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Students flee UCLA campus next to Palisades fire evacuation zone

The 46,000-student UCLA campus — adjoining to Palisades fireplace evacuation zones — is on edge and has all however emptied out amid poor air high quality and a college resolution to maneuver courses on-line this week.
UCLA officers stated Sunday there isn’t a quick hazard to the Westwood campus. However when the hearth pushed towards Brentwood, the college despatched out notices placing college students on excessive alert, advising them to “to remain vigilant and able to evacuate” if circumstances modified.
Chancellor Julio Frenk, who took the helm this month, has been posting video statements on Instagram and X to encourage the UCLA group to be resilient.
“We’re persevering with to watch the scenario very carefully and we now have plans in place for no matter scenario would possibly come up,” Frenk posted on Instagram on Sunday. “As of now, there isn’t a evacuation order or warning for our campus. However I do know that many people are dealing with actual challenges. There continues to be quite a lot of uncertainty and worry concerning the future. There’s concern about air high quality. There may be quite a lot of fear about properties.”
UCLA has developed a plan to bus college students off-site — about 14,000 dwell on campus — if fireplace authorities problem a compulsory evacuation order.
On Sunday, it appeared that many college students had already made their very own resolution.
The often boisterous Dickson Court docket subsequent to Royce Corridor was empty aside from a couple of vacationers and neighborhood residents strolling their canine. Most eating halls have been closed. “The Hill,” the northwest area of campus the place dorms are concentrated, was largely silent within the second week of the spring quarter, other than the sound of scholars scrambling to depart.

UCLA senior Elliott Cho strikes out of his dormitory Jan. 12, 2025. “It’s not protected to be right here due to the air high quality,” Cho stated.
(Carlin Stiehl/For the Instances)
At a dorm space by De Neve Drive, college students stood on the road with packed baggage and brilliant yellow transferring carts, ready for fogeys, Lyfts and Ubers to drive them to airports, pals’ properties in Northern California or out of the state. The scene resembled a moving-in or moving-out day moderately than winter quarter kickoff.
“Virtually everyone seems to be gone,” stated Titi Olotu, who pulled up in a automotive to seize her belongings and head residence to Sacramento whereas courses are carried out remotely by at the very least Friday.
Olotu initially left her Olympic Corridor dorm amid smoky campus circumstances Thursday to stick with an aunt close to East L.A. She returned to campus Sunday to seize her passport and different private paperwork.
“I’m in all probability one of many final to formally depart,” stated Olotu, a second-year biology main. She went viral on TikTok together with her movies criticizing UCLA for staying open for on-campus instruction Wednesday, the day after the Palisades fireplace — at practically 24,000 acres and 11% contained Sunday — broke out.
“I want issues had been accomplished higher total,” Olotu stated.
The few college students left on campus tended to be resident assistants — who work in dorms in alternate without spending a dime room and board and different advantages — and worldwide college students whose households have been far-off.
On the Saxon Suites residential corridor, Tommy Contreras determined to remain put due to his obligations as a resident assistant and as a consultant within the Undergraduate College students Assn.

