Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The United States government has filed a civil lawsuit against BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. (BPXA) alleging that the company “violated federal clean air and water laws” by “illegally discharging” more than 200,000 gallons crude oil during two oil spills in 2006 on Alaska’s North Slope in Prudhoe Bay.

BPXA previously pleaded guilty to one count of criminal negligence in illegally discharging the oil and paid US$20 million in damages. As a result of the plea, the lawsuit was filed saying that they “failed” to prepare for such a disaster by implementing “certain [sic] spill prevention measures” as the law requires.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the [DOT]-Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), alleges that BPXA “illegally discharged more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil from its pipelines” and “violated the Clean Air Act by improperly removing asbestos-containing materials from its pipelines” It also says that they “failed to comply in a timely manner with a corrective action order that the [DOT]-Pipeline and PHMSA issued to BPXA pursuant to federal pipeline safety laws.”

According to the Associated Press (AP), BPXA spokespeople state that the company has taken certain measures, making sure daily operations are safe.

“We have taken significant steps to ensure that our operations are safe and reliable, and protect the environment. Those include building a new $500 million system of oil transit lines at Prudhoe Bay,” said spokesman Steve Rinehart to the AP.

The spills were discovered on March 2, 2006 and covered nearly two acres. It was initially estimated that nearly 270,000 gallons had spilled. The official loss was put at 212,252 gallons.

BPXA, a subsidiary of BP America, specializes in exploring and finding locations to drill for oil, as well as drilling for it.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A couple from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has been arrested on charges of public mischief after listing their seven day old baby girl on the popular Internet classified ads website Craigslist.

The listing claimed that the baby was unexpected, “healthy and very cute”. It asked CAN 10 000 for the baby. It also listed a phone number belonging to a stolen cellphone, which was used to find the couple.

It was first noticed by a 62-year old grandmother browsing the website for furniture, who said “I was shaking, and I thought, ‘Come on, how did this even get through?'” The couple claimed that the listing, which has since been removed, was a hoax.

The father, Jeremy Pete, had a history of car thefts and evasion of police, while the mother, 23-year-old Bethany Granholm, had convictions of property theft, fraud and impersonation. The parents have now been released, but charges are still being considered. The baby has been placed in provincial care.

A suspected copycat incident occurred just four days later, also offering a seven-day-old baby girl for CAN 10 000 on Craigslist. This incident turned out to be a hoax, and no child was in danger.

Last week saw a similar incident in Germany, where a couple listed a seven month old baby on eBay. In this case the police have launched a child trafficking investigation, despite the parents’ assertion that the listing was a joke.

[edit]

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A truck on the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick, Canada, carrying 12 million bees has overturned. The truck was carrying 330 crates of bees when it tipped on a ramp in Saint-Léonard. The bees were used to help pollinate blueberries, and were heading back to Ontario.

The accident happened in the morning hours. Bee experts were called in to control the bees, and they were helped by the rain as bees dislike it, with the bees staying close to the truck. However, by midday, the sun came out and the bees became much more agitated. The beekeepers had to douse them with smoke, while firefighters attempted to hose the bees down to try to get them back near the truck.

There were no serious injuries from the incident, but some reporters at the scene got stung repeatedly. Anyone with an allergy to bees has been advised to stay at least 200 metres away from the scene.

The highway was first reduced to three lanes from four, before being completely closed, to prevent curious onlookers from being endangered by the swarms of bees angered and agitated by the incident.

This accident was the first of its kind in New Brunswick.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has warned that the state of the housing market in the United Kingdom is the current biggest domestic threat to the country’s economy, due to lack of house building, and regulatory issues.

In an interview to be aired on Sky News today, he said the housing market is the “biggest risk” to the economy and has “deep, deep structural problems”. Of house building he said: “There are not sufficient houses built in the UK. To go back to Canada, there are half as many people in Canada as in the UK, twice as many houses are built every year in Canada as in the UK and we can’t influence that.”

“We’re not going to build a single house at the Bank of England. We can’t influence that. What we can influence […] is whether the banks are strong enough. Do they have enough capital against risk in the housing market?”

Carney also said the Bank of England would look into the procedures used to issue loans and mortgages to see if they were being granted appropriately: “We’d be concerned if there was a rapid increase in high loan-to-value mortgages across the banks. We’ve seen that creeping up and it’s something we’re watching closely.”

Kris Hopkins responded to Carney on behalf of the government, saying the government “inherited a broken housing market, but our efforts to fix it are working”. “We’ve scrapped the failed top-down planning system, built over 170,000 affordable homes and released more surplus brownfield sites for new housing. We’ve also helped homebuyers get on the housing ladder, because if people can buy homes builders will build them. Housebuilding is now at its highest level since 2007 and climbing. Last year councils gave permission for almost 200,000 new homes under the locally-led planning system and more than 1,000 communities have swiftly taken up neighbourhood planning. It’s clear evidence the government’s long-term economic plan is working.”

Earlier this month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on the UK government to “tighten” access to the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme introduced by George Osborne and the coalition government in 2013. ‘Help to Buy’ has also recently been criticised by three former Chancellors of the Exchequer — the Conservatives Norman Lamont and Nigel Lawson, and former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling. Darling said: “Unless supply can be increased substantially, we will exacerbate that situation with schemes like Help to Buy.”

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

On Sunday, Filipino-US chess grandmaster Wesley So won this year’s Tata Steel Chess Tournament, held in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, securing 9.0 points out of thirteen. Following closely in second place was current World Champion Magnus Carlsen with 8.0 points.

Wesley So won five games and drew the remaining eight. A player gets a point for each win, half a point for a draw and no points for a loss. He is currently on a 56 lossless game streak.

In the final round, Wesley So was paired against Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. Wesley So captured a central pawn which was expected to be recaptured to equalise material but wasn’t. Soon, his opponent unexpectedly castled offering a pawn sacrifice which was accepted. Despite being ahead in material his opponent threatened to capture his queen. However, he was able to defend using his extra central pawn and prevent counter-play forcing the Russian to resign.

He won last year’s Grand Chess Tour by winning the Sinquefield Cup and London Chess Classic and coming second in the Leuven Grand Chess Tour.

Magnus Carlsen won four, tied eight and lost a game against Richárd Rapport. In the last round he faced his rival and contender for the World Chess Championship of the last year, Russian Sergey Karjakin. In the game, Karjakin provoked Carlsen to sacrifice his knight on which grandmaster Fabiano Caruana tweeted, “Karjakin must be in a very charitable mood”. He quickly sacrificed his knight pinning Karjakin’s knight to his queen. Despite being a piece down he gained an advantageous position. Karjakin defended his position extremely well, as grandmaster Alejandro Ramírez said, “He can commit the most despicable errors and then show world-class toughness from the next second!”. The defence worked and a draw was agreed upon.

Also known as the “Wimbledon of Chess”, the Tata Steel Chess tournament attracts top chess players every year. The tournament has two professional groups, Masters and Challengers, and an amateur group. It is organised in a round-robin format where each player plays a game against all other players. The tournament is scheduled to run its 80th edition next year in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.