Electrek reports that 2021 will bring one of Tesla’s fast-charging Supercharger to a state that’s never had one before:

Lanai Island, a former pineapple plantation that was almost entirely (98%) purchased by Oracle founder and Tesla board member Larry Ellison for $300 million in 2012, is the first in Hawaii to see a Supercharger permit filed by Tesla…

The 145-square-mile island doesn’t have any traffic lights, only 30ish miles of paved roads and the 3,400 person population lives almost exclusively in the small Lana’i City. This would seem to indicate that the chargers would be of the Urban Supercharger variety and in likely service of Larry Ellison’s Four Seasons Hotels, which rely on Model X vehicles to shuttle guests to and from the airport and around the island’s luxury amenities.

Ellison plans to convert the island’s power from diesel to solar/battery, and obviously Tesla’s expertise here is likely to be tapped… Hawaii in general has been massively moving from its diesel generating past to solar power and plans to be 100% renewable before 2040.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – The Site of Hawaii’s First Tesla Supercharger? Probably Larry Ellison’s 3,400-Person Island

The Guardian reports:

The mass die-off of thousands of songbirds in south-western U.S. was caused by long-term starvation, made worse by unseasonably cold weather probably linked to the climate crisis, scientists have said.

Flycatchers, swallows and warblers were among the migratory birds “falling out of the sky” in September, with carcasses found in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska. A USGS National Wildlife Health Center necropsy has found 80% of specimens showed typical signs of starvation… The remaining 20% were not in good enough condition to carry out proper tests. Nearly 10,000 dead birds were reported to the wildlife mortality database by citizens, and previous estimates suggest hundreds of thousands may have died…

“It looks like the immediate cause of death in these birds was emaciation as a result of starvation,” said Jonathan Sleeman, director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, which received 170 bird carcasses and did necropsies on 40 of them. “It’s really hard to attribute direct causation, but given the close correlation of the weather event with the death of these birds, we think that either the weather event forced these birds to migrate prior to being ready, or maybe impacted their access to food sources during their migration….”

Most deaths happened around 9 and 10 September during a bout of cold weather that probably meant food was particularly scarce…

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Mass Die-Off of Birds in Southwest US ‘Probably Linked to Climate Crisis’

“If you just received a new iPhone 12, Apple Watch or iPad, you might not have gotten immediate satisfaction — Apple was having some iCloud issues,” reports CNET:

The issue started early on Christmas Day, according to the iCloud account and sign-in entry on Apple’s system status page. More than a day later, as of late morning PT Saturday, the Apple system status page indicated that the issue with the storage service remained “ongoing.” But by 2 p.m. PT Saturday, the iCloud issue was marked “resolved.” No specifics were given about how widespread the problems might have been, only that “some users were affected.”

The company also noted issues with Apple ID sign-in.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Apple Experienced iCloud Issues After Christmas Surge

Since 1955 the U.S./Canadian operation that monitors North American airspace with radars and satellite to maintain air sovereignty has also, at Christmas time, been tracking Santa.

And this year their trackers received additional support from the U.S. Space Command, a joint-military command drawing its units from five military service branches (including the U.S. Space Force). That command “launched a new reindeer tracker to pinpoint the exact location of Santa’s sleigh at any given time during the night,” according to NPR’s Morning Edition, with General James Dickinson telling them the equipment’s official name: Rudolph Infrared Tracking System. “We made some upgrades this year.”

And that was just the beginning, reports The Hill:

Santa knows astronauts need presents, too, and made his first known visit to the International Space Station to deliver them this year.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which tracks Santa’s Christmas Eve journey every year, depicted in a tweet Santa arriving at the International Space Station on Christmas Eve…
The Federal Aviation Administration cleared Santa for the flight to space on Wednesday, providing him “for the first time ever” with a special commercial space license.
The astronauts aboard the ISS recorded a special Christmas video this year. (And a new article in Business Insider expores how astronauts on the space station have celebrated Christmas over the years.)

And NORAD is even maintaining a special web site at NORADSanta.org which not only let visitors track Santa, but through December 31st will also offer an arcade with Christmas-themed videogames, a selection of music by the U.S. Air Force Academy Band, and even a gift shop where you can buy “Santa and NORAD gear,” including NORAD hoodies and tote bags.
Though a pop-up window warns visitors that “Clicking through to this next website does not constitute an official endorsement or approval by the United States Department of Defense or NORAD of any product or service.”

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Source: Slashdot – How Astronauts on The ISS Got a Visit from Santa