UCLA’s Rieber Court docket on Jan. 12, 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl/For the Instances)
“It’s a ghost city,” stated Contreras, who estimated about 10 college students have been left Sunday out of the 120 he and a co-worker supervised of their a part of the residential corridor.
“At the least 1000’s have left,” stated Contreras, a third-year pupil majoring in political science and public affairs. He has been working with pupil authorities representatives to gather reduction donations for the Dream Heart Basis, a charitable group. “I used to be on campus and yesterday I noticed only one different particular person.”
Late final week, Contreras stated, he may view the Palisades fireplace from his dorm. He was relieved now that there have been not flames in his line of sight, he stated.
“We’re glad UCLA is working with us. For instance, the dorm entrance desks have masks and the college has been responding to us needing to go to class remotely,” he stated. “Nonetheless, it’s been robust. There are folks with bronchial asthma and in want of air purifiers. We’ve had days the place the ground is black and ash falls out of the sky. However we’re one UCLA group working although this collectively.”
Evan Li and Matthew Li, roommates who will not be associated and dwell in an condominium south of campus, determined to stay round. On Sunday afternoon, they performed a recreation of horse at basketball courts off De Neve Drive whereas college students close by scurried to depart.
“I don’t assume the hearth is a risk to us,” stated Evan Li, a senior who research pc science and utilized arithmetic. “And residential is way away if I attempted to go there now.” His household is in Toronto.
Matthew Li, a senior majoring in neuroscience, stated his mom in Sacramento had referred to as him to debate presumably coming residence. However he stated last-minute flights have been too costly, and he additionally thought the hazard wasn’t quick.
“I’m pondering we’ll be again to regular quickly sufficient,” Matthew Li stated.
Within the case of a compulsory evacuation, UCLA stated assembly factors can be Pauley Pavilion and Tipuana Flats, from which the college would supply transportation to various housing. Communications would come with bulletins by way of Bruin Alert.
UCLA has not disclosed the place college students would land if evacuated.

Sophomore Reia Uchiumi, left, and senior Ariel Tan transfer out of a UCLA dormitory.
(Carlin Stiehl/For the Instances)
In an announcement to The Instances, the college administration stated that the “security and well-being of all Bruins stays our prime precedence” and that its Workplace of Emergency Administration had “recognized a number of appropriate places” for potential evacuees and would “decide particular websites based mostly on pupil and operational wants.”
“We’ve surveyed all college students in university-owned housing and within the Westwood space and stand prepared to move and home any college students who indicated they want momentary housing,” the assertion stated.
“Within the occasion of an evacuation, worldwide college students, and any college students or workers who want housing, can be given shelter, meals, provides and wi-fi at an off-site location, freed from cost,” a FAQ on the college’s web site stated.

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Spring-loaded Robot Could Explore the Asteroid Belt Almost Indefinitely

