Con la época de invierno casi de salida, estamos revisando los meses fríos para ver quiénes aprovecharon los días soleados para darse un poco de ánimo.
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hide captionThe rival teams have already clashed during a Sochi Olympics preparation game last December. They will face each other in an early round game tomorrow.
Abelimages/Getty Images
The rival teams have already clashed during a Sochi Olympics preparation game last December. They will face each other in an early round game tomorrow.
Abelimages/Getty Images
Wednesday, the American women’s hockey team meets their arch rival Canada on the ice in Sochi at the Winter Olympics. It’s an early round game, but when it comes to these two teams, which are expected to meet in the gold medal game, there’s no such thing as a low-stakes match.
When they meet on the ice, things get heated: A match between the two teams in late December turned into a brawl. After the “melee,” the referees handed out 10 fighting majors and other infractions.
They also got into a fight in October, and those fights turned women’s hockey into a bit of an Internet sensation. Some fights went viral, but they’re not unusual, says Brianne Jenner, a Canadian forward.
“It’s not as rare as people think,” she says. “It’s just not always caught on video.”
“That’s just kind of what happens when you’re in an intense hockey game,” she says. “You know, it was just part of a hockey game and I think it’s good that… so many people are interested in it at least.”
These fights come up a lot, like probably in every single interview these women have done since arriving in Sochi. And the athletes seem conflicted: Yes, the fights happened; no, it’s not all that common. They are neither embarrassed nor proud. But, yes, it could happen again. Lyndsey Fry is an American forward.
“Pretty much everyone I’ve ever talked to that’s never seen a women’s game before, even in college, they’ll leave and be, like, so impressed,” Fry says. “It’s like, ‘Well, yeah, maybe you should have come out a little sooner.’
“There’s all the media coverage of the fight or whatever and it’s like, ‘That’s not really what women’s hockey is all about, but if it gets people watching, they’re going to fall in love with the sport.’”
‘One Of The Best Rivalries In Sport’
What is it about this rivalry that makes it so intense?
Two things: They play each other all the time; and when it comes to women’s hockey, America and Canada are in a league all their own. Both teams are coming into tomorrow’s game undefeated, and those games weren’t even close.
Take the one Monday between the U.S. and Switzerland. In a matter of 55 seconds, Team USA scored three goals — an American Olympic record. There were only eight seconds between the second goal and the third; the celebratory music hadn’t even stopped playing before they scored again.
Amanda Kessel scored two of the goals.
“When you score so many quickly, it just knocks the wind out of the other team,” she says.
Kessel, whose brother plays in the NHL, spoke after the game, which ended with a score of 9-0.
“It’s tough to get back up on your feet,” she says. “You just kind of keep pounding them and keep pounding them, and I think that’s what really did it to them.”
If history is any guide, the Canada game will be a whole lot closer, and when it comes to these two teams, there’s plenty of history. They met seven times in three months late last year. Jayna Hefford, who has played for Team Canada since the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, says it is one of the best rivalries in sport because the two teams push each other to get better.
“It’s intense, and it’s the games you want to play in as an athlete,” she says.”I think as a fan, those are the games that people love to watch, so it’s the best game to be in for sure.”
And a lot of people will be watching this time to see whether they throw off their gloves and fight again.
Poll has Nebraska Senate race in dead heat
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By Deena Winter | Nebraska Watchdog
LINCOLN, Neb. – A new poll has the U.S. Senate race tightening considerably, with political newcomer Ben Sasse in a statistical dead heat with former State Treasurer Shane Osborn.
POLLS: Newcomer Ben Sasse has narrowed the gap in the Senate race, according to a new poll.
We’d heard someone was polling Nebraska races recently, and sure enough today the results of a new poll done for Conservative Intelligence Briefing came out. The survey of survey of 565 likely Republican Primary voters has Osborn leading the pack with 30 percent, Sasse nipping at his heels with 29 percent, Omaha banker Sid Dinsdale with 13 percent and Omaha attorney Bart McLeay with 4 percent.
