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Skeptics who have long theorized that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by sinister forces will get a fresh surge of energy when a new documentary attempts to disprove that the 1996 crash was accidental.The twist: It includes six members of the large accident investigation team who, publicists say, will "break their silence" on the cause of the explosion.
They will petition the National Transportation Safety Board to reopen its investigation some 17 years after the B-747 fell in pieces into the waters off of Long Island, New York.
They include Hank Hughes, who served as a senior accident investigator with the NTSB and helped reconstruct the aircraft following its destruction. Also included, Bob Young, a top TWA investigator who participated in the investigation, and Jim Speer, an accident investigator for the Airline Pilots Association.
"These investigators were not allowed to speak to the public or refute any comments made by their superiors and/or NTSB and FBI officials about their work at the time of the official investigation," a news release announcing the documentary said.
"They waited until after retirement to reveal how the official conclusion by the (NTSB) was falsified and lay out their case."
The documentary, "TWA Flight 800," will premiere July 17, the 17th anniversary of the crash.
The co-producer of the film, Tom Stalcup, is co-founder of the Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization and has been a longtime and passionate critic of the official investigation.
Suspicions that criminals or terrorists were behind the TWA 800 explosion are not new. The FBI conducted a parallel investigation, but concluded that the incident was not a crime or terrorist attack.
The NTSB ultimately ruled that the explosion was caused by an electrical short, most likely originating in a fuel gauge line, which found its way into the center wing fuel tank, detonating the lethal fuel vapors there.
The NTSB said Tuesday that it was aware of the pending release of the documentary, which will air on EPIX TV network, and of the producers' intent to file a petition to reopen the investigation.
"As required by NTSB regulation, a petition for reconsideration of board findings ... must be based on the discovery of NEW evidence or on a showing that the board's findings are erroneous," NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in a statement. "At this point, the NTSB has not received a petition, however, we stand ready to review one, should it be filed."
Petitions are reviewed and a determination typically is made within 60 days, but the NTSB can take longer if necessary, she said. The safety board's investigation of TWA 800 lasted four years and "remains one of the NTSB's most extensive investigations," Nantel said.
Investigators "spent an enormous amount of time reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data, and held a five-day public hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident," she said.
But her statement leaves open the possibility the case will be re-opened.
"While the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed, and we can review any new information not previously considered by board," it said.
The documentarians said they have a "trifecta of elements" that will "prove that the officially proposed fuel-air explosion did not cause the crash." That trifecta includes forensic evidence, first-hand sources and corroborating eyewitnesses, and the whistleblowing investigators.
The evidence proves that "one or more ordnance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash," the producers said. But it does not identify or speculate on the source of the ordnance explosions.
All 230 people aboard TWA 800 died when the plane, headed for Paris, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Scores of witnesses observed a streak of light and a fireball, giving early rise to suspicions that the terrorists had struck the plane with a rocket.
Investigators concluded the streak was likely burning fuel streaming from the plane's wing tank.

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San Onofre nuclear power plant to close permanently

Friday, June 07, 2013







LOS ANGELES -- The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday.


Operator Southern California Edison said in a statement it will retire the twin reactors because of uncertainty about the future of the plant, which was facing a tangle of regulatory hurdles, investigations and mounting political opposition. With the reactors idle, the company has spent more than $500 million on repairs and replacement power.
The San Onofre plant could power 1.4 million homes. California officials have said they would be able to make it through the summer without the plant but warned that wildfires or another disruption in distribution could cause power shortages. It wasn't clear how electrical production from the plant would be replaced permanently.
The plant between San Diego and Los Angeles hasn't produced electricity since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.
The plant "has served this region for over 40 years," Ted Craver, chairman of SCE parent Edison International said in a statement. "But we have concluded that the continuing uncertainty about when or if (the plant) might return to service was not good for our customers, our investors or the need to plan for our region's long-term electricity needs."
SCE had been seeking permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power, in hopes of stopping vibration that had damaged the tubing.
Edison's stock price was up slightly in midday trading.
The NRC said once Edison formally notifies the agency that it has permanently removed all fuel from the reactor cores, the NRC will move San Onofre to the agency's decommissioning oversight structure, the formal process for closing and dismantling a nuclear plant, the NRC said in an email to The Associated Press. Until that occurs, the NRC said it will continue its oversight of the plant to ensure it meets all requirements.

