Politicians and power industry officials are blaming each other for the state’s outages, but they are not yet able to say how long this will last. Texas has its own power grid, which is managed by state and semi-private entities. Those same groups are now playing the blame game, trying to find how the state failed to keep the lights on for Texans.
Governor Greg Abbott is leaving no one out when it comes to pointing the blame for the state’s energy failures. “Whether it be renewable power, such as wind or solar, but also as I mentioned today, access to coal-generated power, access to gas generated power also have been compromised,” he said.
For context, in 2020, wind and solar energy were responsible for roughly 25% of the state’s electricity generation throughout the year. Meanwhile, natural gas, coal and nuclear power combined for roughly 69%.
Even if wind was a major source, the reason behind that failure is much of the equipment has not been “winterized,” which can include using heaters and insulated pipes. That’s something places like Minnesota do and their wind turbines don’t shut down in the cold.
“The natural gas generators are the ones that we were all counting on to provide the electricity. Some coal plants were supposed to fire up also, and they didn’t answer the bell either,”
After a 2011 winter storm in Texas that crippled power, a report recommended winterizing power sources. Ed Hirs, an expert in energy economics and policy at the University of Houston, said the recommendations were not applied.
“The warnings have been there for years and Governor Abbott has done nothing. Before that, Governor (Rick) Perry did nothing. This was a train wreck on the way to happening 10 years ago,” Hirs said.
A utility truck in McKinney, Texas, on February 16, 2021.
Some 23,314 prisoners are set to be granted amnesty and released on Union Day, a national public holiday observing unification of the country, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said in a statement. It is unclear what offenses the prisoners were convicted of.
While mass prisoner releases are common on national holidays in Myanmar this is the first such amnesty from the new junta, which seized power in a coup on February 1, ousting democratically-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and detaining key government officials.
The military justified taking control of the country by claiming widespread voting irregularities in the November 2020 election, which gave Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD) a second consecutive landslide victory.
In a statement Friday, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) expressed “serious concern” that the amnesty was to “clear space for the detention of political prisoners.”
In addition to the release, prisoners who are serving sentences for crimes committed before January 31, 2021, for any offense will also have their sentences reduced, according to the military statement.
In his address, Min Aung Hlaing said the prisoner amnesty was part of an effort to build a “democratic country with disciplines.”
There is no indication that Suu Kyi or other government ministers or officials detained in the coup will be released as part of the amnesty. Nor is the amnesty is unlikely to cool protesters’ anger toward the military generals.
Protests and civil disobedience campaigns continued in towns and cities across the country Friday. Videos and live streams posted online showed several groups marching in the biggest city Yangon, including medical workers and soccer fans.
Large gatherings are also expected at the United States, Chinese and British embassies in Yangon.
The rallies have so far been largely peaceful but police have been recorded using water cannon against protesters. Police have also faced allegations they have deployed live rounds.
A young woman named Mya Thweh Thweh Khine remains in critical condition Friday morning at a hospital in the capital Naypyidaw with a gunshot wound in the head, a source with direct information about the victim told CNN.
Video of the incident circulated online showed a young woman suddenly falling to the ground while taking cover from a water canon at a protest.
Experts at rights group Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab said that images takes near a protest in Naypyidaw on February 9, show a police officer holding a locally made variant of an Uzi sub-machine gun.
The rights group said the images were taken from a location near the Thabyegone Roundabout, across the road from where the young woman was shot in the head.
Amnesty said it has verified the coordinates of the image which shows an officer holding a “Myanmar-made BA-94 or BA-93 Uzi clone.” CNN has not been able to independently verify the image.
The findings are in direct contradiction to claims by the military that no lethal weapons were used during protests, Amnesty said.
Myanmar’s military posted on its Facebook page on February 10 that it only used anti-riot weapons at the protest near the Thabyegone Roundabout and was investigating reports that two protesters had been injured.
Sam Dubberley, Head of Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab said in a press release, “The serious injuries sustained by this young woman were caused by the Myanmar police firing live ammunition directly towards peaceful protesters.”
