[FoxNews] Officials say the 34,000-gallon tank of methyl methacrylate at GKN Aerospace cannot be secured or mitigated
Fire officials issued urgent evacuation orders Friday for a Southern California community as emergency crews scrambled to manage an enormous chemical tank that is "actively in crisis" and threatening to spill or explode.
These things happen. A chemist I know spent the more exciting portion of his career straddling railroad tank cars, dripping things into the access hole in the hope of stopping unplanned exothermic chemical reactions. He made it to retirement, so clearly this can be a viable career path…
During an emergency news conference, Orange County Fire Authority Interim Chief TJ McGovern said crews have been working around the clock at GKN Aerospace, a facility that builds engine structures and other products for commercial and military aircraft, after discovering a large tank off-gassing toxic fumes.
On Thursday night, authorities determined methyl methacrylate (MMA), a volatile and flammable plastic epoxy used to create parts for the aerospace industry, was leaking from the 34,000-gallon storage tank and firefighters put critical cooling measures in place, according to a report from affiliate FOX 11 Los Angeles.
While officials initially believed the situation was under control, allowing residents to return home, the crisis severely escalated by Friday morning.
"We have determined that the tank that is in the biggest crisis is in fact unable to be secured and mitigated," said Incident Commander and Orange County Fire Division Chief Craig Covey.
Officials are now bracing for one of two catastrophic outcomes: The tank could fail, spilling between 6,000 and 7,000 gallons of "very bad chemicals" into the surrounding parking lot and area, or the tank could go into "thermal runaway" and explode, triggering a chain reaction with neighboring tanks containing fuel and other hazardous chemicals, according to Covey.
"We are setting up these evacuations in preparation for these two options: It fails, or it blows up," Covey said.
He noted that while there is currently no active gas leak or toxic plume, residents must heed the warnings immediately out of an abundance of caution.
Expected timelines for the potential leak or explosion were not provided.
Garden Grove Police Chief Amir El-Farra said an expanded evacuation zone has been implemented to protect the public from the imminent threat.
"Community safety is our highest priority, and we want to see this come to a successful resolution, but we need your help," El-Farra said.
Two emergency evacuation centers have been set up for displaced families in Garden Grove and Cypress.
Local law enforcement and mutual aid partners remain at the scene to monitor the situation.
No injuries or fatalities have been confirmed, as of 1 p.m. local time.
As of Friday evening, Covey said crews had been able to lower the temperature of the damaged tank -- one of three tanks at the facility -- with a curtain of water being directed at it. That is "buying us time to continue to sort out: How do we fix this?" Covey said in a video update.
In a follow-up video, Covey said the efforts to keep the tank cool were continuing to work, and that crews were working through the night to figure out how to resolve the situation.
"It is not OK with me just to sit back and watch this thing blow up or fail," Covey said. "That is not acceptable to me."
He said another update would be provided Saturday morning.
Officials have said it is unclear when residents will be able to return to their homes.
"This is highly volatile, it's highly toxic, it's highly flammable," Covey said during an earlier press briefing, while urging people to evacuate. "This is not precautionary. This is gonna happen unless some brilliant guy behind me here figures out how we can mitigate this incident. This thing is gonna fail -- we don't know when."
Search Assist - Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is used in construction for fast-curing coatings, adhesives, and repair mortars that reach traffic-ready strength in about an hour. It is valued for durability, chemical resistance, and performance across a wide temperature range
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/23/2026 2:08 Comments ||
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#3
Yup. We'd bead-blast old bridge deck surfaces and apply methacrylate with sand (for skid resistance and grip). Nasty smell.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2026 7:24 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] A "major" explosion and fire at a Staten Island shipyard Friday afternoon left dozens of New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighters and first responders injured, and one civilian dead.
FDNY EMS deputy assistant chief Ian Swords confirmed during a news conference Friday night that one civilian died at the scene and 34 members of the FDNY were taken to local hospitals.
