Saturday, April 14, 2007 A complex series of events, including a five month-old computer error, was responsible for the battery failure that led to the loss of NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor last year, an internal review board says. Findings from a preliminary report released on Friday say that while NASA controllers followed procedures while operating the craft, the procedures did not cover the types of errors that occurred. According to NASA, on November 2, 2006,…

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Sunday, February 5, 2006 Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third-largest miner, say they will return a record annual profit of over AU$5.32 billion to shareholders, following surging commodity prices – doubling the group’s profit. Earnings from operations jumped 118 percent last year. The London-based company unveiled a net profit of 58 per cent on the previous year. The result was boosted by increases in commodity prices driven by demand from China. Chinese interests account for…

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Friday, September 9, 2011 Parts of Texas have been scorched by sweeping wildfires this week. Officials state that a wildfire which swept much of central Texas this week destroyed at least 1,400 homes and forced about 5,000 people to evacuate to safety. An official with the Texas Forestry Services told news sources on Thursday that much of that fire has been contained. Officials have speculated that this fire alone has destroyed more homes than any…

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Thursday, July 3, 2008 69-year-old grandfather John Walsh stands accused of murdering three victims in the small New South Wales town of Cowra. All victims were killed in different ways. Media organisations have reported that the 69-year-old man killed his five year old grand daughter by drowning; her seven year old brother was killed by a blunt force trauma to the back of the head, and his wife was killed by multiple axe wounds to…

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A compilation of brief news reports for Sunday, April 15, 2007. Contents 1 Policy pundit says UK has ‘lost the plot’ on alcohol 2 39 now dead in Thai floods 3 Will Iranian detainees remain in US custody? 4 Another violent day in Baghdad Writing in PPR, the Institute of Public Policy Research’s journal, Jasper Gerard has argued that, “When it comes to booze, society seems to have lost its senses,” and implies the UK has…

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Friday, April 15, 2005 A Park City, Utah, nutritional supplement manufacturer won its appeal against the FDA on Wednesday as a Federal Judge lifted a ban and sent the case back to the agency for revised rulemaking in accordance with the court’s decision. Judge Tena Campbell ruled that no further enforcement of the FDA action can take place until the FDA reviews its current regulation. Neutraceutical claimed in its lawsuit that the product “has been…

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Saturday, October 9, 2010 Kolontar, Hungary is currently being evacuated as new damage was discovered at the burst reservoir that spilled hazardous sludge on Monday 04 October 2010 in Western Hungary. If the embankment dam of the storage pond that already released about 700,000 cubic meters of highly alkaline (pH ~13) red sludge into the area would entirely collapse, an extra volume of 500,000 cubic meters of red mud could be released. A second spill…

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Friday, September 3, 2010 On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the next version of Windows Mobile OS series, Windows Phone 7, had been released to manufacturing after more than 6 months of its development. The announcement outlined some of the changes in this version, and was generally positive about the milestone. The term “release to manufacturing”, also known as “going gold”, is a term used to indicate that the software has reached a point that it…

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Wednesday, October 11, 2006 Today the New Zealand Government announced that they had a record surplus of NZ$11.5 billion for the 2005 and 2006 financial year. This amount was $2.5 billion more than the government expected to get, however $1.8 billion of the surplus was because of a change to the recording of the tax take. However the surplus is now going to put more pressure on the government to put tax cuts on the…

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