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Investigation Into Sailors Captured By Iran Appears to Be Winding Down

Mother Jones

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Hey, remember those ten sailors who were briefly held by Iran a few months ago when they drifted into Iranian waters? Of course you do. Donald Trump and Fox News will never let you forget. Well, it looks like maybe the investigation is finally starting to wrap up:

The head of a riverine squadron at the center of an international incident in January was fired Thursday….Cmdr. Eric Rasch, who at the time of the Jan. 12 incident was the executive officer of the Coastal Riverine Squadron 3, was removed from his job … for what a Navy Expeditionary Combat Command release said was “a loss of confidence” in his ability to remain in command.

Cmdr. Gregory Meyer, who was commanding officer at the time of the incident, is currently with Coastal Riverine Group 1, and has been put on “administrative hold,” meaning the Navy will not transfer him out of the unit, while a high-level review of the Navy’s investigation into the incident continues, said two officials familiar with internal deliberations.

Four months seems like a long time for an investigation like this, but I suppose you can’t be too careful. In any case, if people are being fired, I assume that means the Navy is finally convinced that it has a pretty good idea of what happened.

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Investigation Into Sailors Captured By Iran Appears to Be Winding Down

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7 Home Maintenance Troublespots to Take Care of Today

Okay, okay, I admit it. I didn’t follow my own advice. The signs of potential trouble were there, yet I chose not to take them seriously.

For quite a while, I’d been finding it more and more difficult to turn my key in the front door lock. I tried wiping the key down with a little oliveoil and cleaned out the lock faceplate … which wasfullof dog hair. But I avoided taking the plunge and calling an actual handyman (or woman). Until I ended up lockedinto my apartment. Pretty scary for a minute there.

My son was still outside, so I passed him a pair of pliers through the window; though he was able to force his key to turn, we knew it was only a short-term solution. Fortunately, we found ahandymanto come and adjust the lock at 9:30 at night without charging an arm and a leg, but next time … Well, I’m going to do my best to make sure there isn’t a next time, by taking care of small home maintenance issues before they mushroom into big trouble.

  1. Door that no longer works quite right. If any door feels stiff and overly difficult to open and close, you may have a lock that is crying out for a little TLC, as mine was. Another cause of “sticky” doors is excessive moisture in the air. Wobbly doors which seem loose in their frame may need their hinges tightened or their strike plate repositioned.
  2. Problematic electrical plug or cord.If you have to forcean electricalappliance‘s plug into the wall socket or yankitout, or itscord has frayed, you are putting yourself atseriousrisk forelectric shock or fire. Stay safe — get the problematic part taken care of before you use the appliance again.
  3. “Minor” roof leaks. Adopt a zero-tolerance policy for “little” drips and “minor” wetness on your ceiling or walls. Water is capable of causing more serious property damage than fire and the longer you neglect it, the worse it will get. PS: Even if you can’t track down the source, that doesn’t mean nothing’s wrong. Water is like toothache pain — it travels.
  4. Leftover leaves.No matter how carefully you cleaned up in the fall, dead leaves will be blown around by winter storms, landing on your exterior window wells and sills, your roof gutters, or your yard. They trap moisture and can do a great deal of harm to your walls and roof, as well as choking your lawn or garden.
  5. Cracks in exterior walls.A tiny crack in the masonry or stuccoexterior wallof your home may be quite simple to seal. However, over time it will tend to worsen, making repair of the crack itself more costly and time-consuming, but also letting in drafts (making your HVAC system work harder) and dampness.
  6. Worn hose on your washing machine.Replacing the hose on your washing machine is so, so, so cheap to take care of right away … but so, so, so expensive and messy if it’s neglected until the hose bursts, flooding your basement (or upper level!!) floor.
  7. Unusual sounds or light patterns from your smoke detector or CO alarm.Smoke detectors andcarbon monoxidealarms are inexpensive, easy-to-maintain devices that can and do save lives. Pay attention to any strange behavior. Chirping — emitting a short beep at regular 30-second intervals — signals that the batteries need to be changed (ideally, perform this task semi-annually; coordinate it with the spring and fall clock changes to help you remember). Unusual patterns of beeping or flashing lights may indicate a malfunction; have the unit repaired or replaced ASAP.

By Laura Firszt,Networx.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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7 Home Maintenance Troublespots to Take Care of Today

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How to Choose an Energy Efficient Water Heater

Conventional water heaters have a 10 to 15-year life expectancy, so sooner or later, the water heater in your basement or utility room is going to stop working, or worse, stop working and start leaking. When that happens, youre likely focused on getting the problem fixed as quickly as possible, and not making a careful decision about what type of water heater you want. It’s best to starting thinking about a new water heater before you actually need one.