The two most seriously injured patients were a fire marshal, who is in critical condition, and a firefighter, who is in serious condition. They both suffered "blast energy" during the explosion, which can cause internal damage.
Richmond University Medical Center said the fire marshal has a temporal fracture and a small brain bleed and remains in critical condition. Doctors are monitoring the firefighter for subsequent muscle injury.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local residents burned down a field treatment center for the Ebola virus because they were prevented from retrieving the body of a deceased relative. CNN reported this on May 22,citing a source.
According to the channel's source, medical workers refused to release their relative's body to the people because it could spread the infection. In response, local residents threw various objects at the treatment center, causing a fire. then they bathed in the bodily fluids?
As a result, two field tents where six people were being treated burned down. No injuries were reported.
On May 17, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak in the DRC a public health emergency of international concern. However, the organization did not recommend restricting travel to or trade with the DRC and called on the international community to show solidarity with the Congolese people.
Rospotrebnadzor noted that there is no risk of Ebola spreading in Russia. The agency's specialists are monitoring the epidemiological situation around the world, including in the DRC, 24/7.
Furthermore, Rospotrebnadzor will send a team of specialists to Uganda for an epidemiological investigation following the Ebola outbreak. Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko reported that he discussed with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus the supply of Russian vaccines to the DRC and Uganda amid the Ebola outbreak.
[SDUT] A pair of distinguished and retired warships long associated with San Diego will be soon be attacked and sunk off Hawaii to teach sailors critical combat skills in the ever changing world of naval warfare, according to the Navy.
This sinkings will be part of Rim of the Pacific 2026, a biennial military exercise involving about 30 nations and 25,000 personnel. The event will begin June 24 and last until the end of July.
The date of the sinking, and the manner in which it will be carried out, have yet to be announced.
But the Navy told the Union-Tribune that it will destroy the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu and the cruiser USS Mobile Bay. Both operated out of San Diego for more than 20 years, and both were decommissioned in the city.
Peleliu is a 820-foot "mini" aircraft carrier that spent its career deploying Marines to dangerous and distant places. It became famous in military circles for launching a daring mission into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Helicopters from the Peleliu transported 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton’s 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit nearly 400 miles inland, enabling them to set up a forward operating base in Afghanistan’s southern desert. It is the longest amphibious and air deployment in the history of the Marines.
The 567-foot Mobile Bay has been widely praised for its role in Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. led effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. The cruiser managed four aircraft carriers and used its Aegis combat system to help the U.S. take command of the skies.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
Foolish. Lay them up in reserve. Why should Iran sink our aircraft carriers when Democrats do it for us?
#2
^ You can change nyms, but the stupidity remains.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2026 9:22 Comments ||
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#3
I think the idiot has a point. We've sunk in sink-ex-es a whole lot of ships that would have been useful in the current conflict; instead we told ourselves our great ally the Sultanate of Britain would handle everything if there were actually a need to escort ships.
The LCS doesn't even have fire control sufficient for its little main gun so it could shoot down a drone. It's carefully pre-nerfed to not be able to handle a crisis larger than a speedboat.
#4
Retired = too many $$ to upgrade to current standards. The cost in US Mil lives is even more in putting out substandard vessels. If they were economically upgradeable, they'd be ANZUS or Canadian gifts
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2026 19:04 Comments ||
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#5
Frank, that would be a useful argument IF we actually had a bureau of shipbuilding that was actually functional. But they've spent longer redesigning and building the Constellation frigates than we spent in WW2. We can't even say "Get out there and finish this thing or else ride to battle in an OHP" because we sank the OHP's. We're all in on being too dysfunctional to control the Strait of Hormuz, and our "allies" don't want to fight their co-religionists in control of Iran.
#6
^ I get that, but berth-space for mothballed derelicts is a wasted cost in maintenance and staffing
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/23/2026 19:44 Comments ||
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#7
Retired = too many $$ to upgrade to current standards.
Peleliu entered service in 1980, nearly half a century ago. That is a long time for gaskets, rubber parts and insulation. Plus, electronics and software have come a long way since then.