The blog concludes that a month of ad buys and “sympathetic conservative media attention” have pushed Sasse “from an asterisk to a close second in Nebraska’s open seat Senate race.” Sasse served as assistant health secretary under George W. Bush, but had little name recognition going into the race after returning to his hometown of Fremont in 2009 to take over a flailing Lutheran college where his father graduated and grandfather worked for 33 years.
Sasse has since made bashing Obamacare the centerpiece of his campaign and been dubbed a rising star by some conservative media outlets, being coined “Obamacare’s Nebraska Nemesis” on the cover of the National Review and being interviewed on FOX and MSNBC in one day.
The Conservative Intelligence Briefing blog said Sasse barely registered when it polled the race in June 2013, but has been “winning the fight for earned media” in recent months. He’s also been endorsed by Congressman Paul Ryan, RedState’s Erick Erickson, the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth.
Osborn’s internal polling had him with a huge lead in October, with 39 percent while Dinsdale and Sasse trailed with just 7 percent and McLeay barely registering with 1 percent.
Sasse has also led the race to raise cash, raising $ 1.4 million last year and ending the year with more than $ 1 million in cash on hand.
The poll indicates Sasse has the edge with anti-establishment-leaning voters:
54 percent of those surveyed said they support Tea Party ideals, and Sasse has a slight lead among them, leading 35 to 31 percent. Osborn has been endorsed by the Tea Party-affiliated FreedomWorks, but leads Sasse 35 to 23 percent among those who say they do not support the Tea Party and those who are unsure.
The survey shows Sasse still has work to do to get on Nebraskans’ radar screens: he still remains unknown to 54 percent of Republican primary voters, with 31 percent viewing him favorably and 15 percent unfavorably; Osborn’s favorability rating was 54 percent, with 18 percent having an unfavorable view.
The only Democrat in the race is Omaha attorney Dave Domina. Independent cattle rancher and restaurant entrepreneur Jim Jenkins of Callaway is also running.
Contact Deena Winter at deena@nebraskawatchdog.org.
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In a scene that could come straight out of Alfred Hitchcock"s imagination, about 100,000 bats were found littering the ground after a major heatwave hit Australia this week, causing the bats to fall from the sky and die upon impact. In addition to the bats, the heatwave—which struck the north-east state of Queensland earlier this week and hit temperatures as high as 135 degrees fahrenheit—meant mass deaths for the country’s flying foxes across an estimated 25 colonies.
“Anything over 43 degrees [celsius/ 109F] and they just fall,” Louise Saunders, a conservation worker, told The Courier Mail in Australia. “We’re just picking up those that are just not coping and are humanely euthanizing what we can…it’s a horrible, cruel way to die.”
Considering the number of fallen bats, and the vast space across which they’re scattered, health experts are doing their best to warn all residents not to touch the presumably dead creatures. Not all the bats died on impact and some residents have been treated for viruses transmitted through bites or scratches from the disabled bats. Already, at least 16 people have been receiving antiviral treatment after coming into contact with a bat that has seemed, initially, to be dead.
“Some bats may appear dead by they are not, and when people have attempted to remove them, they have been bitten or scratched,” Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr. Jeannette Young told APN. “If you find a bat, it is very important not to touch it because of the risk of infection with Australian bat lyssavirus.”
A secondary problem that has risen in the days since the heat wave first hit is the rancid smell from the rotting, uncollected carcasses. Residents have begun to complain about the smell, and authorities have dispatched additional garbage collectors to pick up the thousands of bodies that remain.
The news comes in the same week as a historic chill—dubbed a “polar vortex”—hit the midwest and eastern United States, making for the lowest temperatures on average in nearly 40 years. While climate change deniers used the big chill as fodder for thier unscientific views, taken together, the polar vortex and Australian heatwave signal an undeniable shift in the planet"s temperature patterns, climate scientists agree.