The asteroid belt beckons – it incorporates sufficient sources for people to increase into the whole remainder of the photo voltaic system and has no biosphere to talk of. Basically, it’s a large mine simply ready to be exploited. So, a scholar workforce from the College of Texas at Austin has devised a plan to use it as a part of the Revolutionary Aerospace System Ideas – Educational Linkage (RASC-AL), a contest sponsored by NASA to encourage undergraduate and graduate college students to develop modern concepts to unravel a few of area exploration’s challenges. UT Austin’s submission to the competitors final yr, often known as the Autonomous Exploration By Extraterrestrial Areas (AETHER) undertaking, definitely matches that invoice.
AETHER was submitted to the AI-Powered Self-Replicating Probes sub-section of RASC-AL 2024, which solicited concepts that might advance John von Neumann’s thought of a self-replicating area probe. AETHER addresses these challenges in two distinct methods.
First, it combines a spring-loaded touchdown system and a metal-burning rocket engine to hop between totally different asteroids within the belt. To gasoline its rocket, it makes use of a system to reap water and metallic (particularly aluminum) from the floor of the asteroid it’s at the moment on, splits it into its parts, after which dumps them right into a gasoline tank that can be utilized to energy its subsequent journey to a unique asteroid. All of that is powered by a Kilowatt Reactor Utilizing Stirling TechnoloY (KRUSTY) nuclear reactor that has been present process NASA and DoE testing for over a decade.
The springs in AETHER’s legs have a two-fold goal. First, they permit for a tender touchdown on the floor of the gravitationally weak asteroid and might switch a number of the vitality created by that touchdown into saved vitality, which can be utilized to launch the system from its touchdown place later. It additionally has a set of wheels to navigate across the asteroid’s floor. When it’s time to leap off once more, it replants its legs and is derived again into area – with slightly assist from its rocket engine.
The rocket engine designed as a part of AETHER can burn metallic, corresponding to aluminum, that the craft harvests from the asteroid to make use of as gasoline. It’s the major system designed to take the craft from asteroid to asteroid, and it’s meant to be a high-delta-v choice for doing so rapidly.
AETHER additionally tries to imitate a von Neumann probe by utilizing a machine-learning algorithm to enhance its resource-harvesting efforts. It could take knowledge from varied sensors, together with artificial aperture radar and a spectrometer, and estimate the place the perfect spot could be to land to refuel. Whereas accumulating that extra gasoline materials, it will talk again with Earth by way of a high-speed optical communication hyperlink, permitting an Earth-based server to replace the machine studying parameters and enhance the algorithm’s consequence for the following hop.
Credit score – HeroX YouTuBe Channel
The unique mission design for AETHER has it stopping at two particular asteroids earlier than shifting on to as-yet-unnamed ones. The primary, which might be no shock, is Psyche, the large metallic asteroid that’s about to be visited by its personal devoted probe. Information from that probe will assist inform the primary iteration of AETHER’s studying algorithm, and the enter the sensors present from its go to will replace it earlier than its subsequent step – Themis. That asteroid, although smaller, is predicted to comprise a considerable amount of water ice, which is a mandatory element for AETHER’s rocket engines.
After visiting the primary two asteroids, the mission strikes on to locations unknown, as finishing these steps could be thought of a hit. However given the longevity of the KRUSTY reactor and the craft’s capability to refill its personal gasoline tank, it’s potential, and even possible, that AETHER would contemplate working effectively previous its rendezvous with Themis.
The UT Austin workforce was comprised solely of undergraduate college students, although it’s unclear what yr of research they had been in. However, given their expertise with the 2024 model of RASC-AL, they would appear well-placed to submit a undertaking proposal for the just lately introduced 2025 model. In the event that they do, hopefully, their thought shall be simply as modern as AETHER’s.
Be taught Extra:
Flores et al – AETHER
UT – Miniaturized Jumping Robots Could Study An Asteroid’s Gravity
UT – NASA Funds the Development of a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon That Would Last for 10 Years
UT – Engineers Design a Robot That Can Stick To, Crawl Along, and Sail Around Rubble Pile Asteroids
Lead Picture:
Touchdown and take-off depiction of AETHER.
Credit score – Flores et al.
News
Two earthquakes near Malibu, one in Inland Empire rattle L.A. region

Two small earthquakes rattled the Malibu space Friday and Saturday, adopted by one other one within the Inland Empire.
The primary Malibu quake was reported round 11:44 p.m. Friday and was registered as a magnitude 3.7, with an epicenter about 6.8 miles northwest of Malibu, in line with the U.S. Geological Survey. It was felt throughout the Westside, San Fernando Valley and Ventura County in addition to within the Los Angeles Basin and South Bay.
A second quake, which was measured as a magnitude 3.5, struck in roughly the identical space at 6:30 a.m. Saturday. Residents in Ventura County reported feeling a pointy jolt, and the shaking triggered some automobile alarms.
A 3rd quake, measured at magnitude 3.5, was recorded close to the San Jacinto Mountains in Riverside County at 2:16 p.m. Saturday, with an epicenter a number of miles south of Idyllwild.
There have been no reviews of harm from any of the quakes.

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Heavy Rain Strikes Kentucky and Tennessee

