BOISE — The Idaho Public Utilities Commission has acknowledged Rocky Mountain Power’s 2024-2026 Idaho Wildfire Mitigation Plan. It describes the utility’s efforts to mitigate the risk of wildfires by building, maintaining and operating electrical infrastructure to minimize the risk. According to the plan, Rocky Mountain Power anticipates investing about $800,000 during the next two years to increase its situational awareness. The investment will fund a meteorology department and the construction of 35 weather stations in Idaho. The utility said the meteorology department and the weather stations will allow it to generate a comprehensive weather forecast and predict weather conditions for the next 96 hours. The plan also described the introduction of Rocky Mountain Power’s Idaho Public Safety Power Shutoffs program. The utility started the program in 2023, and it allows Rocky Mountain Power to temporarily and proactively de-energize power lines during extreme weather to prevent fires from starting. The utility said it uses a Partner Safety Portal to communicate with safety partners, and that the utility communicates with impacted customers through phone calls, texts, emails, the Public Safety Power Shutoff webpage and a mobile app during power shutoff events. Other subjects included in the plan are vegetation management, collaborating with other groups to increase an understanding of best practices and technologies, and system hardening designed to reduce wildfire risk. It is the first wildfire mitigation plan Rocky Mountain Power has filed with the commission. In its order acknowledging the plan, the commission directed the utility to develop a least-cost, least-risk analysis to evaluate wildfire mitigation projects, file updated versions of the plan every three calendar years, and conduct semi-annual pre-fire and post-fire season updates for the commission, among other items. The plan and the commission’s order acknowledging it are available at puc.idaho.gov/case/Details/7305 .
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Why Don’t the Chiefs Use Uche?Excellence has been the 49ers’ calling card for the past several seasons. Since 2019, they’ve been one of the elite teams in the NFL, amassing 54 wins against 29 losses in the regular season with two Super Bowl runners-up and two NFC Championship losses in five years. Yet on Sunday night in frigid Orchard Park, the 49ers, mired at 5-6 and a game out of first place in the NFC West, find their season hanging in the balance with a showdown against the 9-2 Bills. “I think the vibe is probably a lot lower outside of this locker room than it is inside,” 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey told reporters this week. “I think our team is hungry. We still have everything in front of us and we’re ready to go.”
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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Tulsa fired football coach Kevin Wilson on Sunday and will elevate wide receivers coach Ryan Switzer on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. The Golden Hurricane lost to South Florida 63-30 on Saturday, dropping their record to 3-8. The school's decision concludes Wilson's two-year tenure with a 7-16 record, including 3-12 in American Athletic Conference play. “With the rapidly evolving landscape of college athletics, we know the importance of positioning our football program and athletic department to thrive and excel in the upcoming years,” athletic director Justin Moore said in a statement. “Our standard will be to play in bowl games every season, compete for conference titles, and build a program that everyone connected to the Golden Hurricane will be proud of." Wilson spent six years as Indiana’s head coach, going 26-47 from 2011 to 2016. He then joined Urban Meyer’s staff at Ohio State and stayed on under Meyer’s successor, Ryan Day, before taking over at Tulsa. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
Broke Zimbabwe govt fails to disburse US$10.5m for CDF projects by MPsWhat is the killer app for verifiable credentials? Daon, Dock and Youverse discussTEHRAN-The Iranian feature film “The Last Act” directed by Shahab Hosseini will be screened at the 78th International Film Festival of Salerno, which will be held from November 25 to 30 in Salerno, Italy. It will be the 14th international presence of the film that have gained several nominations and awards in the past two years, IRNA reported. A 2022 production of the Seven Skies Entertainment company, the film won the Best Film awards at the Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival, the Gladiator Film Festival, and Web3 International Film Festival. An adaptation of the play “Dernier Acte” by French novelist Gilbert Cesbron, the film story is based on true political events that often happen in many territories, but it was written anonymously without geographical specifications. Cesbron’s work is characterized by a great sensitivity to human suffering and an unwavering optimism about the possibility of change and progress. It tells the story of a government criticizer who is prosecuted and arrested while he was visiting his family. The conversation between the writer and one of the authorities leads to an unexpected ending. Gia Mora, James Wagner, Armin Amiri, Mohammad Motalegh, Shelby Seiler, Esmaeel G. Adivi, Shailene Farabi, and Danill Vederikov are in the cast. Shahab Hosseini, 50, is an actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He is known for his collaborations with Iranian Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi in “About Elly” (2009), “A Separation” (2011), and “The Salesman” (2016). His accolades include a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, a Silver Bear for Best Actor, and a Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor. He has played in over 60 films and 15 TV series in more than 20 years. He has also directed four feature films, a play and a TV show. “The Last Act” is his second directing experience in the U.S. following “The Writer Is Dead”. The International Film Festival of Salerno was founded in 1946. Since birth, it has been characterized as a competitive event for Italian and international productions, offering a continuous comparison on the developments of world cinematography. The festival assigns to cinema an important social function and its finality is to constantly adapt its line with an eye to the evolution of technologies and new audiovisual media. It absolves its original task of divulgation and cinematographic literacy, in line with its tradition. SS/SABNo. 10 Maryland holds off George Mason late, 66-56 in a matchup of unbeatens