In a scene that could come straight out of Alfred Hitchcock"s imagination, about 100,000 bats were found littering the ground after a major heatwave hit Australia this week, causing the bats to fall from the sky and die upon impact. In addition to the bats, the heatwave—which struck the north-east state of Queensland earlier this week and hit temperatures as high as 135 degrees fahrenheit—meant mass deaths for the country’s flying foxes across an estimated 25 colonies.
“Anything over 43 degrees [celsius/ 109F] and they just fall,” Louise Saunders, a conservation worker, told The Courier Mail in Australia. “We’re just picking up those that are just not coping and are humanely euthanizing what we can…it’s a horrible, cruel way to die.”
Considering the number of fallen bats, and the vast space across which they’re scattered, health experts are doing their best to warn all residents not to touch the presumably dead creatures. Not all the bats died on impact and some residents have been treated for viruses transmitted through bites or scratches from the disabled bats. Already, at least 16 people have been receiving antiviral treatment after coming into contact with a bat that has seemed, initially, to be dead.
“Some bats may appear dead by they are not, and when people have attempted to remove them, they have been bitten or scratched,” Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr. Jeannette Young told APN. “If you find a bat, it is very important not to touch it because of the risk of infection with Australian bat lyssavirus.”
A secondary problem that has risen in the days since the heat wave first hit is the rancid smell from the rotting, uncollected carcasses. Residents have begun to complain about the smell, and authorities have dispatched additional garbage collectors to pick up the thousands of bodies that remain.
The news comes in the same week as a historic chill—dubbed a “polar vortex”—hit the midwest and eastern United States, making for the lowest temperatures on average in nearly 40 years. While climate change deniers used the big chill as fodder for thier unscientific views, taken together, the polar vortex and Australian heatwave signal an undeniable shift in the planet"s temperature patterns, climate scientists agree.
(Newser) – Because there’s only somewhere around 1,048 days between now and Election Day 2016, we needed a national survey on who might win. Your answer? It’s essentially a dead heat between Chris Christie (48%) and Hillary Clinton (46%), according to the CNN/ORC International poll. Clinton trumps all other GOP challengers, with Paul Ryan losing by 8, Rand Paul by 13, and Mike Huckabee by 15. Before ordering your campaign buttons, note that “polls taken so many years before an election have little or no predictive value,” says CNN’s polling director. NBC News, meanwhile, has advice for all the likely contenders in 2014.
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Shireen Mazari, information secretary of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, shows a document during a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013. A political party opposed to U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan revealed what it said was the name of the top CIA spy in the country on Wednesday and called for him and the head of the agency to be tried for a recent missile strike. Pakistani police and intelligence officials have said the attack on an Islamic seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu district on Nov. 21 killed five people. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)
Shireen Mazari, information secretary of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, shows a document during a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013. A political party opposed to U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan revealed what it said was the name of the top CIA spy in the country on Wednesday and called for him and the head of the agency to be tried for a recent missile strike. Pakistani police and intelligence officials have said the attack on an Islamic seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu district on Nov. 21 killed five people. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)
Shireen Mazari, center, information secretary of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, addresses a news conference with party officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013. A political party opposed to U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan revealed what it said was the name of the top CIA spy in the country on Wednesday and called for him and the head of the agency to be tried for a recent missile strike. Pakistani police and intelligence officials have said the attack on an Islamic seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu district on Nov. 21 killed five people. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)
Supporters of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party, headed by cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan, wave their party’s flag while burning a representation of a U.S. flag during a protest against U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013. Thousands of people protesting U.S. drone strikes blocked a road in northwest Pakistan on Saturday used to truck NATO troop supplies and equipment in and out of Afghanistan, the latest sign of rising tension caused by the attacks. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
Supporters of Tehreek-e-Insaf or Movement for Justice party chant anti-U.S. slogans during a rally in Peshawar, Pakistan, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013. Thousands of people protesting U.S. drone strikes blocked a road in northwest Pakistan used to truck NATO troop supplies and equipment in and out of Afghanistan, the latest sign of rising tension caused by the attacks. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
A Pakistani man walks by a truck carrying NATO military vehicles at a terminal in Karachi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013. Trucks carrying NATO troop supplies to Afghanistan remained stuck in Pakistan on Tuesday as concern lingered about demonstrators seeking to stop the vehicles in protest of U.S. drone strikes, Pakistani transportation officials said. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Pakistani political party launched a full-throated attack on the CIA drone program on Wednesday, turning up the heat on an issue that the government in Islamabad has tried to manage without sparking a crisis with the U.S. The party revealed what it said was the name of the CIA’s top spy in the country and called for him to be tried for murder.