Uncommon downpours in February started to pound a broad swath of the Decrease Mississippi Valley, from western parts of Kentucky and Tennessee and increasing to southwestern Virginia, officers and residents reported on Saturday.
Flooding in these areas could possibly be “life-threatening,” the Nationwide Climate Service stated on Saturday. It additionally stated that widespread flash flooding was anticipated over components of the decrease Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee Valleys.
“That is unprecedented for mid-February, at the least within the final 20 years,” stated Phil Baker, a meteorologist with the Nationwide Climate Service in Memphis, of the rain in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Whereas there have been no fast stories of deaths or catastrophic property harm, officers warned residents to be ready for the heavy rain, and not to drive by way of floodwaters as a result of the water can change into electrified.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Saturday afternoon {that a} landslide would preserve Freeway 160 in Knott County closed for a number of hours. Mr. Beshear additionally stated that the water in Elizabethtown, a metropolis of 33,000 residents, was reaching document ranges. Some houses in Perry County had been evacuated, he stated.
In Tennessee, officers stated that some roads, principally within the western a part of the state, had been flooding, together with State Route 210 in Lauderdale County.
For the remainder of the jap United States, frost, ice or snow was anticipated to coat a lot of the jap United States on Saturday into Sunday. However the uncommon springlike surge of hotter, wetter climate into Sunday morning might imply that components of the area will even face flooding rains, extreme storms, freezing rain and, within the far north, heavy snow.
Listed here are the hazards to observe for.
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Flooding rain: From northeastern Arkansas to southwestern West Virginia, there’s a average threat of extreme rainfall that would trigger rivers to rise or result in flash flooding. One to a few inches of rain fell over northwest Arkansas to northwest Tennessee on Friday evening.
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Extreme storms: Within the Deep South, primarily in northern Louisiana and Mississippi, an outbreak of extreme storms that would embrace tornadoes and damaging winds is feasible from Saturday afternoon into the night.
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Heavy snow: Average to heavy snow has been hitting the Midwest, which might stand up to 13 inches of snow by Sunday. It was anticipated on Saturday to maneuver towards the Nice Lakes by way of New England. Maine might see as much as 19 inches of snow by Monday.
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Wintry combine: New York and different cities alongside the Northeast coast will see snow first on Saturday afternoon, earlier than heat air strikes in, turning the precipitation to a large number of sleet, freezing rain after which rain. Some areas, particularly near the coast, will transition shortly from snow to rain. Some average snow might fall throughout the upper elevations of the Appalachians.
The rainfall is the rarity of this mid-February storm.
The area most susceptible to flooding — together with Tennessee and Kentucky — is already soaking wet, with some rivers close to or at flood stage after having seen weeks of latest rainfall.
This uncommon quantity of moisture surging north is extra intense than the rain that has already fallen. And a few locations, like Lexington, Ky., the place three to 5 inches of rain is forecast, might break their February document for each day rainfall. (Over three inches of rain was measured there on Feb. 13, 1989.)
“A part of the issue is earlier than this rain occasion even began this morning, the grounds have already been saturated from earlier rainfall,” stated Mr. Baker, the forecaster. “There’s going to be river flooding that’s going to persist for days.”
As of Saturday, the heaviest rainfall was anticipated over northwest Tennessee and western Kentucky, Mr. Baker stated, with 4 to 6 inches of rain anticipated. As much as eight inches of rain might fall in some remoted areas, he stated.
With the bottom already saturated, forecasters in locations like Paducah, Ky., are particularly involved by a few of the outlier rainfall quantities of as much as seven inches.
“It received’t take a lot to provide flooding,” one forecaster there wrote, warning that the area “could have a major flooding occasion on our fingers.”
Forecasters within the mountainous areas within the jap areas of the locations most in danger for flooding warned that the bottom had produced situations ripe for landslides and particles flows on steep slopes across the space.
Forecasters in Charleston, W.Va., reminded residents who stay on or on the base of hillsides to observe for indicators of potential floor motion: timber leaning in uncommon orientations, or water and dust seeping in the place they aren’t anticipated.
The hotter, springlike storm is predicted to maneuver off the Atlantic seaboard by Sunday night, and winter will return on Monday.
Temperatures will plunge to under common throughout the jap United States. Snow is prone to return on Tuesday and Wednesday, coating the identical areas that will probably flood this weekend in Tennessee and Kentucky — all as a coastal storm presumably returns heavy snow again to northeast coastal cities.
Adeel Hassan contributed reporting.

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