■UNITED STATES
California fire burns on
Strong, erratic winds that had been complicating efforts to fight wildfires in northern California calmed down on Friday, but firefighters were still struggling to get the upper hand on one stubborn fire that scorched about 93km² and destroyed at least 50 homes. The fire was the most dangerous of northern California’s many wildfires because it was moving toward the town of Paradise, about 145km north of Sacramento, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Officials ordered precautionary evacuations for 4,500 of the town’s 30,000 residents. About 9,000 resident evacuated the area a day earlier, but officials had reopened roads to some of those homes on Friday.
■OUTER SPACE
Pluto gets consolation prize
Pluto, demoted from planet status in 2006, got a consolation prize on Wednesday — it and other dwarf planets like it will be called plutoids. The International Astronomical Union said in a statement that its executive committee meeting in Oslo, Norway, decided on the term. Plutoids will be defined as celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun farther away than Neptune. They must have near-spherical shape and must not have swept up other, smaller objects in their orbits, said the organization, which names newly discovered planets and other celestial bodies. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris, but astronomers expect to find more.
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