Mya Thweh Thweh Khine has since become a symbol of the protests, with demonstrators holding portraits of her image as they march.
On Thursday, Min Aung Hlaing issued a warning to protesters, which include a large cross section of society including monks and a growing number of public workers, urging them to go back to work.
“Those who are away from their duties are requested to return to their duties immediately for the interests of the country and people without focusing on the emotion,” he said.
Min Aung Hlaing blamed government employees’ recent absenteeism on harassment by “unscrupulous persons,” in a statement issued by the ruling military’s official information service.
In response to the ongoing protests the country’s military has sought to limit access to the internet and news services, as well as floating a potential new cyber security law that observers fear could further limit the flow of information.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden announced that the US would move ahead with sanctions against Myanmar’s military leaders following last week’s coup.
In brief remarks, the President said he had approved a new executive order allowing the US to “immediately sanction the military leaders who directed the coup, their business interests as well as close family members.” He said they would identify targets of those sanctions this week.
Biden also called on the military junta to release detained protesters and civilian leaders, including Suu Kyi and Win Myint and cease their crackdowns on demonstrators.
An example of LRO’s ability to look to the side, or slew, is this image of the central peak in Tycho crater. The central peak complex is about 15 kilometers (about 9.3 miles) wide southeast to northwest (left to right in this view). Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has far exceeded its planned mission duration, revealing that the Moon holds surprises: ice deposits that could be used to support future lunar exploration, the coldest places in the solar system in permanently shadowed regions at the lunar poles, and that it is an active world that is shrinking, generating moonquakes and changing in front of our eyes. LRO has mapped the surface in exquisite detail, returning millions of images of a starkly beautiful lunar landscape and paving the way for future human missions under NASA’s Artemis program.
In the Spring of 2018, LRO’s Miniature Inertial Measurement Unit (MIMU), a critical sensor used to help point the spacecraft’s instruments, was powered off to preserve its remaining life after exhibiting signs of decline due to natural aging in the harsh environment of space. The MIMU is like a speedometer. It measures LRO’s speed of rotation. Without it, LRO was forced to rely only on data from star trackers—video cameras with image processing software that infers orientation based on star maps—to point and reorient the spacecraft. “This limited the ability to reorient (slew) the spacecraft for science purposes,” said Julie Halverson, Lead Systems Engineer in Space Science Mission Operations at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“Reorienting the spacecraft to get side-view data is valuable for scientists as it allows us to measure how light reflects off the Moon differently, depending on the view of the instrument,” said Noah Petro, Project Scientist for LRO at NASA Goddard. “This is called the photometry of the surface. Additionally, the camera takes side-view images to build 3-D images of the surface and to collect the perspective views of the Moon that help dis-entangle geologic relationships.” To get LRO slewing again, NASA engineers developed a new algorithm that can estimate LRO’s speed of rotation by fusing star-tracker measurements together with other information available from LRO’s flight computer.
For LRO’s new speedometer to operate properly, the star trackers need to maintain an unobstructed view of the stars, which can be blocked by the Earth or Moon, or the glare of the Sun. Otherwise, it is impossible to determine the orientation or estimate the rotational speed of the spacecraft. Ensuring that the star trackers are always unobstructed during science maneuvers made many science observations that could be easily done with the MIMU impossible to perform without it. To reclaim these otherwise lost opportunities, Goddard, NASA’s Engineering Safety Center (NESC) and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, teamed up once again in their long history of cooperative research to rapidly develop a collection of new, revolutionary methods to enable LRO to keep exploring the Moon to its fullest ability.
“The algorithm we developed for LRO is called Fast Maneuvering or ‘FastMan’ and it works in conjunction with LRO’s star-tracker-based controller,” said Mark Karpenko, a Research Associate Professor at NPS and the FastMan Project Lead. “The maneuvers naturally steer around bright objects just like obstacle avoidance in a self-driving car.” A computer algorithm is a set of instructions to process data. Karpenko was able to construct FastMan by using software tools that are based on the same tools previously used by a NASA-NPS team to reorient the International Space Station by combining forces from the space environment together with its gyroscopes rather than burning fuel by firing its thrusters. This “Zero Propellant Maneuver” is similar to a tacking maneuver used in sailing.