If you want to trade up to a more energy-efficient model or a bigger unit, do your homework now, so you can better discuss your options with your plumber when its time for replacement. If you leave the decision to the plumber, he or she might simply replace your existing water heater with a similar model.

Go for Energy Efficiency

Water heating accounts for 18 to 20 percent of the average households energy bill, and is second only to heating and cooling for claiming the biggest chunk of the energy budget. Replacing an old unit with a high-efficiency model will save you money and reduce your home’s overall energy usage.

The savings can really be significant. Thanks to new minimum water heater standards that went into effect last year, even standard models are more efficient than those manufactured in the past. Some models can reduce energy usage by 50% or more. However, those types of savings are only available on heaters that use heat-pump technology. The savings from conventional gas and electric water heaters will only be around 4 percent, according to the Department of Energy. But on a large scale, this shift to new standards will save 2.6 quadrillion BTUs of energy over 30 years and save consumers about $8.7 billion in energy bills. The resulting reduction in CO2 emissions will be like taking 33 million cars off the road for a year.

Read the Label

The easiest way to pick an energy efficient water heater is to read the Energy Guide label that comes with every unit. The label tells you the cost to run a specific unit compared with similar water heaters. If the label carries the Energy Star logo, the water heater meets additional criteria and is more efficient than standard models.

There are a number of considerations that help determine the estimated costs on the label. One of those considerations is the energy factor (EF). This number reflects the efficiency of the heater in converting fuelnatural gas, propane and the likeinto hot water. The EF is expressed as a decimal, so an EF of 1.0 means that 100% of the energy is converted to hot water. Electric water heaters often have a higher EF, but they can be more expensive to operate than gas-powered models. See the table below for more information.

Requirements for Residential Water Heaters

Type of Water Heater
New Minimum EF Requirements
Energy Star EF Requirements
50-Gallon Gas Water Heater
0.60
> 0.67
50-Gallon Electric Water Heater
0.95
> 2.0
Tankless Water Heater
0.82
> 0.90

Sources: DOE National Appliance Energy Conservation Act; Energy Star Product Criteria

Know the Hybrid Systems

Hybrid water heaters use electricity and heat pump technology to produce more energy than they consume. That’s why Energy Star products often have an EF of 2.0 and higherthey produce two times the energy that they use in electricity. The heat pump draws heat from the surrounding air and uses it to heat the water in the tank. When the surrounding temperature drops, the unit switches to standard electricity to heat the water.

Heat pump water heaters are very efficientsome models have an EF above 3.0. However, theyre also more expensive. You can expect to pay a 50 to 70% premium for a heat pump water heater.

Tankless water heaters are another option. These units provide on-demand hot water, so no energy is wasted heating water thats not being used. Tankless heaters are sized in gallons per minute (GPM) of hot water they provide. It can be tricky to figure out the right size for your family, so if youre interested in a tankless water heater, discuss your needs with a plumbing professional.

Size Matters

If you are satisfied with the amount of hot water your current water heater provides, there is no need to replace it with a larger model, as prices increase as the tank size grows. But if you do want a larger tank, there are a number of things to consider.

The most important is the First-Hour Rating listed on the Energy Guide label. This is a calculation that tells you the number of gallons of hot water the unit will provide over a set period of time. Its different from the tank capacity, because as you start using the hot water, cold water rushes into the tank that needs to be heated. The First-Hour Rating considers the size of the tank, the efficiency of the unit and even the temperature of the cold water entering the tank. A professional plumber can help you arrive at an accurate size.

Dont wait until a crisis to think about replacing your water heater. Understanding your options now will make the buying process much smoother when its time for a new model.

DIY author Fran Doneganis a home improvement specialist who writes online for The Home Depot. Fran is the author of the DIY books Pools and Spas and Paint Your Home. You can find a selection of energy-efficient water heaters, like the ones Fran discusses, available at Home Depot here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Choose an Energy Efficient Water Heater

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An Easy Guide to Saving Energy in Your Home

Not sure where to start when it comes to environmentally friendly home improvements? The plethora of suggestions for greening your house and reducing your utility bills is definitely good news, but it tends to leave the average homeowner a tad confused about how or even whether to implement them all. Here’s a common sense guide to help you sort out the most worthwhile and doable energy-savingimprovements.

It’s highly visible.Make a bold statement to get everyone in the family on board with your energy-saving project. A home energy monitor is perfect for this; just clip the inexpensive device onto your power cable and it will clearly display exactly how much power you’re using at a given moment.

