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quinta-feira, 31 de maio de 2012

Wildfire close to being New Mexico's largest ever

RUSSELL CONTRERASNEW MEXICO -- Two lightning-sparked blazes that merged in a mountainous southwestern New Mexico forest are close to becoming the largest wildfire in state history, fire officials said Tuesday.

The U.S. Forest Service said the erratic blaze in Gila National Forest had grown to about 152,000 acres by Tuesday - just 5,000 acres from breaking the state record. It is about 15 miles east of Glenwood, N.M., a small town with a few hundred residents.

More than 1,100 firefighters and nine helicopters from around the state were fighting the blaze. But officials said extremely low humidity will keep making efforts against the fire difficult.

The two lightning-sparked fires merged last week to form the giant blaze, which has destroyed 12 cabins and seven small outbuildings. One fire was first spotted May 9 and the second blaze was sparked May 16, but nearly all of the growth has come in recent days due to relentless winds. Officials also said a "record breaking dry air mass" and persistent drought in the region contributed to the fire's growth.

Those winds forced crews to the sidelines last week as the fire rapidly spread in an isolated area and charred several homes in the community of Willow Creek, which remains under evacuation. Smoke has spread across New Mexico and parts of Arizona, putting cities as far away as Albuquerque under health alerts.

Officials said areas around some of New Mexico's largest cities, including Albuquerque and as far southeast as Roswell, will see smoke by late Tuesday.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman announced Tuesday that FEMA has approved New Mexico's request for fire management assistance declaration for the Whitewater-Baldy Fire Complex burning in Catron and Grant Counties. Bingaman visited Reserve, N.M., Tuesday and was briefed by the U.S. Forest Service on the fire.

Under the declaration, the state is eligible for funding through the Fire Management Assistance Grant Program, which provides for the "mitigation, management, and control" of fires burning on publicly or privately owned forest or grasslands.

Also on Tuesday, Gov. Susana Martinez urged business affected by the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire to apply for low-interest Small Business Administration loans that could become available if enough applicants seek the help.

"As a result of this fire, small businesses are unquestionably feeling the impact, and I want to make sure that these businesses and their surrounding communities can take advantage of any assistance possible," Martinez said in a statement.

A fire last year that burned about 244 square miles was the state's largest. That blaze threatened property around Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation's premier nuclear facility.

Dry and hot conditions in the Southwest have also fueled wildfires in other states, including Colorado. Hundreds of firefighters were at an 8-square-mile fire in western Colorado near that state's border with Utah, and a separate 4-square-mile blaze about 200 miles southwest of Denver.

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(Copyright ©2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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sábado, 19 de maio de 2012

Postal Service to close processing plants this summer

HOPE YENWASHINGTON -- The nearly bankrupt U.S. Postal Service is moving forward with a multibillion-dollar cost-cutting plan that will close nearly 250 mail processing centers, saying on Thursday it can no longer wait as Congress remains deadlocked over how to help.

At a news briefing, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the agency's mail processing network had simply become too big, given declining first-class mail volume and mounting debt. It will now consolidate nearly 250 plants as originally proposed, including 48 this summer, but will stretch out the remainder over a longer time frame in 2013 and 2014.

Earlier this month, nearly half the Senate had written letters to Donahoe asking that he hold off on closing any mail facility until Congress could pass final postal overhaul legislation. The Senate last month passed a bill that would halt many of the closings. The House remains stalled over a separate postal measure allowing for more aggressive cuts.

"To return to long-term profitability and financial stability while keeping mail affordable, we must match our network to the anticipated workload," Donahoe said. Failure to do so, he stressed, would "create a fiscal hole that the Postal Service will not be able to climb out of."

Under the modified approach, up to 140 processing centers will be consolidated by next February - roughly 48 in August and about 90 next January and February. Closings would be suspended during the Postal Service's busy election and holiday mail season. Another 89 closings would occur in 2014.

The consolidations are initially expected to reduce postal staff by 13,000 and save the struggling mail agency roughly $1.2 billion annually. By the time the full round of cuts is implemented by late 2014, the post office will have 28,000 fewer employees with estimated annual savings of $2.1 billion.

The latest postal move comes after vociferous protests from communities across the U.S., particularly those in rural areas, over the mail agency's initial multibillion dollar cost-cutting plan to close up to 3,700 post offices and 252 mail processing centers. The Postal Service last week backed off the closing of post offices, saying it would cut costs instead by reducing operating hours in 13,000 mostly rural locations.

Thursday's announcement seeks to allay consumer concerns about immediate, broad-scale cuts to mail processing centers that would have slowed first-class mail delivery of prescription drugs, newspapers and other services beginning this summer and would have virtually eliminated the chance for a stamped letter to arrive the next day.