“The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter undergoes frequent special slews as it orbits the Moon and our ability to schedule these slews are constrained by the time it takes to perform them,” said John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist for LRO at NASA Goddard. With FastMan, LRO was able to perform nearly 200 additional slews that could not have been performed otherwise.
“Actually, most of the performance improvements we achieved so far were by using the results of FastMan to create what we call a ‘taxicab’ maneuver,” said Karpenko. Because the full FastMan required changes to LRO’s flight software, Karpenko designed the taxicab maneuver to achieve most of the objectives of FastMan while requiring no flight software modifications. “Unfortunately, until we could update the flight software, I had to be in the loop,” said Karpenko. The full FastMan maneuver is fully autonomous.
The first FastMan slew was conducted on orbit in late July 2020 and allowed the LRO Camera, one of LRO’s seven scientific instruments, to obtain a side-view image of Triesnecker crater 25 percent faster than a taxicab slew would have allowed. With these new algorithms, LRO is again able to rapidly look to the side, and the spacecraft is in good health, with all instruments still collecting data. “LRO is now in year 11 of what was originally expected to be a two-year mission,” said Petro. “We regularly monitor all LRO systems for signs of degradation or change. Fuel may be our rate-limiting factor, current estimates place us at having at least five more years of fuel onboard, if not more.”
In 2010, NPS, NESC and Goddard partnered to implement the first minimum-time reorientation maneuvers ever performed on orbit. This innovative work was done as an end-of-life flight demonstration on the TRACE spacecraft. Today, the lunar science community is the beneficiary of this pioneering work. “The slewing algorithms developed by NPS have already allowed LRO to collect more science,” explained Neil Dennehy, NASA Technical Fellow for Guidance, Navigation and Control. “I’m expecting that in the future our industry partners will be able to leverage this technology as well.”
NASA’s SDO spots first lunar transit of 2021
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With the bungled launch of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red has had a rough couple of months. Now, the company tweeted that it’s been hacked and must pay a ransom or code from games like Cyberpunk 2077 and an “unreleased version of Witcher 3” will be revealed. The attackers have also dumped or threatened to dump “documents related to accounting, administration, legal, HR, investor relations and more.”
The company said that “an unidentified actor gained unauthorized access to our internal network, collected certain data belonging to CD Projekt capital group and left a ransom note the content of which we will release to the public.”
Important Update pic.twitter.com/PCEuhAJosR
— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) February 9, 2021
“We will not give in to the demands nor negotiate with the actor, being aware that this may eventually lead to the release of the compromised data,” CD Projekt Red wrote in response. It added that although some devices in its network have been encrypted, “our backups remain intact,” and it has secured its IT infrastructure and started restoring data.
The hack could be alarming for another reason, in that parent CD Projekt owns the GoG gaming platform which holds the private information of numerous subscribers. However, it said that “at this time we can confirm that — to our best knowledge — the compromised systems did not contain any personal data of our players, or users of our services.”
CD Projekt Red was hacked before back in 2017, and said at the time in a similar message that the thieves had stolen “documents connected to early designs for the upcoming game, Cyberpunk 2077.” Though nothing much came of that incident, the latest hack sounds more serious.
Even without the attack, the last six months haven’t been pretty for CD Projekt Red. After Cyberpunk 2077 launched with numerous bugs, Sony eventually pulled the game from their console stores and Microsoft offered refunds to anyone who wanted one. Even with all that, however, the game had sold 13 million copies as of late 2020.
Thankfully for Coby White, his teammates played better defense sticking up for him than White did Monday night in a brutal loss to the lowly Washington Wizards.
Shorthanded or not, the Bulls lost to a Wizards team that was finishing a back-to-back, playing without Russell Westbrook and entered as one of the worst defensive teams in the league.
