Rain halts play at Valhalla

The final round of the US PGA Championship has been suspended due to heavy rainfall at Valhalla.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-27cTW9y522Q/U-fPLM2vG5I/AAAAAAAAAEw/rXU6hG8_zoA/s1600/595431header.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Rain halts play at Valhalla" border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-27cTW9y522Q/U-fPLM2vG5I/AAAAAAAAAEw/rXU6hG8_zoA/s1600/595431header.jpg" title="Rain halts play at Valhalla" width="320" /></a>With the heavens opening over the Kentucky course, officials had no choice but to bring a halt to the fourth round of golf's final major of the year, with huge puddles forming.<br /> <br /> The PGA of America subsequently confirmed that play would be halted for at least one hour, although continued rainfall puts Sunday's play at jeopardy.<br /> <br /> Bad weather also affected the second day of the tournament, where the inclement conditions saw several players have their tee time put back.<br /> <br /> The delay in play is likely to affect players at the top of the leaderboard, leader Rory McIlroy was due to tee off with Bernd Wiesberger - who sits second - at approximately 15:00 local time (20:00 GMT).<br /> <br /> McIlroy - who is 13 under par for the tournament - is targeting a hat-trick of victories after triumphing at The Open Championship last month and at last week's WGC Bridgestone Invitational.<br /> <br /> That run has helped the Northern Irishman reclaim top spot in the world rankings, but he faces stiff competition from the likes of Rickie Fowler who is two shots adrift, while Phil Mickelson and Jason Day are a further stroke off the pace.<br /> <br /> Despite the poor weather, Denmark's Thorbjorn Olesen showed that low scoring remained a possibility - he was four under par through 11 holes before the break in play.<br /> <br /> Shane Lowry also carded four under in his final round, a score which took him to one under par for the tournament.<br /> <br /> However, Spain's Rafael Cabrera-Bello will act as a warning to the leaders, he shot a nine-over-par 80, including double-bogeys at the seventh and the 12th, to end his tournament at 10 over par.

America america's cup finals championship golf news sports Rain halts SPORTS US PGA US PGA Championship Rain halts play at Valhalla

The final round of the US PGA Championship has been suspended due to heavy rainfall at Valhalla. With the heavens opening over the Kentucky course, officials had no choice but to bring a halt to the fourth round of golf's final major of the year, wit…

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America out to maintain perfect record

<a href="http://cache.images.core.optasports.com/news/soccer/2014/8/8/592625header.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cache.images.core.optasports.com/news/soccer/2014/8/8/592625header.jpg" /></a>America coach Antonio Mohamed says it is "premature" to talk about anything beyond Saturday's trip to Tigres UANL.<br /> <br /> Mohamed's America have made a dream start to the Liga MX Apertura campaign, winning their opening three games to sit two points clear of Atlas and Monterrey atop the table.<br /> <br /> America preserved their 100 per cent record with a 4-0 demolition of Puebla - a result that was sparked by a hat-trick from the competition's leading scorer Raul Jimenez, who has netted four goals in three games.<br /> <br /> But Mohamed is taking nothing for granted against fifth-placed Tigres UANL at the Estadio Universitario de Nuevo Leon - an unhappy stomping ground for the 2013 Apertura champions - having not won in San Nicolas de los Garza since 2009.<br /> <br /> "It's too soon, we had a good start, very forcefully but we have many things to improve," Mohamed told the club's official website.<br /> <br /> "I am really very happy but it is premature to talk about other things than the next game."<br /> <br /> Tigres UANL have also made an unbeaten start to the season, with one win and two draws, including a 4-2 victory over defending champions Leon.<br /> <br /> "What is said before a game is useless, we have to keep proving and improving, the only thing that concerns us is ourselves," the 44-year-old Mohamed said.<br /> <br /> "I do not like review of rivals and I like to focus hard on our team, we have to play football, enjoy and nothing else."<br /> <br /> Rivals Atlas and Monterrey can keep the pressure on America with wins over the weekend.<br /> <br /> Atlas - 4-2 victors against Chiapas last week - are on the road on Sunday, travelling to 12th-placed Pumas UNAM, who have suffered back-to-back defeats.<br /> <br /> Monterrey, who were held to a scoreless draw by Santos Laguna, face winless Veracruz away from home on Friday.<br /> <br /> In other fixtures, Leon will be out to make it two wins on the bounce when they take on Chiapas in a mid-table clash on Saturday.<br /> <br /> Cruz Azul - held to a draw in CONCACAF Champions League action midweek - play host to Puebla on Saturday as they attempt to win their first match of the season.<br /> <br /> Elsewhere on Saturday, Pachuca host Chivas Guadalajara and Santos Laguna go head-to-head with fourth-placed Queretaro.<br /> <br /> Meanwhile, cellar-dwellers Universidad Guadalajara entertain Toluca on Sunday.