Tech billionaire Elon Musk spent at least $270 million to help Donald Trump win the US presidency, according to new federal filings, making him the country's biggest political donor. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk, the world's richest person, was an ardent supporter of Trump's White House campaign -- funneling money into door knocking operations and speaking at his rallies. His financial backing, which has earned him a cost-cutting advisory role in Trump's incoming government, surpassed spending by any single political donor since at least 2010, according to data from nonprofit OpenSecrets. The Washington Post reported that Musk spent more this election cycle than Trump backer Tim Mellon, who gave nearly $200 million and was previously the Republican's top donor. Musk donated $238 million to America PAC, a political action committee that he founded to support Trump, filings late Thursday with the Federal Election Commission showed. An additional $20 million went to the RBG PAC, a group that used advertising to soften Trump's hardline reputation on the key voter issue of abortion. Musk has been an ever-present sidekick for Trump since his election victory in November, inviting him to watch a rocket launch in Texas by his SpaceX company. Trump has selected the South African-born tycoon and fellow ally Vivek Ramaswamy to head the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, through which the pair have promised to deliver billions of dollars of cuts in federal spending. However, with Musk's businesses all having varying degrees of interactions with US and foreign governments, his new position also raises concerns about conflict of interest. The president-elect has nominated several people close to Musk for roles in his administration, including investor David Sacks as the so-called AI and crypto czar. Meanwhile, billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman, who has collaborated with Musk's SpaceX, was named the head of US space agency NASA. pgf-bjt/acbCHATHAM, N.J. (AP) — That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It's unclear if it's drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward. Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights. This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what's behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey's new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X. But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracies — none of which has been confirmed or suggested by federal and state officials who say they're looking into what's happening. It has become shorthand to refer to the flying machines as drones, but there are questions about whether what people are seeing are unmanned aircraft or something else. Some theorize the drones came from an Iranian mothership. Others think they are the Secret Service making sure President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster property is secure. Others worry about China. The deep state. And on. In the face of uncertainty, people have done what they do in 2024: Create a social media group. The Facebook page, New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it , has nearly 44,000 members, up from 39,000 late Thursday. People are posting their photo and video sightings, and the online commenters take it from there. One video shows a whitish light flying in a darkened sky, and one commenter concludes it’s otherworldly. “Straight up orbs,” the person says. Others weigh in to say it’s a plane or maybe a satellite. Another group called for hunting the drones literally, shooting them down like turkeys. (Do not shoot at anything in the sky, experts warn.) Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings. She said she first posted photos online last month wondering what the objects were and became convinced they were drones when she saw how they moved and when her son showed her on a flight tracking site that no planes were around. Now she's glued to the Mystery Drones page, she said. “I find myself — instead of Christmas shopping or cleaning my house — checking it,” she said. She doesn't buy what the governor said, that the drones aren't a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.” “How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.” Then there's the notion that people could misunderstand what they're seeing. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which has a drone technology degree program, and is coincidentally located in one of the sighting hotspots. Austin says he has looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones. He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives. Austin encouraged people to download flight and drone tracker apps so they can better understand what they're looking at. Nonetheless, people continue to come up with their own theories. “It represents the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We’ve lost trust in our institutions, and we need it.” Federal officials echo Austin's view that many of the sightings are piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters being mistaken for drones, according to lawmakers and Murphy. That's not really convincing for many, though, who are homing in on the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have reported seeing the objects. For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunting group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels as if it’s up to citizen sleuths to solve the mystery. He said he tries to be a voice of reason, encouraging people to fact check their information, while also asking probing questions. “My main goal is I don’t want people to be caught up in the hysteria and I also want people to not just ignore it at the same time,” he said. “Whether or not it’s foreign military or some secret access program or something otherworldly, whatever it is, all I’m saying is it’s alarming that this is happening so suddenly and so consistently for hours at a time,” he added. Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