Hey, maybe we could give it to Elon and he could convert it into Space Battleship Washington.
[NYPost] At least 90 people were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s northern province of Shanxi, the country’s deadliest mining accident since at least 2009.
The gas explosion occurred late on Friday at the Liushenyu coal mine in Qinyuan county, with 247 workers on duty underground, state media Xinhua reported.
Rescue operations were ongoing and the cause of the accident was under investigation, according to the local emergency management authority in Qinyuan. Shanxi is China’s coal-mining heartland.
President Xi Jinping called for authorities to “spare no effort” in treating the injured and conducting search and rescue operations, while ordering a thorough investigation into the cause of the accident and strict accountability in accordance with the law, according to Xinhua.
[Breitbart] Reports in South Korean media this week claimed that genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is planning to visit North Korea in the near future for only the second time since seizing power in China and may arrive in Pyongyang next week.
Neither the governments of China nor North Korea have offered any confirmation of such a visit. The Chinese Foreign Ministry explicitly rejected the chance to clarify if a visit was imminent during a regular press briefing on Thursday. The government of South Korea, meanwhile, has responded to the reports seeking some role in helping maintain the peace on the peninsula and improve relations among all parties involved.
[Epoch Times] The Department of the Interior (DOI) received more than $4 billion from oil and gas lease sales in Texas and New Mexico, the DOI said in a May 20 statement.
"Revenue generated through lease sales is shared between the federal government and the states where the parcels are located."
The lease sales were conducted in accordance with provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which lowered the federal royalty rate for new onshore oil and gas production projects.
Prior to the bill, the rate was 16.67 percent, which dropped to 12.5 percent after its passage. On the other hand...
"Since his first day back in office, Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to gift wrap our public lands to hand over to billionaires and corporate polluters. Now he wants to fast-track oil and gas drilling projects on national forest lands," said Mike Scott, Sierra Club’s oil and gas campaign manager.
"This is one more giveaway to the oil and gas industry and the latest example of Trump’s mismanagement of our country’s public lands and energy economy. It’s not ’energy dominance,’ it’s sacrificing lands, waterways, and wildlife to boost corporate profits."
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/23/2026 01:39 ||
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[Breitbart] President Donald Trump’s deputies are closing the hidden process used by former presidents to covertly legalize or amnesty millions of economic migrants during the last few decades.
“This could be a HUGE move,” said a tweet from the Immigration Accountability Project Action group,
On Friday, officials announced that migrants in the United States who want to use the little-recognized and fast-track “Adjustment of Status” (AOS) pathway to green cards — and then citizenship — must instead follow the normal legalization pathway that goes through the U.S. embassies in their home countries.
This change will impact millions of economic migrants in the United States — including long-resident illegal migrants, temporary foreign workers, tourists, students, people with parole visas, Biden-era illegals with Temporary Protective Status, people who overstay their visas, and even people who have been given a final order of deportation. It does not impact refugees, asylum seekers, or migrants living overseas.
In recent years, roughly half of all legalized migrants have gotten their legal status — often with amnesty — via the AOS process instead of exiting the country to apply at the U.S. embassy in their home country.
“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly,” said Zach Kahler, a spokesman for Joseph Edlow’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is part of Markwayne Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security. Kahler added:
[IsraelTimes] Experts say though Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons remains in force, it ‘keeps on becoming less and less anchored in reality’
Talks at the UN to reaffirm nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament goals failed on Friday, according to the leader of the talks, after four weeks of negotiations held amid low expectations.
Vietnam’s Do Hung Viet, the president of the conference, said that "despite our best efforts... it is my understanding that the conference is not in a position to achieve agreement on its substantive work."
"I do not intend to put the document forward for adoption," he added.
Negotiators were reviewing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the cornerstone of nuclear weapons control, amid fears of a renewed arms race. Previous reviews in 2015 and 2022 were also unsuccessful.
With expectations low, participants negotiated over a repeatedly reviewed and watered-down text, which they ultimately failed to adopt.
