SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 1 -- The California Public Utilities Commission issued the following order (Case No. 20-06-065): Application of Vineyard Infrastructure - Los Olivos, LLC, doing business as Santa Ynez Trolly, for authority to operate as a scheduled Passenger Stage Corporation between the cities of Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, Los Alamos, Ballard, Buellton and Solvang, and to establish a Zone of Rate Freedom (ZORF). EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ORDER GRANTING APPLICATION Summary This decision   more

FORT COLLINS, Colorado, July 2 -- Colorado State University issued the following news: One of Jonathan Coop's first vivid memories as a child was watching the flames of the 1977 La Mesa Fire in north-central New Mexico. The human-caused fire burned more than 15,000 acres of pine forests in the Bandelier National Monument and areas surrounding the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Now a forest ecologist and professor at Western Colorado University, Coop studies the ecological effects of fire on f  more

LIVERMORE, California, July 2 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory issued the following news release: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers delivered four pulsed power modules to Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) this month, making excellent time despite many challenges presented by COVID-19. The modules are key elements in a novel diagnostic capability jointly developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory(LANL), NNSS and LLNL to be depl  more

WASHINGTON, July 3 -- The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's Resident Inspector in Los Alamos National Laboratory issued the following weekly report: MEMORANDUM FOR: Christopher J. Roscetti, Technical Director FROM: J.W. Plaue and D. Gutowski, Resident Inspectors SUBJECT: Los Alamos Activity Report for Week Ending June 12, 2020 COVID-19 Impacts: On Monday, the NNSA and EM Field Offices, as well as N3B entered phase 1of their resumption plans. Triad continues to perform essential funct  more

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, July 1 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory issued the following news release: Photocathodes that produce electron beams for electron microscopes and advanced accelerators can be refreshed and rebuilt repeatedly without opening the devices that rely on them, provided the electron emitting materials are deposited on single-atom-thick layers of carbon known as graphene, according to a new study published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.   more

SANTA FE, New Mexico, July 3 -- Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-New Mexico, issued the following news release: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday appointed four New Mexicans to fill new judicial positions created by the Legislature: * Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood to the First Judicial District Court serving Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties; * Lucy Boyadjian Solimon to the Second Judicial District Court serving Bernalillo County; * Clara Marissa Moran to the Second Judicial Dist  more

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, July 3 -- The U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory issued the following feature story: NASA's Mars Perseverance rover will take off from Kennedy Space Center sometime between July 30 and Aug. 15. The rover is scheduled to land on Mars seven months later. It is equipped with 23 cameras and more scientific instruments than you can name. Its mission is simple: To find signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for potential return to Earth in a fu  more

WASHINGTON, July 3 -- Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, issued the following news release: On July 2, Congressman Joe Wilson, Senior Member of the House Armed Services Committee, issued the following statement after the House Armed Services Committee completed the markup of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. "This year's National Defense Authorization Act reaffirms Congress's commitment to our men and women in uniform. Through moder  more

SHEFFIELD, England, July 3 -- The University of Sheffield issued the following news on July 2: Researchers have shown that a variation in the viral genome of Covid-19 improved its ability to infect human cells and helped it become the dominant strain circulating around the world. The study, published today in the journal Cell (https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30820-5), shows the variation is more infectious in cell cultures under laboratory conditions. The variant, named 'D614G  more