Model Airplanes

Baker Hughes Inc. fell the most in more than three months as the deadline from U.S. antitrust regulators to weigh in on the $26 billion deal with Halliburton Co. approaches this week.

Baker Hughes dropped 7.5 percent to $44.23 at 12:20 p.m. in New York after earlier sliding as much as 10 percent, the biggest intraday tumble since Aug. 24.

Halliburton has presented a package of proposed asset sales to antitrust officials in hopes of allaying their concerns that the tie-up between the No. 2 and No. 3 players in the oil-services industry would be anticompetitive. The U.S. Justice Department was expected to decide by Dec. 15, while other regulatory bodies around the world have set later dates.

“People are just guessing at this point,” Luke Lemoine, an analyst at Capital One Southcoast in New Orleans, who rates the shares the equivalent of a buy and owns none. While investors are not expecting the deal to close this early, they are wondering how or if the Justice Department review will be extended, he said.

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-14/baker-hughes-falls-most-in-three-months-on-antitrust-uncertainty

American Electric Power Co. said it reached a settlement in Ohio with state regulators, environmental groups and other parties for long-term contracts with its coal-fired generators.

Under an eight-year agreement, AEP’s Ohio utility would buy electricity from coal-fired power plants also owned in part by AEP, the Columbus, Ohio-based company said Monday in a statement. It would raise the monthly household bill by 62 cents in the first year, AEP said. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is expected to rule on the agreement in early 2016.

The announcement allows AEP to subsidize revenues for its financially challenged coal-fired power units in exchange for eventually shutting down or converting some of those units to gas and building new renewable energy projects. It comes on the heels of a settlement reached by FirstEnergy Corp. in Ohio that allows for the utility to keep its money-losing coal units open.

Power producer Dynegy Inc. said the pact supports “anti-market” subsidies with costs borne by Ohio residents and businesses in favor of AEP shareholders. Dynegy owns generation units that compete with plants owned by AEP and FirstEnergy.

AEP agreed to co-fire with natural gas at two units by Dec. 31, 2017, and retire or use only natural gas at those units along with another by the end the next decade, the statement said. AEP will also develop at least 900 megawatts of wind and solar energy projects over the next five years and provide up to $100 million in customer credits over the eight-year contract.

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-14/aep-reaches-settlement-on-coal-fired-power-plants-in-ohio

Imagine living on a planet that doesn’t rotate.

One side would permanently face the sun, creating extreme heat. The other would face a moon without exposure to sunlight. And both sides would have winds so powerful that people would have to live in caves.

As part of a yearlong project, students at Centre Learning Community Charter School created the imaginary land of Eurus on planet Udo Tiven, inhabited by people who survived what students called the “Sky on Fire” that brought the “Great Winds.”

CLC is a charter school that serves students in fifth through eighth grades.

Seventh and eighth-grade teacher Brian Rowan said that with help from former student and Penn State graduate Nathaniel Peters, he incorporated a method of teaching called Worldbuilding for Education into class curriculum this school year for the first time.

The mission is to engage students in a project that nearly puts them in the situation they’re creating by using a computer software program.

“The objective is to increase engagement of kids so they fully understand the task at hand,” Rowan said. “There’s an all-encompassing history aspect for students to think at higher levels, and use real-world methods to create their own world.”

The idea was introduced to CLC in the spring of 2014.

For a senior capstone thesis project, Peters used the Worldbuilding for Education program to help teach a three-week 3-D modeling class after school at CLC.

It included two to 12 students per session, Peters said.

“They were willing to take me in as an

Article source: http://www.centredaily.com/news/local/education/article49756970.html