Friends of the Earth, an advocacy group critical of the nuclear power industry, praised the decision to close it.
"We have long said that these reactors are too dangerous to operate and now Edison has agreed. The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and the wind," the group's president, Erich Pica, said in a statement.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she's also relieved.
"This nuclear plant had a defective redesign and could no longer operate as intended. Modifications to the San Onofre nuclear plant were unsafe and posed a danger to the eight million people living within 50 miles of the plant," she said in a statement.
"Now that the San Onofre nuclear plant will be permanently shut down, it is essential that this nuclear plant be safely decommissioned and does not become a continuing liability for the community."
The problems center on steam generators that were installed during a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010. After the plant was shut down, tests found some generator tubes were so badly eroded that they could fail and possibly release radiation, a stunning finding inside the nearly new equipment.
The four generators at San Onofre - two per reactor, each with 9,727 alloy tubes - function something like a car radiator, which controls heat in the vehicle's engine. The generator tubes circulate hot, radioactive water from the reactors, which then heats a bath of non-radioactive water surrounding them. That makes steam, which is used to turn turbines to make electricity.
Edison has argued for months that the Unit 2 plant could be safely restarted, but Craver recently raised the possibility of closing the plant because of lingering uncertainty about the future. The company had said little about the future of the heavily damaged Unit 3 reactor.
Questions arose over changes to the replacement generators - they were different than the originals, 23.6 tons heavier and hundreds of additional tubes were added as part of design changes.
San Onofre is owned by SCE, San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside. The Unit 1 reactor operated from 1968 to 1992, when it was shut down and dismantled.

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While this wasn't the first 3D printed organ, it was the first time that researchers demonstrated that they can use this technology to "interweave tissue with electronics."This is no easy task as the materials needed to make a human ear are very different from those in electronic devices.
"Biological structures are soft and squishy, composed mostly of water and organic molecules, while conventional electronic devices are hard and dry, composed mainly of metals, semiconductors and inorganic dielectrics," David Gracias, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins and co-author on the publication, said in astatement. "The differences in physical and chemical properties between these two material classes could not be any more pronounced."
The "bionic ears" aren't ready to be used and McAlpine cautions that these prototypes need more research before they could be implanted on a patient.
The researchers published their findings May 1 in the scholarly journal Nano Letters.

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By AINSLEY THOMSON

LONDON—The U.K. has left itself vulnerable to cyberattacks and state-sponsored spying by allowing a Chinese company, Huawei Technologies Co., to become a major player in Britain's telecommunications industry without adequate security checks, a parliamentary committee said Thursday.


Enlarge Image


Reuters
A customer examined a Huawei phone at a market in Shanghai this year.


The report by the Intelligence and Security Committee marks the second setback in as many months for the company in Europe, one of its key markets. In May, the European Union said it planned to investigate the company over alleged unfair trade practices.


The U.K. Parliament's security watchdog said it was "shocked" at the government's failure to monitor Huawei's activities and called its strategy for monitoring or reacting to cyberattacks "feeble at best."


It noted that a system set up in 2010 in the U.K. to monitor Huawei's activities is funded and run by the company itself—a system it said should be changed. "A self-policing arrangement is highly unlikely either to provide, or to be seen to be providing, the required levels of security assurance," it said.


The committee of lawmakers is charged with scrutinizing the U.K.'s security service, secret intelligence service and government communications headquarters.


Most of the concern about Huawei—the world's second-largest telecom-equipment vendor by revenue after AB L.M. Ericsson ERIC-B.SK -1.97% of Sweden—surrounds its perceived links to the Chinese government, it said.


The report said China is suspected of being one of the main perpetrators of state-sponsored cyberattacks in the U.K. It didn't cite specifics, but the committee's 2010/2011 annual report—parts of which were redacted—said the targets of suspected attacks were in government as well as industry.


"In this context, the alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese State are concerning, as they generate suspicion as to whether Huawei's intentions are strictly commercial or are more political," the report said.