Under the new plan, about 80 percent of the U.S. areas that currently enjoy overnight first-class mail delivery will continue to do so through the end of next year. After that, barring congressional action, the Postal Service will proceed with additional steps that could slow first-class mail and reduce overnight delivery more significantly, said Megan Brennan, chief operating officer of the Postal Service.

The Postal Service has been grappling with losses as first-class mail volume declines and more people switch to the Internet to communicate and pay bills. The agency has forecast a record $14.1 billion loss by the end of this year. Without changes, it said, annual losses would exceed $21 billion by 2016.

Donahoe stressed that even with the mail agency's latest moves, it still faces mounting losses without congressional action that would give it more leeway to eliminate Saturday mail delivery and reduce health and labor costs.

If the House fails to act soon, postal officials say they will face a cash crunch in August and September, when the agency must pay more than $11 billion to the Treasury for future retiree health benefits. Already $13 billion in debt, the health payment obligation will force the agency to run up against its $15 billion debt ceiling, causing it to default on the payments.

In many sprawling rural areas like Hope, Alaska, residents say they would have to drive nearly 100 miles for mail services in Anchorage if their local post office couldn't stay open long enough. Timely delivery from mail processing centers is also particularly valued in the winter months, when hazardous road conditions can make travel to a store or pharmacy difficult if not impossible.

"My wife's medical plan is basically that prescription drugs are mailed to her," said Doug Pope, a semi-retired lawyer who lives near Hope, an old gold rush town where the post office faces reduced hours. "There's a lot of people who will be here for months without going to Anchorage."

Pope says he's willing to accept moderate postal cuts, explaining that he's not sure what else can be done and whether politicians in Washington will do anything about it.

"I do think it's a sign of a larger, more worrisome trend to me that instead of trying to focus on our larger issues in our society, what we're trying to do is nickel and dime people on sort of the downstream end of everything," he said. "But that's a political issue."

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Associated Press writer Mark Thiessen contributed to this report from Hope, Alaska.

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NASA: 4,700 asteroids close enough to hit earth

Eyewitness NewsWASHINGTON (WABC) -- NASA is keeping a close eye on the sky, warning that nearly 5,000 asteroids are close enough and big enough to cause major damage to the earth.

Astronomers put the number of asteroids that are within 5 million miles of the planet at 4,700.

But NASA officials say it is not something to panic about, just that they are monitoring the situation.

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sábado, 21 de janeiro de 2012

Mortgage settlement between banks, states 'close'

By DEREK KRAVITZWASHINGTON -- A $25 billion settlement between the nation's major banks and U.S. states over deceptive foreclosure practices during the housing crisis is nearing completion.

Five major banks - Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) - and U.S. states are "very close," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Wednesday.

Separately, two officials briefed on internal discussions say a proposed deal could be announced within weeks. Negotiators are finalizing a draft of the agreement, which must be reviewed by state attorneys general. Under the deal, banks would pay states and the federal government, which would fund programs to compensate homeowners.

The two officials asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the deal.

Talks have been dragging on for more than a year between major U.S. banks and state attorneys general over fraudulent foreclosure practices that drove millions of Americans from their homes during the housing crisis.

In October 2010, major banks temporarily suspended foreclosures following revelations of widespread deceptive foreclosure practices by banks. That has backlogged millions of foreclosures that must be cleared before the housing market can fully recover.

The settlement would only apply to privately held mortgages, not those held by government-controlled Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

Fannie and Freddie own about half of all U.S. mortgages, roughly about 31 million U.S. home loans.

Individual states can opt out of the proposed deal. Some have disagreed over what terms to offer the banks.

In September, California announced it would not agree to a settlement over foreclosure abuses that state and federal officials have been working on for more than a year.

New York, Delaware, Nevada and Massachusetts, which sued five major banks earlier in December over deceptive foreclosure practices, have also argued that banks should not be protected from future civil liability.

And both sides have also fought over the amounts of money that should be placed in the reserve account for property owners who were improperly foreclosed upon. Many of the details of the deal, including a $25 billion cost for the banks, have been agreed upon, officials say.

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quinta-feira, 19 de maio de 2011

FAA: Controller caused close call at O'Hare

CHICAGO -- The Federal Aviation Administration says an error by an air traffic controller caused a close call this week between two planes operating at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The FAA says a Jetlink flight was cleared for takeoff Monday while a Skywest flight was coming in for a landing on a different, intersecting runway when a controller instructed the Skywest jet to perform a go-around procedure. The FAA says the Skywest plane passed above and behind the departing Jetlink flight.

FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said Wednesday the FAA will review the event to see if any additional training or procedural changes may be necessary.

Monday's incident occurred shortly after Vice President Joe Biden's plane landed at O'Hare. Biden was in Chicago to attend the inauguration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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