U.S. missile attacks targeting Islamic militants in Pakistan’s northwest have long been a source of tension between the two countries, complicating an already troubled alliance that Washington is relying on to help negotiate an end to the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
Friction has increased in recent weeks with a pair of especially contentious strikes: one that killed the Pakistani Taliban’s leader as the government prepared to invite him to hold peace talks, and another that occurred outside the boundaries of the country’s tribal region where most attacks have taken place.
But the U.S. has shown no willingness to abandon a tool it views as critical to fighting al-Qaida and Taliban militants based in Pakistan who are outside the reach of American soldiers.
Pakistani officials regularly criticize the strikes as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and say they kill too many civilians. That has made the drone program very unpopular with the Pakistani public. But the Pakistani government and military are known to have secretly supported at least some of the attacks in the past.
One of the biggest drone critics has been the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which is led by cricket star Imran Khan and controls the government in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has pushed the federal government, which is controlled by a rival party, to take extreme measures like cutting off the NATO troop supply line to Afghanistan until the U.S. stops the attacks.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s information secretary, Shireen Mazari, sent a letter to police Wednesday calling for the CIA station chief in Islamabad and agency director John Brennan to be tried for murder and “waging war against Pakistan” in connection with a drone strike on an Islamic seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu district on Nov. 21.
CIA spokesman Dean Boyd would not confirm the Islamabad station chief’s name and declined to immediately comment. The Associated Press is not publishing the name given by Mazari because it could not verify its authenticity.
It was the second time in recent years that Pakistanis opposed to drone strikes targeting Islamic militants have claimed to have revealed the identity of the top CIA spy in the country.
Mazari claimed in her letter that the station chief did not enjoy diplomatic immunity and should be prevented from leaving the country. Interrogating him could produce the names of the pilots who fly the drones, she said.
A spokeswoman for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Anila Khawaja, declined to say where the party obtained the station chief’s name.
Mazari said in a news conference that the strike in Hangu killed four Pakistanis and two Afghans, and also wounded children.
Pakistani intelligence officials say the attack killed five Afghan militants, one of whom was a deputy to the leader of one of the most dangerous groups fighting American troops in Afghanistan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.
The Hangu district police chief, Iftikhar Ahmad, said at the time of the attack that no one was seriously wounded.
The strike was one of the first to take place outside of Pakistan’s tribal region and outraged members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
Human rights organizations have also criticized drone strikes in Pakistan, questioning their legality and saying they have killed hundreds of civilians. The U.S. rarely discusses the covert drone program in Pakistan publicly, but officials have insisted it’s legal and that the civilian casualty figures are much lower.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf pledged on Saturday to block trucks carrying NATO troop supplies to and from Afghanistan until the U.S. ended drone attacks. Protesters stopped trucks and roughed up drivers before the police intervened to stop them. The NATO supply trucks remain stuck though, because transportation officials are still worried about what protesters will do.
The CIA pulled its top spy out of Pakistan in December 2010 after a Pakistani lawsuit accused him of killing civilians in drone strikes. The lawsuit listed a name lawyers said was the station chief, but the AP learned at the time it was not correct. Nevertheless, the CIA pulled the station chief out of the country after militants threatened to kill him.