It provides a great ROI.”Invest pennies to save dollars” is a formula that makes sound financial sense.Caulk and weatherstrippingare two very inexpensive materials that will go a long way toward greening your home. Avoid wasted energy; use these supplies to minimize leakage of heated (or in summer, cooled) air via cracks and gaps around doors, windows, faucets, and electrical switch plates.

It doesn’t seriously affect your comfort level. Install a programmable thermostat to decrease the heat whenever you are away for the day or asleep for the night. While you’re at it, make sure the temperature is set a degree or two lower than you’re used to even for those times you’ll be at home and active. Chances are that you’ll barely notice the difference.

It’s appropriately timed.If you have a major appliance such as a dishwasher that’s damaged beyond repair or approaching the end of its useful life — or if the environmental cost of running the item is greater than the price of a new one — take the opportunity to purchase an energy-efficient replacement.

It’s suitable for your area. For example,a heat pumpis a wonderfully energy-efficient way to warm your homeifyou live in a part of the country with a relatively mild climate. In a wintry northern state like Minnesota, you’ll end up wanting to supplement with less-green heat sources like electricity or natural gas.

It really counts.Replace your old HVAC system with a new Energy Star efficient version to give you more energy savings for your initial investment than, say, changing your windowpanes. To be precise, an Energy Star-certified heating and cooling system will save you approximately 30 percent annually in fuel and maintenance costs.

It offers fringe benefits.Use up to 50 percent less energy with anEnergy Star-certified washing machinethan the average top-loader. Not only that, it cleans more effectively, removes stains better, is gentler on your clothing, and reduces drying time.

It saves energy year-round. Insulate your attic to keep your home warmer in winter and cooler in summer while expending less energy. This has the added advantage of extending your roof’s lifespan.

It’s safe.Insulate your water heater to keep your water supply hotter (unless you own a hyper-efficient newer model whose factory-installed insulation has an R-value of 16 or more). Be very careful about where you apply the insulation, though. Do not cover an electric water heater’s heating-element access panels or a gas unit’s controller, pressure and temperature relief valve, and anode, or the top of the unit — which exhausts so much heat that the insulation might be set on fire.

It’s beyond simple.Save on your electricity bill with easy-to-use power strips, since they take only 61 seconds of your time: one minute to plug in a number of common devices like your printer and one second to switch them all off when they’re not needed. This reduces power vampires, which draw a surprising amount of energy even when not in use. To make life even easier, install anadvanced power strip, and you’ll no longer have to remember to switch off or unplug. The strip will do the “thinking” for you, by sensing when your tablet is fully charged or your toaster is no longer being used.

By Laura Firszt,Networx.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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An Easy Guide to Saving Energy in Your Home

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Five Quick Things to Know About Bowe Bergdahl

Mother Jones

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It’s an open question whether the White House handled the recovery of Bowe Bergdahl well. Probably not, and it’s a legitimate topic for speculation. But on the substantive question of the prisoner exchange itself, here are five things you should keep firmly in mind:

  1. We don’t know if Bergdahl is a deserter. We’ll only know that after the military legal process has run its course and rendered a verdict. Obviously nothing is going to shut up the hotheads and Fox News blowhards, but the rest of us on both left and right would be wise to reserve judgment until that happens.
  2. Either way, we still should have gotten Bergdahl back. We don’t leave prisoners behind to face justice from the enemy. We dish it out ourselves.
  3. The evidence suggests that, in fact, probably nobody died searching for Bergdahl after he left the base.
  4. When wars end, you exchange prisoners. This is always distasteful and contentious: the issue of POWs was so fraught at the end of the Korean War that it actually extended the fighting for more than a year. But eventually you agree to an exchange, and the Afghanistan war is no different. Foreign policy hawks might not like it, but America’s longest war is finally coming to an end, which means our Taliban prisoners would have been exchanged fairly soon no matter what. We didn’t actually give up much in this deal.
  5. As Michael Hastings reported two years ago, Bergdahl didn’t think much of his unit, and his unit didn’t think much of him. Given the rancor between them, it’s not surprising that his teammates have plenty of lurid things to say about him now. They never liked him much in the first place. For the time being, you should take everything they say with a big grain of salt.

Practically everything you’re hearing right now about Bowe Bergdahl is being driven by extreme partisans with a huge ax to grind. You should view the entire feeding frenzy with intense skepticism until we learn more about what actually happened.