Huawei, which was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former officer of the People's Liberation Army, describes itself as a private, employee-owned company and denies direct links to the Chinese government or military. It operates in more than 140 countries and employs more than 150,000 people.


But the report—parts of which were also redacted—said there was a "lack of clarity about its financial structures."


"Moreover, Huawei's denial of links to the Chinese State is surprising, given that such links to the State are considered normal in China," it said.


The U.K. isn't the first country to raise concerns about Huawei.


Last year, the Australian government prevented the company from working on the roll out of the country's high-speed broadband network, while in the U.S., a congressional intelligence committee report concluded its presence in the U.S. posed a national-security threat.


Huawei has been established in the U.K. since 2005 and supplies several of the U.K.'s telecommunications companies including BT, O2, TalkTalk and Everything Everywhere.


The report found that the process for considering national security issues at the time when Huawei first became established in the U.K. was "insufficiently robust," and expressed shock that government officials had chosen not to inform the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry of potential security risks.


"We are not convinced that there has been any improvement since then in terms of an effective procedure for considering foreign investment in the critical national infrastructure," the report said. It added that the difficulty of balancing economic competitiveness and national security had resulted in a stalemate.


In response, the government said that there are "security risks inherent to any sophisticated telecommunications network and system," but insisted that the vetting process had been improved and updated since 2005.


"We now have governance structures and working practices in place which address these risks, including supply chain threats to the telecommunications infrastructure specifically, and escalation of decision-making processes as necessary." a spokesman for the government said.


Huawei issued a statement saying it was willing to work with all governments in a completely open and transparent manner to reduce risks to cybersecurity.


"We have always committed to creating value for the economy, working closely with the U.K. government and our customers, including BT, to meet their requirements," it said.


The committee also raised concerns about Huawei-run Cybersecurity Evaluation Centre—a testing system established in the U.K. in 2010 to monitor any risk Huawei poses to security.


It "strongly recommended" that the staff in the Cell be replaced by government security staff. It also called for the country's top security adviser, Sir Kim Darroch, to conduct an urgent review to determine why it is operating at a reduced capacity in terms of staff and remit, and whether it will be able to provide the level of security assurance required.


Huawei responded by calling the Cell one of the most advanced in the cybersecurity field globally.


One of its biggest British customers, BT, said it tests "third party equipment both before and after deployment to ensure there are no vulnerabilities," and that no risks had been found.


"Our testing regime enables us to enjoy constructive relationships with many suppliers across the globe," it said. "One of these is Huawei with whom we have had a long and constructive relationship since 2005."


Huawei has held up its cooperation with the British government as a model to be followed in other countries. Last year Huawei said it would invest £1.3 billion ($2 billion) in the U.K. and add 500 jobs to its workforce in the country.


It also counts John Suffolk, former chief information officer for the U.K. government as its global cybersecurity officer. In a report written last fall, Mr. Suffolk called for increased regulation and greater cooperation between Huawei and governments of concerned countries.


Meanwhile, the EU investigation is looking into whether the Chinese government is providing unfair subsidies to Huawei and ZTE Corp 000063.SZ -1.26% ., another mobile network equipment maker, which could have allowed the companies to sell into the European market at unfair prices.


Huawei and ZTE have denied any dumping practices or receiving illegal state subsidies.


—Paul Mozur in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to Ainsley Thomson at ainsley.thomson@dowjones.com

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MOUNT VERNON, Wash. -- An Interstate 5 bridge over a river north of Seattle collapsed Thursday evening, dumping vehicles and people into the water, the Washington State Patrol said.
The four-lane bridge over the Skagit River collapsed about 7 p.m., Trooper Mark Francis said. There was no confirmation how many people were in the water, but Skagit County Sheriff's Department said three people have been rescued from the water and were being transported to hospitals.
PHOTOS: Viewer photos of I-5 bridge collapse over Skagit River
It also was not known what caused the collapse of the bridge about 60 miles north of Seattle in Skagit County, which stretches from the North Cascades National Park to a cluster of islands off the Washington coast.

Xavier Grospe, 62, who lives near the river, said he could see three cars with what appeared to be one person per vehicle. The vehicles were sitting still in the water, partially submerged and partly above the waterline, and the apparent drivers were sitting either on top of the vehicles or on the edge of open windows.