It’s rare for a CIA station chief to see his cover blown. In 1999, an Israeli newspaper revealed the identity of the station chief in Tel Aviv. In 2001, an Argentine newspaper printed a picture of the Buenos Aires station chief and details about him. In both instances, the station chiefs were recalled to the U.S.
The station chief in Islamabad operates as a secret general in the U.S. war against terrorism. He runs the Predator drone program targeting terrorists, handles some of the CIA’s most urgent and sensitive tips and collaborates closely with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
The CIA station chief who ran operations in Pakistan during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden left his post in 2011 due to illness, U.S. and Pakistani officials say. American officials said at the time that the station chief clashed with the U.S. ambassador in Pakistan, who objected to CIA drone strikes during diplomatic negotiations.
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Associated Press writer Lara Jakes in Washington contributed to this report.
He may be the greatest American actor since Brando. He’€™s definitely one of the busiest – and yes, we’€™re talkin’€™ to you. Join http://www.WatchMojo.com as we count down our picks for Robert De Niro’s top 10 moments.
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Five year-old Grace Kennedy cools off from the heat in a water fountain in Stinson Park in Omaha, Neb., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. An unusual, late-summer heat wave enveloped much of the Midwest on Monday, putting schools and sports events on hold. Some schools in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Illinois let out early as temperatures crept toward the mid-90s, and beyond in some places. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Five year-old Grace Kennedy cools off from the heat in a water fountain in Stinson Park in Omaha, Neb., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. An unusual, late-summer heat wave enveloped much of the Midwest on Monday, putting schools and sports events on hold. Some schools in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Illinois let out early as temperatures crept toward the mid-90s, and beyond in some places. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Art Buckneberg waters his tomatoes and zinnias under the hot afternoon sun at his home in Sioux Falls, S.D., Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. Heat indices are expected to reach between 95 to 105 through Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. (AP Photo/Argus Leader, Joe Ahlquist) NO SALES
Reece Riebel, 13, of Lewiston, Minn., swings on a rope swing over Airport Lake while swimming Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, in Winona, Minn. Temperatures on Monday are forecast to approach a record 98 in the Twin Cities, but the humidity will make it feel like 100 to 110 across much of southern Minnesota. An excessive heat warning remains in effect for the region through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Winona Daily News, Andrew Link)
Hunter Bailey, top, and Cassidy Cyert hang on a rope swing over Airport Lake while swimming Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, in Winona, Minn. Temperatures on Monday are forecast to approach a record 98 in the Twin Cities, but the humidity will make it feel like 100 to 110 across much of southern Minnesota. An excessive heat warning remains in effect for the region through Tuesday. (AP Photo/Winona Daily News, Andrew Link)
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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — An unusual, late-summer heat wave has enveloped much of the Midwest, putting schools and sports events on hold.
Schools in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Illinois let out early on Monday as temperatures crept toward the mid-90s — beyond in some places. After-school sports practices and evening games were canceled in St. Paul, Minn., and misting stations were keeping people cool at the Minnesota State Fair, where about 90 fairgoers had been treated for heat-related illnesses over the weekend.
The heat wave is supposed to last through much of the week, the National Weather Service said. Heat of this magnitude is unusual for this time of year, but not unprecedented. In Des Moines, Iowa, for instance, temperatures on Aug. 26 have reached at least 100 degrees at least six times since 1881.
School districts took precautions, not wanting to put students and teachers in sweaty — and possibly dangerous — situations.
In central Iowa, Marshalltown Community School District administrators canceled afternoon preschool classes on Monday and Tuesday and were planning to release other students two hours early. Parts of all 10 of district buildings have air conditioning, but some rooms aren’t connected.
“The buildings can heat up pretty fast, especially when you have kids in there,” district spokesman Jason Staker said. “It’s not a good environment for students or teachers.”
