwide.
There are 1.2 million diesel engine cars influenced in a UK, including VWs, Audis, Seat and Skodas.
The authorised movement aims to get remuneration for people who possess or have formerly owned one of a vehicles.
Harcus Sinclair pronounced it was basing a guess of a turn of remuneration owners could get on a €5,000 (£4,300) per owners awarded in Spain and a $8-10,000 awarded in a US.
“The pivotal claim is that a influenced cars should not have been approved as fit for sale since it is purported that they constructed aloft levels of nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions than a manners allowed,” it pronounced in a statement.
“It is also purported that a influenced vehicles usually upheld central emissions exam since their engines were propitious with a ‘defeat device’ that reduces nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions underneath exam conditions.”
The organisation has announced a focus for a organisation lawsuit sequence and has called on VW owners to join a authorised action.
If a High Court gives a movement a go-ahead afterwards a pre-trial conference will follow and afterwards a hearing itself in about 18 months.

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© Source: http://headlinenewstoday.net/uk-vw-owners-seek-compensation-over-emissions-scandal.html
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Cuomo Confirms Deal to Close Indian Point Nuclear Plant

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NewsHubGov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York confirmed on Monday that the state had reached an agreement to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which sits less than 30 miles north of New York City, by April 2021.
Mr. Cuomo will claim the long-sought shutdown as a victory in the State of the State speeches he is scheduled to deliver in the city and other locations this week, state officials said. He has argued for more than 15 years that it is unsafe for nuclear reactors to operate on the edge of the most populous metropolitan area in the country.
Along with the governor’s office, the office of the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, and Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group, participated in the deal.
The plant has been the target of protests by local residents and environmental groups, but its supporters have argued that there are no adequate substitutes for its high output of low-cost, carbon-free power. Indian Point’s two reactors can produce more than 2,000 megawatts, or about one-fourth of the electricity consumed in the city and in Westchester County.
“For 15 years, I have been deeply concerned by the continuing safety violations at Indian Point, especially given its location in the largest and most densely populated metropolitan region in the country,” Mr. Cuomo said in a prepared statement. “I am proud to have secured this agreement with Entergy to responsibly close the facility,” which could have remained open for another 14 years.
Entergy, the utility company based in New Orleans that operates Indian Point, said on Monday that the low wholesale price of energy and the rising costs of operating Indian Point were factors in the decision to shut it. The company said it would take an impairment charge of $2.4 billion, before taxes, against its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2016.
Entergy has sought renewal of its federal licenses to operate the reactors for almost a decade.
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, will argue that more than enough other sources of energy will be available by 2021, including hydropower from Quebec carried by new transmission lines, state officials said. He will also say that the effect on electric ratepayers will be negligible.
A state official said the governor’s office estimated that, at most, the proposed shutdown would add $3 a month to electric bills in the metropolitan area. Utility customers in New York City already pay rates that are higher than anywhere else in the country, except Hawaii.
“We don’t want this to turn into harder impacts on those who are already socially vulnerable,” said Robert Freudenberg, the director of energy and environmental programs for the Regional Plan Association.
Mr. Freudenberg wondered how the proposed shutdown would fit with Mr. Cuomo’s ambitious goal of having half of the power consumed in the state produced from renewable sources, like wind and solar power , by 2030.
“There is currently not enough carbon-free energy in the pipeline to replace Indian Point,” he said. “We feel that now the most urgent priority is that the state take all the steps necessary to ramp up the state’s renewable energy supply.”
The agreement would involve the state’s withdrawal of its challenges to Entergy’s license renewals and permits that it needs from state agencies, officials said.
State officials said the contractual agreement calls for Entergy to shut down one of the reactors by April 2020 and the other by April 2021. The only exception to meeting those deadlines would come in the event of an unforeseen, catastrophic event, they said.
Local and county officials in Westchester complained that they had been excluded from talks between the state and Entergy, and they expressed concerns about the impending loss of jobs and tax revenue in their communities. The plant employs nearly 1,000 full-time workers, about 550 of whom are union members.
The state official said there would be time to adjust for those losses and to retrain displaced workers. Entergy agreed to offer displaced workers positions in other facilities it operates, the official said.
The state official said Entergy estimated that its work force would shrink by about 20 percent, or about 200 jobs, in 2021. After the shutdowns, about 190 workers would stay on for the decommissioning process, he said. Entergy estimated that it would take charges of about $180 million for the costs of severance and employee retention.
Officials said the state would inspect the plant annually, including examinations of bolts in the reactors during periodic refueling, until it closed. They said Entergy had agreed to transfer used fuel to protective storage in dry casks, the preferred method of storing spent reactor fuel.