When Raul Neto scored two easy layups in the first 1 minute, 32 seconds of the second half, coach Billy Donovan pulled the plug. Out came White, who failed to score in the first half, missing all five shots. In came Tomáš Satoranský, who said he’s feeling 100 percent following his bout with COVID-19.
“I gave up two layups, so I wasn’t expecting to stay in,” White said.
To White’s credit, he rallied to finish with 8 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and just one turnover in his 30 minutes, sinking a huge, 8-foot jumper with 29.2 seconds to play on a nifty out-of-bounds play from Donovan. The shot pulled the Bulls within one and left enough time for them to regain possession.
But White shot 3-for-10, missed all four 3-pointers and struggled too often defensively on another inconsistent night.
“Last year I went through the same thing, up and downs shooting the ball,” said White, who is now at 40 percent from the field. “Just try to stay consistent, getting up more shots in the gym.”
Donovan has consistently stated he’s going to stick with White, who is in his first season as a full-time starter and playing on the ball more than he did last season. But with the number of possessions where Zach LaVine is playing point guard growing and Satoranský playing strong of late — including 9 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists on Monday — more quick hooks could be in White’s future.
“Everybody has bad games and has low points. I think Coby, his effort, first off, is always there. He’s always upbeat and looking to help guys out even if he’s not having the best shooting night or best game,” LaVine said. “So help him find some easy ones, get him in a rhythm. And once he gets into a rhythm, I think it’s going to take off from there.”
Satoranský, while acknowledging White’s inconsistent play, had his teammate’s back, too.
“I think this is the toughest transition for someone coming from college and being at the point guard position. I can say that from my own experience, and I was 25 years old when I came to the States and tried to be a point guard of an NBA team,” Satoranský said. “I think his aggressiveness is the best we can get from him, of him really playing in a rhythm. Sometimes he’s trying from that point guard position to be a facilitator a lot. And I always tell him, when he’s aggressive, he’s the best Coby I know. And I think that’s the best for the team.”
This is the price the Bulls are paying by trying to force feed White at the point guard position. Too often, he seems to defer, trying to get his five-man unit playing in rhythm. He hasn’t posted a 20-point game since Jan. 30 and only has one 30-point game after registering three straight off the bench down the stretch of last season.
“He’s got to play the game,” Donovan said. “Just to start hunting shots, he’s going to have to play the game… He didn’t get a lot of shots, but I think he stayed pretty aggressive. I thought he tried to play downhill early. He didn’t really try to leave his feet early in terms of finishing at the rim. But I’ve always told him: Stay aggressive.
“We’re relying on him to run the team and get us in and out of offenses and I’ve seen a lot of growth in that from him. But I just think the shooting piece of it, it’s got to be: Is it benefitting and helping the team in terms of are people involved?”
Speaking of questions, did we mention White’s teammates defended and supported him?
“It’s tough on him, for sure. There’s big pressure. But he’s up to that pressure,” Satoranský said. “He’s been an unbelievable learner and he’s been doing everything right in practices and doing all the hard work. So I have confidence in him.”
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Many Granite Staters are continuing to express frustration with the system used by the state to schedule their second vaccination dose.Gov. Chris Sununu said Wednesday that everyone eligible to be vaccinated in Phase 1B will receive the second vaccine dose within a week of the recommended date. But after massive problems with the scheduling system this week, many Granite Staters said they don’t have confidence in the system. Some called News 9 in tears, while others used profanity in their emails. Many said they don’t want to be told again to be patient.”Very frustrated. There is no place to turn,” said Neal Crossland, of Hudson. “There’s no answer, nobody out there to help you. You’re on your own.”Earlier this week, vaccine recipients were told to cancel their second appointments that were scheduled outside of the recommended timeframe. They were assured that a bevy of earlier slots would pop up on the scheduling website, only to watch other problems arise. The 211 call center then crashed.”Other states give second appointments at the same time,” said Julie Crossland, of Hudson. “Why are thousands of people waiting in line? They know we’ve gotten the first one.”Part of the problem is being attributed to the software run by the federal government called VAMS, which stands for Vaccine Administration Management System. The governor said New Hampshire opted in because the state never had the need for a large-scale vaccination system. “It’s a very clunky federal system that we have been using,” Sununu said. “We have a new system that the state is going to be implementing. We are building our own system. We are getting off the clunky federal stuff, and that will be up and running before the next phase.”Sununu said that anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the VAMS website doesn’t have to. He said the state will be calling people.”You can go in by the end of this week and move yourself up within a week of your scheduled date, and if you don’t for some reason, we will proactively reach out and make sure you know that that opportunity is available to you,” he said.Sununu said that by Friday or Saturday, the system should be up and running with all of the available dates for second shots, so for the 11,000 people still trying to book a timely appointment, waiting a couple of days to try the VAMS website might save them some frustration.