Five elementary schools in Fargo, North Dakota, canceled classes through Wednesday because the buildings weren’t fully air-conditioned. Temperatures inside them on Sunday ranged from 85 degrees to 90 degrees, Fargo Schools Superintendent Jeff Schatz said.
In South Dakota, the Sioux Falls School District continued with classes as scheduled, but spokeswoman DeeAnn Konrad said teachers kept window blinds closed and turned off lights in classrooms. The district was also prepared to move students into cooler rooms at nearby churches and a Christian school, she said.
School administrators in the western Nebraska town of Alliance decided to send students home early after local forecasters predicted temperatures in excess of 90 degrees. Some classes in the 1,600-student district are held on the third floor, and temperatures rise when students fill the room.
“It can get uncomfortable even when the temperatures are in the upper 80s,” superintendent Troy Unzicker said.
Minneapolis students had to go to school all day, but administrators canceled after-school activities and distributed 750 cases of water to schools. Officials also sent industrial fans to the 18 buildings that lack air conditioning, district spokeswoman Rachel Hicks said. Parents were advised to dress their kids in light clothing, while staffers watched for any symptoms of heat-related illnesses.
In Des Moines, organizers of a downtown farmers market set for Wednesday postponed the event out concern over the extreme heat
The Iowa Department of Public Health issued a statewide advisory for vulnerable populations, including young children and the elderly. In some cases, the heat can become so extreme that sweating isn’t enough for people to lower their body temperatures, Dr. Patricia Quinlisk said.
“Especially when the humidity is high, sweat will not evaporate as quickly, preventing the body from releasing heat quickly,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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| LeonWP (CC BY-SA 2.0) |
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network
This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.
LONDON—Greenland is the largest single reservoir of ice in the northern hemisphere and, with Antarctica, a big contributor to sea level rise. The island sheds 227 billion tonnes of ice every year, and this alone lifts the mean ocean levels by 0.7mm (the seas are rising by 3mm each year in total). Alexey Petrunin and Irina Rogozhina of the GFZ German Research Centre in Potsdam report in Nature Geoscience on a new approach to the great Greenland riddle: what is happening to the ice?
They coupled an ice/climate model that should simulate what happens as temperatures shift, and linked it to a thermo-mechanical model of the planet’s crust and upper mantle far below the island.
Geophysicists call this region the lithosphere: temperatures below the surface increase steadily with depth, and it is the heat from the mantle that powers sea-floor spreading and sends continents drifting across the globe on tectonic plates. Heat from the lithosphere is also the driver, around the world, for boiling mud pools, hot springs, geysers, volcanic discharges and unexpectedly wet, slippery rocks at the base of glaciers.
But there is a catch for scientists who try to model the processes in the lithosphere, especially in heavily glaciated regions. The colossal weight of ice presses down on the rocky crust, and deforms it. The mountains of Scandinavia, once covered by thick glaciers during the ice age, are still rebounding as the depressed lithosphere springs back into shape. What the Potsdam scientists had to do was adjust the model to square with temperature differences observed at separate boreholes and variations in seismic and magnetic data.
Thin rocks and thick ice
At the bottom, Greenland’s subglacial rocks can be warm in one place, cold in another – and very thin, for a 2 billion year old slab of crust, “anomalously thin” say the Potsdam team. This lithosphere heat would be of no great consequence if Greenland were exposed rock, but because it bears a permanently insulating sheet of thick ice, the heat flow from deep in the Earth becomes an important part of the pattern of change.
They ran their model to cover a simulated three million-year span, and settled the argument: the dynamics of the Greenland ice sheet are affected by the heat flow from the planet’s interior. “Our model calculations are in good agreement with the measurements,” said Dr Petrunin. “Both the thickness of the ice sheet as well as the temperature at its base are depicted very accurately.”
Now researchers know a bit more about the dynamics of the ice sheet, they can start to calculate the rate of melting in the decades ahead, and in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a large group of international scientists, led by Sarah Shannon of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, has been trying to make sense of the flow of surface and subterranean meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet.
