North America’s tallest mountain is 10 feet shorter than we thought

It doesn’t look any smaller, but Denali is now officially 10 feet shorter than we thought.

The US Geological Survey set out to measure North America’s tallest mountain this summer, and found a big surprise: Though it’s still the tallest mountain in North America, Denali is only 20,310 feet high.

The last measurement, at 20,320 feet, was taken in 1953.

Researchers aren’t sure if the difference is due to geological changes, or advances in technology.

Back in 1953, surveyors basically measured elevation by sight, according to Kari J. Craun, director of the USGS National Geospatial Technical Operations Center.

They would start at a known point, she told Tech Insider, and go from place to place measuring the mountain.

Surveyors would then use their measurements to determine the distance and elevation of the mountain using the Pythagorean Theorem — an equation you likely learned in math class in high school to find the length of one side of a triangle using the other two sides.

Since they could only measure as far as they could see with the instruments they had, this method was a painstakingly long process.

Today, surveyors use GPS to get the job done in a lot less time. The climbing team of four took only a few weeks to make their measurements once they reached the summit of Denali, which was called Mount McKinley until President Obama restored its Native American name in August.

Their data collection was similar to the way your smartphone connects to GPS, Craun said, but they gathered it for a longer period of time so it was more accurate. While elevation can be measured using sonar technology in airplanes or satellites in space, the most precise method is still to get it on the ground.

This more accurate measurement of the summit will be helpful for aviation safety and researchers, Craun said.

Whether the mountain shrunk is unknown, Craun said, because the previous measurement could have just been wrong.

“The only thing we do know is we have a more accurate idea of where the summit is now than we did before,” she said. “If we ever decide to measure this point again, then we will have a better baseline and we will know then if something has changed.”

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FDNY: 1 dead, 3 others injured in apparent gas blast

NEW YORK (AP) — Officials suspect a recently disconnected stove may have caused an apparent gas explosion Saturday that killed a woman and injured three others in Brooklyn.

City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said firefighters received a call around 1 p.m. reporting an explosion at a building in the Borough Park neighborhood. When emergency crews arrived, they found the entire front of the three-story building blown into the street, he said at a news conference Saturday evening.

Officials suspect the explosion originated in an apartment on the second floor, where a tenant had recently disconnected a stove. The fire commissioner said no one had reported smelling gas in the area.

“We are told that the tenant purchased a high-end stove and they were moving out of the apartment and were going to take that stove with them,” Nigro said.

Councilman Brad Lander said the tenant who lived in that apartment had moved out about a week ago.

Lander said the woman who died was a tenant in her 60s who was originally from the Dominican Republic. He said the woman lived in a third-floor apartment with her daughter, who was out of town at the time.

The victim’s body was discovered in a stairwell near the second floor, close to the apartment where the explosion started, Nigro said. Her name was not immediately released.

A 33-year-old man and his 10-year-old son who were walking by the building when it exploded were injured. A 27-year-old passer-by also was injured. Officials said the three had been hit by flying debris; their injuries were considered not life-threatening.

Authorities are still trying to track down another person who lived in the building. Mayor Bill de Blasio said officials just wanted to confirm the person was not home at the time.

Neighbor Harry Roth said a sign sprang off the building’s storefront before “the front of the building fell off and it started burning.”

The blast rocked the largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in the middle of a Sabbath afternoon.

De Blasio, speaking on cable news station NY1, said the Sabbath could have saved lives because there are less people walking in the neighborhood.

“Had it been the next day it would have been a much worse situation,” he said.

A spokeswoman for National Grid said staffers for the utility were on the scene. The company did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the mayor’s remarks.

A message left at a possible phone number for the building’s owner wasn’t immediately returned.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statement saying the explosion was “the latest in a disturbing trend of incidents.” He said he ordered the state’s Department of Public Service, the agency that regulates utility companies, to launch an investigation into the cause of the incident.

The building apparently was the latest in New York City to be rocked by a gas explosion in the last few years, though officials say the causes have all been different.

In 2014, eight people were killed and 70 injured when two apartment buildings in East Harlem were leveled by a gas explosion. In March, an apparently illegally tapped gas line caused an explosion that killed two people, injured 19 more and destroyed three buildings. And three construction workers were injured in August when someone lit a match while working on a gas line at a high school in the Bronx.

“The only common thread is natural gas and the dangers of natural gas,” said James Leonard, the chief of department for the Fire Department of New York.

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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo and Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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Elliott's big day leads No. 1 Ohio St. past Indiana 34-27

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Ezekiel Elliott scored on touchdown runs of 55, 65 and 75 yards in the second half, and No. 1 Ohio State came up with a final goal line stand to escape with a 34-27 win over Indiana on Saturday.

Elliott had a career best 274 yards on 23 carries.

The Buckeyes (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten) extended the FBS’ longest winning streak to 18 in a row.

Indiana (4-1, 0-1) lost the nation’s leading rusher, Jordan Howard, in the first half and its starting quarterback, Nate Sudfeld, in the third quarter. But the Hoosiers made things difficult for the defending national champions.

Elliott wiped out a 10-6 deficit with the 55-yard run, a 17-13 deficit with the 65-yard run and appeared to have sealed it when his 75-yarder made it 34-20.

But the Buckeyes still needed to break up a pass in the end zone on the final play.

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AP college football website: collegefootball.ap.org

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Obama offers condolences over 'tragic incident' in Kunduz

Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama offered his “deepest condolences” over a suspected US airstrike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz that killed 19 people.

“On behalf of the American people, I extend my deepest condolences to the medical professionals and other civilians killed and injured in the tragic incident at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz,” he said in a statement released by the White House.

“The Department of Defense has launched a full investigation, and we will await the results of that inquiry before making a definitive judgment as to the circumstances of this tragedy,” Obama said.

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