America Antonio Mohamed Liga MX news news sports SPORTS UANL America out to maintain perfect record

America coach Antonio Mohamed says it is "premature" to talk about anything beyond Saturday's trip to Tigres UANL. Mohamed's America have made a dream start to the Liga MX Apertura campaign, winning their opening three games to sit two points clear o…

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GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVAL: Tracking Developments At The Giant Louisiana Sinkhole - Insurer Claims Texas Brine Ignored Warnings On The Sinkhole!

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: yellow;">November 06, 2013 - UNITED STATES </span></b>- Texas Brine ignored warnings from its own people and others for nearly 15 years that disaster loomed if the company continued mining a troubled Assumption Parish salt-dome cavern, which created a massive sinkhole after collapsing in 2012, according to one of its insurers.<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YB0xP2mKLe0/UnsUr8ybkMI/AAAAAAABNUA/l1D3Z6piZ0g/s1600/louisianasinkhole03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YB0xP2mKLe0/UnsUr8ybkMI/AAAAAAABNUA/l1D3Z6piZ0g/s1600/louisianasinkhole03.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sinkhle caused by Texas Brine's failed underground salt dome cavern. <br />Advocate staff photo by Travis Spradling.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />In a federal lawsuit, Liberty Insurance Underwriters Inc. cites internal Texas Brine reports, memos and an email suggesting Texas Brine officials were warned with increasing specificity since the mid-1970s — before the cavern was even permitted and mined — that the area where the cavern was planned was close to the salt dome’s outer face.<br /><br />This proximity could mean the cavern would be a “risky” venture if mined too deeply, the suit claims.<br /><br />Texas Brine went ahead even as internal warnings continued in the late 1990s and 2000s.<br /><br />Liberty’s lawsuit also quotes internal documents portraying Texas Brine as pushing back against suggestions from the one-time well owner, Vulcan Materials Co., to mine the cavern at a shallower depth than had been planned to avoid the deeper trouble areas.<br /><br />By 1998, the suit claims, Texas Brine was evaluating which way to proceed: continue mining at 5,700 feet deep despite concerns about being too close to the edge of the salt dome or mine at far shallower depths and raise the widely known risk of a cavern roof cave-in that could cause disastrous damage to nearby caverns.<br /><br />“Texas Brine knew in 1998 that the western wall of Oxy Geismar #3 was already ‘precariously’ close to the edge of the salt dome, and that to continue increasing the level of salt reserves mined could ‘cause a disaster,’” the Liberty lawsuit concludes.<br /><br />The Liberty suit was filed Oct. 22 in U.S. District Court in Houston and also names Occidental Chemical Corp., the owner of the well, as a defendant. A status conference has been set for 10 a.m. Jan. 13 before U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes.<br /><br />Liberty, which faces $50 million in exposure as Texas Brine’s third insurer in line, is asking Hughes to declare the company does not owe Texas Brine or Occidental under the policy because of their prior knowledge.<br /><br />In early October, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources had to borrow $8 million from the state treasury to keep up with the sinkhole expenses as state expenses overall approached $10 million.<br /><br />Texas Brine’s primary insurer, Zurich American Insurance Co., said in a recent filing in a state court suit over the sinkhole that the limits of its liability “are exhausted.”<br /><br />According to the Liberty lawsuit, American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Co. is next in line. Liberty starts paying after the first $75 million in excess coverage.<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kG7T2GlPxgw/UnsU7s5c93I/AAAAAAABNUE/B2uKSaR4IyU/s1600/louisianasinkhole02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kG7T2GlPxgw/UnsU7s5c93I/AAAAAAABNUE/B2uKSaR4IyU/s1600/louisianasinkhole02.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aerial of the sinkhole and surrounding vicinity.  Advocate staff photo by Bill Feig.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />In a statement Tuesday, Texas Brine denied “many of the specific allegations made in the suit,” including Liberty’s claims that there is no coverage under its policy.