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Five Quick Things to Know About Bowe Bergdahl

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for April 30, 2014

Mother Jones

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Lance Cpl. George Redhead, a native of San Jose, Calif., low crawls through the muddy water of the “pit-and-pond” section of the endurance course April 17 at the Jungle Warfare Training Center on Camp Gonsalves. The jungle is vastly different from the desert terrain many Marines have been training in for the past decade, according to Kao. The jungle does not allow for significant mechanized or motorized movements, which forces Marines to hone their dismounted warfighting abilities. Redhead is a rifleman with 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion currently assigned to Combat Assault Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, under the unit deployment program. Kao is a native of Vancouver, Wash., and is the camp commander for Camp Gonsalves, Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler, Marine Corps Installations Pacific. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Stephen D. Himes/Released)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for April 30, 2014

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 6, 2013

Mother Jones

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Marines with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit clean their weapons after completing a small-arms training exercise at Range 111 at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Nov. 25. The training focused on enhancing the unit’s confidence and proficiency with personal weapons and M67 Fragmentation Hand Grenades.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Emmanuel Ramos/Released)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 6, 2013

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Nearly 48,000 suing BP over toxic pollution from Texas refinery

Nearly 48,000 suing BP over toxic pollution from Texas refinery

BP

The Texas City refinery.

Over the course of 40 days in 2010, BP allowed hundreds of thousands of pounds of chemicals to escape from its refinery in Texas City, Texas. Unfortunate neighbors inhaled a carcinogenic cocktail of benzene, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide.

Now, more than three years after the incident and a year after BP sold the refinery to another company, the first four of an estimated 48,000 claimants are having their day in court.

In a trial that began Monday, the neighbors are seeking up to $200,000 apiece in compensation — plus $10 billion in punitive damages, which they have pledged in court documents to donate to charity. From Bloomberg:

BP knowingly vented at least 500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including benzene, from a faulty refinery unit to a flare the company knew was incapable of destroying the toxins, Tony Buzbee, the residents’ lead attorney, said in a phone interview. He claims BP would have lost more than $20 million if it had shut the unit down during repairs.

“BP decided there was just too much money to be made at the time, so they decided to flare the emissions and take the consequences,” Buzbee said. He plans to ask jurors to send BP a message that “the wanton poisoning of an entire community is not an acceptable business practice,” he said.

London-based BP denies anyone was injured by emissions from the refinery, which was later sold.

It would be nice to think that this was an isolated incident. But we’re talking about BP, which was already fined $87 million by the feds for failing to fix safety problems that caused a 2005 blast at the same refinery that killed 15 workers. And then there are all those other accidents for which BP has been responsible — including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which actually overlapped with the 40-day toxic release. From a 2010 ProPublica story:

In the weeks [after] the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf, BP … insisted that the incident, the nation’s worst environmental disaster, was a disastrous but unusual misstep for a company that has done much in recent years to change its ways.

But a look at BP’s record in running the Texas City refinery adds to the mounting evidence that the company’s corporate culture favors production and profit margins over safety and the environment. The 40-day release echoes in several notable ways the runaway spill in the Gulf. BP officials initially underestimated the problem and took steps in the days leading up to the incident to reduce costs and keep the refinery online.

The $10 billion in punitive damages sought by the victims is a lot of money, but consider that BP brought in $18.8 billion in earnings in just the first six months of this year — and it would have brought in a lot more if it weren’t having to pay so much in compensation for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Nearly 48,000 suing BP over toxic pollution from Texas refinery

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Chevron’s own firefighters might have contributed to Richmond refinery fire

Chevron’s own firefighters might have contributed to Richmond refinery fire

A small corroded pipe caused the initial blast at a Chevron refinery in Richmond, Calif., this past August, but the oil giant’s own firefighters, in their haste, may well have been responsible for the fire’s spread.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the ongoing investigation, which reveals that early efforts to put out the flames may have actually stoked them.

“One theory we are exploring is that emergency response activities inadvertently accelerated the rate of the leak,” said Daniel Horowitz, managing director of the Chemical Safety Board. “We are comparing possible tool marks on the pipe with tools recovered from the incident.”

One tool that may have inflicted the apparent damage is a Halligan bar, which has a hook-like implement with a sharp end. Firefighters are commonly equipped with the device to help them gain entry into burning buildings.

Don Holmstrom, the Chemical Safety Board’s lead investigator looking into the fire, said the blaze might well have happened even without the apparent puncture, but that the external damage could have been “an aggravating factor.”

Investigators have not determined what sparked the blaze, but have raised questions about Chevron’s decision to continue to run crude oil through the pipe even as workers responded to the initial, small leak.

“Regardless of the exact sequence of the events, this incident emphasizes the importance of effective decision-making in shutting down the unit promptly in case of a leak of this type,” Horowitz said.

Effective decision-making! I wonder if that’s what Chevron was doing when it strong-armed Richmond last month.

After Chevron threatened to lay off more than 600 workers if it didn’t get city permits for [refinery] reconstruction, Richmond gave the go-ahead late last month.

Yeah, effective for Chevron, maybe, but not so much for poor, polluted Richmond.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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