Lina Robles

Tremendo caos vial se registró ayer a las 3 de la madrugada sobre el freeway 10 en los carriles con rumbo al este en Banning donde debido a lo mojado de la carretera el conductor de un carro perdió el control y chocó con el divisor centrar, luego fue impactado por dos semais.

El chofer del vehículo resultó con heridas de gravedad y fue transportado al hospital de Palm Springs.

La autopista estuvo cerrada durante varias horas mientras la ambulancia, las grúas y los investigadores hacían su trabajo.

The post Aparatoso accidente provocó caos vial en la I-10 en Banning appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

Lina Robles

Una familia está de luto por la muerte de su ser querido ayer a las 11:15 de la mañana cuando se registró una balacera en el vecindario Dream Homes en Cathedral City donde un hombre de 36 años fue confrontado por un grupo de individuos que iban en una camioneta Dodge Durango negra, se hicieron de palabras y lo balacearon para después huir.

Durante las indagatorias, testigos dijeron a los investigadores que el vehículo huyó rumbo a la calle San Luis Rey.

El nombre de la víctima no lo dieron a conocer.

The post Un hombre de 36 años fue asesinado en el vecindario Dream Homes de Cathedral City appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — If all had gone according to plan, four astronauts might have been returning just this week from a history-making, 10-day slingshot trip around the moon.

Instead, NASA’s engineers have been grappling with the rocket and fuel meant to propel the mission, called Artemis II, troubleshooting an all-too-familiar problem.

Just a few hours into a pre-launch test called a wet dress rehearsal in early February, launch controllers found that enough super-chilled liquid hydrogen fuel was leaking at the launchpad to prompt safety concerns. The hydrogen leaks kept cropping up, forcing NASA to halt fuel flow to the rocket multiple times.

The issue ultimately left the space agency unable to complete the full test and led to more than a week of investigations and repairs.

If pesky hydrogen leaks and a delayed moon mission evoke a sense of déjà vu, it may be because NASA has been through this before.

Liftoff of an uncrewed test flight around the moon in 2022, called Artemis I, was delayed several times then nearly thwarted by similar hydrogen seepage before a team of jumpsuit-clad NASA workers swept in at the 11th hour and manually fixed a leaky valve. There are also records of engineers struggling with similar issues throughout the Space Shuttle program, which ran from 1981 to 2011.

Leaks are a major concern on the ground: Hydrogen is very easy to ignite and energetic, meaning that too much of it in one area poses the risk of a catastrophic explosion.

So as launch controllers navigate another “wet dress” rehearsal Thursday, the question remains: Why does NASA keep using this notoriously fickle fuel?

A tiny molecule with a powerful punch

Engineers pioneered the use of hydrogen as rocket fuel in the mid-20th Century before it was used for the Apollo moon rockets — and most of the launch vehicles that have opted for the fuel since have also wrestled with leaks.

For example, the Vulcan Centaur rocket, which is produced by US-based military contractor United Launch Alliance and builds on decades of legacy technology, uses hydrogen to power the upper part of its rocket. And in 2023, a fuel leak caused a fireball explosion during Vulcan Centaur testing in Alabama, damaging nearby infrastructure and delaying the rocket’s inaugural launch.

Hydrogen’s leaky tendencies can be attributed to the fact that it’s the lightest element in the universe. It “tends to find its way out of things you want to try to contain it in,” said Adam Swanger, a senior principal investigator and cryogenics research engineer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “And it has very low density.”

To put that in perspective, hydrogen is roughly 14 times lighter than the air on Earth. But the same properties that make hydrogen so difficult to contain also make it an ideal rocket fuel.

“The low density is good for performance,” Swanger told CNN. “So there’s kind of a trade-off there.”

When selecting fuel for a rocket, the most important consideration is a concept called “specific impulse,” often abbreviated as Isp. It’s a measure of how much thrust — or force — a rocket engine can generate with a set amount

By Gabe Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-torn areas around the US while the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, according to sources and internal messages obtained by CNN.

The new edict comes even though most deployments are paid for through a Disaster Relief Fund that isn’t affected by the shutdown.

One internal message to FEMA leaders on Tuesday said DHS, which oversees the agency, has “directed FEMA to stop all travel.” The order took effect Wednesday.

Any travel to areas still recovering from severe storms will now require sign-off from leaders at DHS, which oversees FEMA.

More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments but told to stand down, including some who are currently at a training facility, according to the agency messages.

FEMA staffers already working on major recovery efforts — like the one that’s still happening in southern states hit by Hurricane Helene two years ago — will stay in the field and can’t return home unless their assignment is ending, according to the messages. For now, no new personnel can join or relieve them without explicit approval from DHS.

“If we can’t get people to Florida or North Carolina to help validate damages from Helene, we can’t approve funding for those projects,” one FEMA official, who asked not to be identified, told CNN. “If we can’t staff a Disaster Recovery Center in Washington State or Alaska, how can people get help with their assistance applications?”

DHS and FEMA did not respond to requests for comment.

Weeks before the shutdown, amid efforts to overhaul FEMA and cut costs, DHS leaders had been discussing travel restrictions, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Disaster recovery work and travel are typically funded through FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which is a separate pool of money appropriated by Congress and not affected by the current lapse in DHS funding, multiple sources said. As of December, the DRF had roughly $7 billion available.

“So it’s not because the money isn’t there,” a FEMA source told CNN.

It remains unclear how much the travel freeze could disrupt disaster recovery efforts across the country.

One senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, doubted the order would prevent FEMA from responding to a sudden, catastrophic disaster because DHS has the flexibility to reauthorize these deployments.

“Ultimately it’s not a huge blow yet, but just another measure that makes it harder for survivors to get the help they need,” another high-ranking FEMA official told CNN. “It’s yet another way they continue to bleed us out and kill the mission.”

The travel restrictions are similar to another strict policy put in place by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last year, which requires her personal approval for any spending over $100,000. That rule has led to a huge backlog of FEMA disaster and emergency preparedness funding that’s still awaiting her approval, causing widespread frustration among members of Congress and state officials.

FEMA and the sewage spill

The travel freeze comes after President Donald Trump pledged that FEMA would play a “key role” in a federal response to the massive sewage spill in the Potomac River, while criticizing Maryland Democrats, particularly Gov. Wes Moore.

Following the president’s remarks, Noem tweeted that “Democrats in Congress have shut down @FEMA funding — leaving our hard working employees to work without pay — yet FEMA is now stepping in to coordinate cleanup of one of the largest raw sewage spills in U.S. history.”

So far, h

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