<br /><br />“For many months, we have been working closely with our insurers to resolve issues between us, and it is unfortunate that Liberty filed this suit at this time, particularly since information provided to Liberty in confidence was inappropriately used in making these claims,” the Texas Brine statement says. “We will deal with this issue in the litigation.”<br /><br />DNR officials said in a statement that the agency is “still holding the company accountable for the damage caused by their failed cavern and we’ll continue to do so until the situation is made right.”<br /><br />“Buyout actions are currently being processed and cleanup response by the company is ongoing,” the statement said.<br /><br />DNR officials said they could not speculate about whether the new disclosures would lead to regulatory actions against Texas Brine because the lawsuit only provides excerpts.<br /><br />“The Office of Conservation has never been provided with the documents referenced, nor made aware of their existence prior to the filing of the Liberty lawsuit,” DNR maintains.<br /><br />Liberty did not file the full documents that the suit quotes. Brian Martin and two other Houston attorneys for Liberty have not returned several messages for comment, including on Tuesday.<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MvcuX1sUubc/UnsVE34W84I/AAAAAAABNUM/66Q9kB0g5vQ/s1600/louisianasinkhole01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MvcuX1sUubc/UnsVE34W84I/AAAAAAABNUM/66Q9kB0g5vQ/s1600/louisianasinkhole01.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trees collapse into a slurry, top near an empty lot close to Bayou Corne. Advocate staff photo by Adam Lau.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Scientists working on the sinkhole believe the massive subterranean cavern in question, known as Oxy Geismar No. 3, was mined too closely to the outer face of the Napoleonville Dome.<br /><br />The cavern’s supporting salt sidewall collapsed below 5,000 feet underground and rock flooded into the cavern. This shift in rock created further underground movement that led the Bayou Corne-area sinkhole to surface on Aug. 3, 2012, scientists believe.<br /><br />The hole is now 26 acres, has led to a 15-month-long evacuation of about 150 homes in the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities, home buyouts, the emptying of surrounding storage caverns and a barrage of lawsuits against Texas Brine and Occidental.<br /><br />Texas Brine mines the caverns from deep, solid columns of salt known as salt domes with wells drilled and pumped with fresh water. The water dissolves the salt and leaves behind a cavity.<br /><br />The watery brine byproduct is shipped by pipeline to petrochemical plants along the Mississippi River while the salt left remaining around the newly hollowed-out cavity provides structural support.<br /><br />Texas Brine is relying on insurers to cover mounting costs to state and local governments on the sinkhole response and the company’s own response.<br /><br />What Texas Brine and DNR knew about the cavern’s well-being before Aug. 3, 2012, has swirled since the sinkhole emerged and become fodder for lawsuits already.<br /><br />Many suits cite a January 2011 letter to DNR where Texas Brine official Mark Cartwright warns about the cavern’s “proximity to the edge of salt” and that “a breach of the salt dome appears possible.”<br /><br />DNR and Texas Brine officials have since said that, at the time, no one could have envisioned that a salt wall collapse could lead to an unprecedented sinkhole.<br /><br />In contrast, cave-ins at the cavern roof, or top, are well-known causes of sinkholes and are guarded against.<br /><br />Texas Brine also has said that the letter’s reference to the “cavern” really was industry parlance for an access well to the cavern. In late 2010, Texas Brine prospected for new salt mining above the cavern by boring through the access well’s metal casing.<br /><br />The well and cavern later failed a pressure test and were plugged in June 2011. Texas Brine officials have said they believed the problems were limited to the well only.<br /><br />Vulcan, which sold the Oxy 3 well and the rest of its chemicals business to Occidental in 2005, has been sued separately by Texas Brine over the sinkhole.<br /><br />Vulcan officials said Tuesday that they are still gathering information about that suit. - <a href="http://theadvocate.com/home/7502547-125/insurer-claims-texas-brine-ignored"><span style="color: orange;"><b>The Advocate</b></span></a>.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>

