Record drought in Midwest
Rainfall in the midwest states of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas is at its lowest since 1895, says the US National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The latest figures show that rainfall is 56 centimetres lower than usual in north-east Texas, 64 cm lower in south-east Oklahoma and 58 cm lower in south-west Arkansas.
Pluto, and step on it
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NASA鈥檚 New Horizons probe is set to become the fastest spacecraft ever to escape Earth鈥檚 gravity. As New 杏吧原创 went to press, the mission to Pluto was being readied for launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1824 GMT on Tuesday. The probe will pass the moon鈥檚 orbit in just nine hours; it took Apollo three days.
Wanted: nuke manager
The US Department of Energy has asked organisations to bid for the right to manage the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. The nuclear weapons and research facility has been run by the University of California for 50 years, but its contract expires in 2007.
Unwelcome cargo
India鈥檚 Supreme Court has prevented adecommissioned French warship entering the country鈥檚 waters. The 27,000-tonne Clemenceau was due to be scrapped at Alang in the western state of Gujarat. But environmental groups say it contains hundreds of tonnes of hazardous material, including asbestos. The Supreme Court will decide on 13 February whether to allow the ship to proceed.
Sequence of the pigs
Pigs are to have their genome mapped in a $10 million international sequencing project announced on 13 January by US agriculture secretary Mike Johanns. Because pigs are anatomically and genetically closer to humans than rats or mice, the map of their genome may reveal insights into human diseases.