MANCHESTER, N.H. —
Many Granite Staters are continuing to express frustration with the system used by the state to schedule their second vaccination dose.
Gov. Chris Sununu said Wednesday that everyone eligible to be vaccinated in Phase 1B will receive the second vaccine dose within a week of the recommended date.
But after massive problems with the scheduling system this week, many Granite Staters said they don’t have confidence in the system. Some called News 9 in tears, while others used profanity in their emails. Many said they don’t want to be told again to be patient.
“Very frustrated. There is no place to turn,” said Neal Crossland, of Hudson. “There’s no answer, nobody out there to help you. You’re on your own.”
Earlier this week, vaccine recipients were told to cancel their second appointments that were scheduled outside of the recommended timeframe. They were assured that a bevy of earlier slots would pop up on the scheduling website, only to watch other problems arise. The 211 call center then crashed.
“Other states give second appointments at the same time,” said Julie Crossland, of Hudson. “Why are thousands of people waiting in line? They know we’ve gotten the first one.”
Part of the problem is being attributed to the software run by the federal government called VAMS, which stands for Vaccine Administration Management System. The governor said New Hampshire opted in because the state never had the need for a large-scale vaccination system.
“It’s a very clunky federal system that we have been using,” Sununu said. “We have a new system that the state is going to be implementing. We are building our own system. We are getting off the clunky federal stuff, and that will be up and running before the next phase.”
Sununu said that anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the VAMS website doesn’t have to. He said the state will be calling people.
“You can go in by the end of this week and move yourself up within a week of your scheduled date, and if you don’t for some reason, we will proactively reach out and make sure you know that that opportunity is available to you,” he said.
Sununu said that by Friday or Saturday, the system should be up and running with all of the available dates for second shots, so for the 11,000 people still trying to book a timely appointment, waiting a couple of days to try the VAMS website might save them some frustration.
Rescuers in Utah scrambled Sunday to reach a skier left buried under an avalanche in the backcountry a day earlier, officials said.
Two skiers triggered the avalanche around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday in an area known as Square Top, located outside the resort boundaries near Park City Mountains Canyon Village, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
SLOW-MOVING SNOW STORM SLAMS MIDWEST AS MID-ATLANTIC, NORTHEAST BRACES
One skier escaped the avalanche and dug to their buried friend. The skier “attempted life-saving efforts” on the friend but was forced to leave the area due to the “extreme avalanche danger,” according to the sheriff’s office.
The avalanche occurred in an area known as Square Top near Park City Mountains Canyon Village, officials said. (Summit County Sheriff’s Office)
It was unclear whether the buried skier was alive. Officials said more information will be provided after rescuers make contact with the avalanche victim.
The effort was temporarily halted Saturday night after the treacherous conditions prevented rescuers from reaching the area, the sheriff’s office said.
Rescue operations resumed at 7 a.m. Sunday with assistance from a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter team, the sheriff’s office tweeted.
“We are attempting to make the area safe so personnel can get into the burial site,” the sheriff’s office said.
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Authorities warned those entering Utah’s backcountry to use extreme caution, check avalanche conditions before venturing out, and be prepared with the proper equipment.
