Coast | Common News Update

Jul172018 by adminNo Comments

Massive iceberg threatening Greenland village moves away from coast

A massive iceberg that has been floating close to a village in Greenland and threatening its residents appears to be veering away from the coast, toward the north, officials said. The village of Innaarsuit is home to 169 residents, some of whom have been evacuated as the iceberg looms over the coast. “Fortunately, the iceberg moved further north over the weekend,” Jakob Rousøe, head of operations for Joint Arctic Command, an authority within the Danish Defense, which is supporting local police and emergency services. “Powerful wind from the south and a current headed north pushed the iceberg to the north.” It is not clear if the iceberg will continue to move north or if it could move back closer to the village. As the iceberg melts, the fear is that gr...

Jun142018 by adminNo Comments

Why West Coast home prices are surging

Finance

Why home prices are on a tear Housing markets out west are on fire. Prices are rising, supply is tight and competition among buyers is fierce. That's all good news for homeowners. Not so much for buyers. Home prices have risen faster than wages in many cities, creating an affordability issues for buyers — especially first timers. "Everything from the Rocky Mountain states and west from there are doing much better than the rest of the country and it's been like that quite consistently," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco are leading the way with annual double-digit home price gains in March, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. Nationwide, price rose 6.5...

May172018 by adminNo Comments

Forest health on one coast can affect forests on the other coast

Science

May 16 (UPI) -- Shrinking forests don't just have local or regional consequences. New research suggests the loss of forests on one coast can affect forest health on the opposite coast. In a new study, published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters, scientists at the University of Washington detailed the linked fates of forests on the East and West coasts of the United States. Die-offs on one coast, whether caused by wildfire, drought or disease -- or some combination thereof -- can have a measurable impact on the health of sections of forest a few thousand miles away. "These smaller areas of forest can have continental-scale impacts, and we really need to be considering this when we're thinking about ecological changes," Abigail Swann, an assistant professor of atmosph...

May162018 by adminNo Comments

East Coast train line to be put into public control

Business

Media playback is unsupported on your device Rail services on the East Coast Main Line are being brought back under government control, following the failure of the current franchise.Operators Stagecoach and Virgin Trains will hand over control from 24 June.The Department for Transport will run the service until a new public-private partnership can be appointed in 2020.Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said it would smooth the transition to a new operator, but critics said it was evidence of private sector failure.Mr Grayling said the franchise had failed because Stagecoach and Virgin Trains had "got their bid wrong", overestimating the profitability of the line.It is the third time in a just over a decade that the government has called a hal...

Feb122018 by adminNo Comments

3D survey details dangerous megathrust fault off Costa Rican coast

Science

Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Scientists have a better understanding of the dynamics of a dangerous megafault off the coast of Costa Rica, thanks to a new survey by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.The survey yielded detailed 3D images of the Costa Rican subduction zone, where the Cocos plate sinks and slides under the Caribbean plate.Unlike similar megathrust faults, the Costa Rican fault features unusual earthquakes, patchy in their distribution. The ruptures rarely spread to shallow depths. Scientists believe the fault's odd behavior is explained by its varied textures -- corrugated patterns created by subduction activity."Our new imagery shows large variability in the conditions along the megathrust, which may be linked to a number of earthquake phenomena we observe in the re...