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© Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/nyregion/cuomo-indian-point-nuclear-plant.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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What's fueling California's mega storm? The 'pineapple express'

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NewsHubJanuary 9, 2017
— The massive winter storm that began to strike Northern California and Nevada over the weekend has caused flooding and mudslides, and prompted evacuations across the region, with a second storm set to hit Monday evening.
With California’s ongoing drought entering its sixth year, the massive rainfall is unusual and welcome, by some. The weather pattern driving the rain is a meteorological phenomenon known as a „pineapple express,“ not to be confused with the Seth Rogen and Dave Franco comedy film of the same name.
A pineapple express is a type of „atmospheric river“ – a large weather pattern that stretches across the Pacific from Hawaii to California. While there are other types of atmospheric rivers that are recognized in other parts of the globe, pineapple express storms are one of the most commonly recognized by meteorologists, characterized by warm, moist air traveling across a long, narrow band to another part of the world. These events are usually associated with large amounts of rainfall in California, and their absence can have extreme negative effects.
„The ‚pineapple express‘ has been pretty much absent the last five years,“ Mark Moede, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in San Diego, told CNBC. “ That’s why the drought has been so persistent. “
This narrow band of moist air from the waters off of Hawaii has been dumping rain on Northern California and Nevada since Saturday, driving floods and power outages throughout the region. Up to 15 inches of rain are expected to be dumped on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains before the storm moves out on Monday, with heavy snowfall expected at the mountaintops.
That snowfall is expected to help replenish the water supply from the Sierra Nevadas, which was found last week to include only 53 percent of the early-January average water content in its snow packs, according to CNBC.
But despite the much-needed precipitation, the pineapple express is also causing problems in the form of flooding and avalanches. Runoff in the already-saturated lower regions of the Sierra Nevada have prompted a number of voluntary evacuations as the area braces for a second storm Monday night.
„I don’t think I’ve seen this much rain since I moved here six years ago,“ Bob Elsen of Sparks, Nevada, told CBS News. „It’s why I moved out of Washington, to get away from this stuff. “
As rain continues to fall across California and Nevada, many businesses have been temporarily closed, but emergency crews are out in full force in both states. So far, one fatality has been reported in connection with the storm in California.
The ongoing storms may be some of the largest in years for California, but the precipitation is not expected to end the drought in the state. California’s central and southern region, the areas still most affected by the drought, continue to remain dry despite the pineapple express’s rain delivery.
„At this point it’s been Northern California receiving the bulk of the precipitation,“ Ted Thomas, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources in Sacramento, told CNBC.
This article contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.

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© Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0109/What-s-fueling-California-s-mega-storm-The-pineapple-express
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Heartburn drugs during pregnancy may increase child's risk of asthma

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NewsHubEDINBURGH, Scotland, Jan. 9 (UPI) — A University of Edinburgh study has found that women who use heartburn medication in pregnancy were more likely to have children who developed asthma.
Researchers reviewed eight previous studies of more than 1.3 million children using healthcare registries and prescription databases.
The team, led by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the University of Tampere in Finland, found that children born to mothers who used prescribed heartburn medications were one-third more likely to seek treatment for asthma symptoms.
Heartburn and acid reflux are common in pregnancy because of hormonal changes and pressure on the stomach from the growing baby.
Medications used to treat heartburn and reflux, called H2-receptor antagonists and proton pump inhibitors, block the stomach acid from backing up into the esophagus and causing symptoms.
„Our study reports an association between the onset of asthma in children and their mothers‘ use of acid-suppressing medication during pregnancy,“ Professor Aziz Shelkh, co-director of the Asthma UK Center for Applied Research at the University of Edinburgh, said in a press release. „It is important to stress that this association does not prove that the medicines caused asthma in these children and further research is needed to better understand this link. “
Researchers said the findings could be caused by a separate, link factor and the findings are inconclusive.
„It is important to stress that this research is at a very early stage and expectant mums should continue to take any medications they need under the guidance of their doctor or nurse,“ Dr. Samantha Walker, director of Policy and Research at Asthma UK, said in a press release. „We don’t know yet if the heartburn medication itself is contributing to the development of asthma in children, or if there is common factor we haven’t discovered yet that causes both heartburn in pregnant women and asthma in their children. “
The study was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

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© Source: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2017/01/09/Heartburn-drugs-during-pregnancy-may-increase-childs-risk-of-asthma/6271483967717/
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Organ Preservation Market by Preservation Solution, Transportation Technique & Organ Type – Analysis & Forecasts to 2021

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Snake on a plane grounds Emirates flight

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NewsHubZimbabwe will arrive in Cameroon on Monday for a final warm-up friendly against the Indomitable Lions before going on to Gabon for the African Nations Cup finals but only after a weekend of high drama in which captain Willard Katsande led his players on a dramatic…

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© Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2017/01/09/Snake-on-a-plane-grounds-Emirates-flight
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Streep rails against Trump at Golden Globes Contact WND

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NewsHub(DAILY MAIL) Donald Trump is firing back at Meryl Streep after she very publicly criticized him in front of millions of people around the world at the Golden Globe Awards.
In an explosive six-minute speech on Sunday night, Streep did not hold back as she went after Trump for mocking disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski during one of his rallies in November of 2015, calling him a ‘bully.’
Trump responded to Streep’s comments on Monday by taking aim at the actress on Twitter, writing: ‘Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes.’

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© Source: http://www.wnd.com/2017/01/streep-rails-against-trump-at-golden-globes/
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Golden Globes: Musical La Land dominates with seven awards

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NewsHubHollywood musical La Land has broken the record for the most Golden Globe Awards, winning seven prizes.
It won every award it was nominated for – including best musical or comedy film, best director, screenplay, score and song.
Its stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling also won in the acting categories.
British actors also enjoyed a golden night in the TV categories, with prizes for The Night Manager and The Crown.

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© Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38553331
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