America Assumption Parish Bayou Corne Bayou Corne Sinkhole Bubbling Geological Upheaval Governor Jindal Gulf Coast Salt Dome Basin Louisiana New Orleans Oxy 3 Well Pad Sinkholes Texas Brine GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVAL: Tracking Developments At The Giant Louisiana Sinkhole - Insurer Claims Texas Brine Ignored Warnings On The Sinkhole!

November 06, 2013 - UNITED STATES - Texas Brine ignored warnings from its own people and others for nearly 15 years that disaster loomed if the company continued mining a troubled Assumption Parish salt-dome cavern, which created a massive sinkhol…

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D-Day 1944: It was about honor, duty, and sacrifice

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiidsPmH0qo_r0f4J7n9VtZeqYYiEhucGDsfr0g-NsPAiXYVP07qr5wHrjqOBfzFDORtZkld1teu9Ctuj5ZtmHJry0oHVk7xpv5fEdEYtOnd8RwRaDOMqKVTfCiem2BG5cin52hPkUsSpyW/s1600/American+flag+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiidsPmH0qo_r0f4J7n9VtZeqYYiEhucGDsfr0g-NsPAiXYVP07qr5wHrjqOBfzFDORtZkld1teu9Ctuj5ZtmHJry0oHVk7xpv5fEdEYtOnd8RwRaDOMqKVTfCiem2BG5cin52hPkUsSpyW/s320/American+flag+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Today is D-Day. How many will continue to remember this major milestone battle of World War II that played such a big part in the freedom we enjoy? How many will keep the observance alive even as the Greatest Generation dies off and the memories fade?<br /><br />One family's wordsmith kept the memory of sacrifice and loss alive after penning a Memorial Day column some years ago. Lee Wolverton, then publisher and editor of the <i><a href="http://www2.newsvirginian.com/news/2011/may/30/editorial-spirit-endures-ar-1071549/?referer=None&shorturl=http://bit.ly/m2vazG">Waynesboro News-Virginian</a>,</i> remembered his grandfather who had given the ultimate sacrifice on D-Day when he parachuted in over enemy territory. It is a remembrance that has become a <i>NV</i> tradition each Memorial Day, and it seemed particularly fitting today since the actual event took place on D-Day.<br /><blockquote>In the wee-hour darkness, the stocky young colonel stood on an earthen mound, gazing into the faces of the 750 warriors before him.<br /><br /> “Men,” he said, “I am not a religious man, and I don’t know your feelings in this matter, but I am going to ask you to pray with me for the success of the mission before us. And while we pray, let us get on our knees and not look down, but up with faces raised to the sky.”<br /><br />In the orchard outside Exeter, England, rifles clanked against helmets as the soldiers descended to their knees in the dew-dampened grass. “God almighty, in a few short hours we will be in battle with the enemy. We do not join battle afraid. We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that if you will, use us as your instrument for right and an aid in returning peace to the world.<br /><br />“We do not know or seek what our fate will be. We ask only this, that if die we must, that we die as men would die, without complaining, without pleading, safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right.<br /><br />“Oh, Lord, protect our loved ones and be near us in the fire ahead and with us now as we each pray to you.”<br /><br />The paratroopers then clambered aboard C-47 airplanes for the flight to their drop zone: Normandy, June 6, 1944.<br /><br />For the colonel, it was the fulfillment of a dream born during his days as a boy picking apples in mountain orchards outside his native Elkins, W.Va. After graduation from West Point, with war looming, he was assigned a battalion in the elite 101st Airborne Division in preparation for the largest invasion in military history.