Experts pointed out that even in the absence of a review agreement for the third time in a row, the treaty continues to exist, but with diminished legitimacy.
"The text keeps on becoming less and less anchored in the realities of current conflicts and proliferation risks," including North Korea ...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche... and Iran, analyst Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group said before the outcome was announced.
The latest version of the text seen by AFP on Friday merely stated that Tehran must "never" develop nuclear weapons.
The paragraph was in brackets, signaling persistent disagreement, despite the removal of the reference to Iran’s "non-compliance" with its obligations that appeared in the first draft.
Also gone were expressions of concern about North Korea’s nuclear program, or even any mention of the "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula.
Gone as well was the direct call on the United States and Russia to begin negotiations on a successor to the New START treaty limiting Russian and American arsenals, which expired in February.
The diluted text still covered "the risk of a resumption of nuclear testing by Russia, China and the United States, the growth of arsenals, and attacks on nuclear infrastructure," Heloise Fayet of the French Institute of International Relations said earlier on Friday.
Exactly why the review failed isn’t yet known.
"The majority of countries are indeed working in good faith for disarmament," said Seth Shelden of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), commenting on the failure of the talks.
"But the small handful of nuclear-armed states, and certain of their allies, are undermining the NPT, frustrating disarmament efforts, expanding arsenals and provoking proliferation, and pointing the world toward catastrophe," he added.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the nine nuclear-armed states — Russia, the United States, La Belle France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistain, Israel and North Korea — possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads in January 2025, 90 percent of which were in American and Russian hands.
Some countries are modernizing their arsenals or even increasing their stockpiles.
The NPT, which entered into force in 1970 and has been signed by almost all states — with notable exceptions including Israel, India and Pakistain — aims to prevent proliferation, promote complete disarmament and encourage cooperation for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
[Breitbart] The government of Saudi Arabia reassured visitors on Friday that it is prepared to screen for and otherwise address any public health threats during the upcoming Hajj season, responding to growing international concern about the spread of Ebola and hantavirus.
The hajj is the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city in the religion, which Muslims are mandated to make, if possible, once in their lifetimes. Saudi Arabia typically welcomes upwards of one million Muslims to the city for the hajj on an annual basis, most coming from all over the world, including countries hostile to Saudi Arabia such as Iran. This year, the hajj is formally expected to begin on May 25, though the mass influx of foreign visitors has already begun. The Saudi government is expecting about 1.5 million people to participate in hajj activities.
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) has identified two significant public health threats ongoing in the past month: an outbreak of the rat-transmitted disease hantavirus on board a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic, and a growing outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Operations are currently ongoing in Argentina to find the source of the hantavirus outbreak and contain it, while in DRC, health workers are facing major security challenges as mobs denying the existence of Ebola attack informal treatment centers and seek to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones.
#6
30,000 Iranians admitted for the haj. I don't think the Iranians will initiate an attack on Mecca (at the very least) until after it ends in a week.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The largest and most powerful rocket in history exploded in a massive fireball after its successful test flight around the Earth Friday night.
Elon Musk's SpaceX declared the launch of Starship 12 a success and noted that the space capsule's explosion in the Indian Ocean was planned as the aerospace company did not plan to reuse the experimental craft.
Starship Flight 12 took off from SpaceX's launching pad in Starbase, Texas Friday night as the company began critical trials before NASA uses this third version of Starship to take astronauts to the moon and beyond.
While the craft successfully made it into space, the launch was not perfect, as Starship lost the use of one of its six new 'Raptor' engines. It was forced to burn its remaining five engines longer to compensate.
However, the unmanned rocket was still able to complete most of its planned mission, successfully surviving reentry and completing its landing maneuvers before splashing down in the ocean and erupting into a ball of flame.
#1
I observed, on the SpaceX live feed, the landing filmed from the SpaceX boat at the landing zone in the Indian Ocean. Closer to their target than most NASA parachute landings.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/23/2026 9:56 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"Revenue generated through lease sales is shared between the federal government and the states where the parcels are located."
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