"It doesn't look like anybody's in danger right now," Grospe said.

Helicopter footage showed several rescue boats at the bridge collapse scene with several ambulances waiting on the shore. One rescue boat left the scene with one person strapped into a stretcher.

A damaged red car and a damaged pickup truck were visible in the water, which appeared so shallow it barely reached the top of the car's hood.

Crowds of people lined the river to watch the scene unfold.
Multiple witnesses reported seeing a large semi-truck with an oversized load cross the bridge and hit it before the bridge collapsed.
"I saw it. I was less than 50 feet away from the truck when it hit it," said Dale Ogden, witness. "I had just passed it in the fast lane southbound and it was an oversized load."

The bridge is not considered structurally deficient but is listed as being "functionally obsolete" - a category meaning that their design is outdated, such as having narrow shoulders are low clearance underneath, according to a database compiled by the Federal Highway Administration.

The bridge was built in 1955 and has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, according to federal records. That is well below the statewide average rating of 80, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data, but 759 bridges in the state have a lower sufficiency score.

According to a 2012 Skagit County Public Works Department, 42 of the county's 108 bridges that are 50 years or older. The document says eight of the bridges are more than 70 years old and two are over 80.

Washington state was given a C in the American Society of Civil Engineers' 2013 infrastructure report card and a C- when it came to the state's bridges. The group said more than a quarter of Washington's 7,840 bridges are considered structurally deficient of functionally obsolete.
Traffic on I-5 has halted in both directions and backups were significant. Southbound traffic was being diverted to SR 20 while northbound traffic was being diverted to the East College Way Exit.

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An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

By AMY O'LEARY



Among the thousands of file formats that exist in modern computing, the GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, has attained celebrity status in a sea of lesser-known BMPs, RIPs, FIGs and MIFFs. It was honored as a “word of the year” in 2012, and Tuesday night, its inventor, Steve Wilhite, will be accepting a lifetime achievement award at The Webby Awards.

Now, almost any fragment of digital culture can be spun up into a grainy, gratifying animation. GIFs provide a platform for nearly everything, it seems — from rapid-fire political commentary to digital art to small moments of celebrity intrigue.

Has any file format received more attention, more accolades (or had more fun) than the GIF?

Invented in 1987, today the GIF has become the aesthetic calling card of modern Internet culture. Even Yahoo released one to announce the company’s acquisition of Tumblr this week, seen below.

“It’s been an incredibly enduring piece of technology,” said David-Michel Davies, the executive director of The Webby Awards. “Even as bandwidth has expanded,” he said, “it has been very exciting to see how much cultural cachè the format has gotten.”
But back in 1987, such things could not be imagined. Dial-up speeds were achingly slow. Image downloads were made even worse by interoperability problems. An article that year in the magazine, “Online Today” described the problem:

Mr. Wilhite, then working at CompuServe (the nation’s first major online service) knew the company wanted to display things like color weather maps. Because he had an interest in compression technologies, Mr. Wilhite thought he could help.
Steve Wilhite was featured in an October 1987 issue of the CompuServe magazine, “Online Today” for inventing the GIF.
“I saw the format I wanted in my head and then I started programming,” he said in an e-mail. (He primarily uses email to communicate now, after suffering a stroke in 2000.) The first image he created was a picture of an airplane.

The prototype took about a month and the format was released in June 1987.

“I remember when other people saw the GIF,” he said. Colleagues abandoned work on on other black and white formats, he said, as graphics experts began to spread the GIF online. A triumph of speed and compression, the GIF was able to move as fast as Internet culture itself, and has today become the ultimate meme-maker.

In the last decade, the animated GIF has reigned supreme, and while Mr. Wilhite has never himself made an animated GIF, he said the classic, “dancing baby” from 1996 remains a favorite.
Since retiring in 2001, Mr. Wilhite has led a quieter existence than his creation. He goes on RV trips. He built a house in the country with a lot of lawn to mow. He dabbles in color photography and Java programming. He uses e-mail and Facebook to keep up with family.
He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format.
“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

The webcast of Mr. Wilhite’s Webby Award acceptance speech will be on YouTube on Wednesday.

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