<br /><br />The moment for which he longed ended instantly. He was hit in the chest by a series of machine gun rounds as he descended from the heavens into a sea of German artillery fire. By the end of the fighting in Normandy, almost 100 of his men had joined him among the war dead.<br /><br />Widely scattered but well-trained, the survivors soldiered on, seizing a pair of bridges over the Douve River and cutting off routes for German reinforcements at Utah Beach. The colonel’s troops later fought in Operation Market Garden in Holland and the pivotal Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne.<br /><br />Memories of 3rd Battalion commander Lt. Col. Robert Lee Wolverton remained vivid more than six decades after the invasion. The colonel and those who perished with him in Normandy embodied not only the sacrifice we honor today, but also a uniquely American spirit that transcends eras and debates over the merits of war. It is a spirit that lives in those who have given all and those who risk it in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Pray it endures forever.</blockquote>Nowhere did Normandy hit home more than in Bedford, Virginia, where the <a href="http://www.dday.org/">National D-Day Memorial</a> is located as a reminder of a small town that <a href="http://www.dday.org/index.php?page=whybedford">sacrificed so much for America</a>:<br /><blockquote>Like eleven other Virginia communities, Bedford provided a company of soldiers (Company A) to the 29th Infantry Division when the National Guard's 116th Infantry Regiment was activated on 3 February 1941.<br /><br />Some thirty Bedford soldiers were still in that company on D-Day; several more from Bedford were in other D-Day companies, including one who, two years earlier, had been reassigned from the 116th Infantry to the First Infantry Division. Thus he had already landed in both Northern Africa and Sicily before coming ashore on D-Day at Omaha Beach with the Big Red One.<br /><br />Company A of the 116th Infantry assaulted Omaha Beach as part of the First Division's Task Force O. By day's end, nineteen of the company's Bedford soldiers were dead. Two more Bedford soldiers died later in the Normandy campaign, as did yet another two assigned to other 116th Infantry companies. Bedford's population in 1944 was about 3,200.<br /><br />Proportionally this community suffered the nation's severest D-Day losses. Recognizing Bedford as emblematic of all communities, large and small, whose citizen-soldiers served on D-Day, Congress warranted the establishment of the National D-Day Memorial here.</blockquote>Sadly, Bob Slaughter, 87, a D-Day veteran and one of the driving forces behind the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/309466">passed away in 2012 in Roanoke</a>.  The <i>Roanoke Times</i> wrote:<br /><blockquote>On D-Day, the June 6, 1944, invasion of Nazi-controlled Normandy, John Robert “Bob” Slaughter of Roanoke waded ashore toward the death and chaos of Omaha Beach as a sergeant and squad leader in Company D, 116th Infantry, 29th Division. He was 19 years old. At 6-feet, 5-inches tall he presented a large target.<br /><br />The memories of that history-changing day during World War II and of the months of fierce combat that followed in France and Germany compelled Slaughter decades later to fight for and help win a memorial for the D-Day veterans who turned the tide of war against Germany.</blockquote>It was said after D-Day that we would never forget. Will future generations remember that promise?

America Bedford D-Day France freedom Germany Lee Wolverton liberty National D-Day Memorial Normandy D-Day 1944: It was about honor, duty, and sacrifice

Today is D-Day. How many will continue to remember this major milestone battle of World War II that played such a big part in the freedom we enjoy? How many will keep the observance alive even as the Greatest Generation dies off and the memories fade…

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