The concern is that the melting at the base could lubricate the movement of the glaciers and possibly accelerate the loss of ice as great blocks of the stuff hit the coast and calve as icebergs. They conclude that it could, but there’s no evidence to say that it is doing so right now. For the moment, on the evidence of simulations based on climate models, and on observations so far, they calculate that Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise from basal melting will be small: no more than 5%.
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Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines
MILWAUKEE—Republican Governors Association chairman Bobby Jindal called on Democrats Sunday to drop Terry McAuliffe as their nominee for governor in Virginia.
The governor of Louisiana seized on a report that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating GreenTech, the electric car company McAuliffe co-founded, over its conduct in soliciting foreign investors.
“The bottom line is Terry McAuliffe has disqualified himself to be the governor of Virginia … this scandal is just the final nail in the coffin,” Jindal said at a press conference here during the National Governors Association meeting.
(PHOTOS: Terry McAuliffe’s career)
He also unveiled a new ad by the RGA charging that McAuliffe can’t be trusted and his attacks on Republican Ken Cuccinelli are an attempt to “shift attention away from the news about this federal investigation…a possible ‘visa-for-sale scheme,’ with the Chinese financing McAuliffe’s own business.”
McAuliffe denied wrongdoing in a statement late Saturday night and said he was not aware of the SEC investigation until contacted by The Washington Post.
But that story is the latest in a string of damaging stories about McAuliffe’s business dealings that have boosted Republican hopes of holding the Virginia governorship.
Jindal called on his counterpart at the Democratic Governors Association, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, to look for an alternative candidate. This obviously will not happen, but the call is bold enough to generate more attention for the underlying story.
“As the governor of Louisiana, this scam’s so bad it would even embarrass politicians in Louisiana,” he said. “This is beyond the pale.”
Democrats fired back by highlighting the scandal swirling around the GOP.
The Post reported Sunday that mega-donor Jonnie Williams is cooperating with federal prosecutors in a public corruption investigation of sitting Gov. Bob McDonnell. McDonnell apologized last week for accepting luxury gifts and said he is returning the more than $ 120,000 given to him and his family since 2011.
Jindal praised McDonnell’s performance as governor
“I think he did the right thing by returning those gifts and by apologizing to the people of Virginia,” said Jindal.
But Cuccinelli also received $ 18,000 in gifts from Williams and so far has declined to return them.
Jindal declined to say whether he thinks Cuccinelli should now return the gifts.
“I know the McAuliffe campaign would like to make this election about Bob, but the reality is this election is about Terry and Ken,” he said, adding that a prosecutor recently cleared Cuccinelli of breaking the law.
Both the McAuliffe campaign and the DGA responded by highlighting this comment from Jindal.
“You know it’s bad for Ken Cuccinelli when his Washington backers refuse to defend his decision to keep $ 18,000 in gifts from Star Scientific and Jonnie Williams,” McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin said in an email.
DGA spokesman Danny Kanner said Jindal hurt more than he helped.
“Jindal’s right – McDonnell did the ‘right thing’ by returning his gifts,” he said, “and he should obviously call on Cuccinelli to do the same for the sake of Virginians who have lost faith in their state government through this scandal.”
With the sun beating down, house painter Jesus Rubela climbs up a ladder while restoring a home in the South Boston neighborhood, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Boston. Temperatures in the Boston area reached the 90s, extending a heat wave. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
With the sun beating down, house painter Jesus Rubela climbs up a ladder while restoring a home in the South Boston neighborhood, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Boston. Temperatures in the Boston area reached the 90s, extending a heat wave. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
House painter Jesus Rubela wipes the sweat from his face while restoring a home in the South Boston neighborhood, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Boston. Temperatures in the Boston area reached the 90′s, extending a heat wave. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
A man cools off on the shore of Castle Island in the South Boston neighborhood, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Boston. Temperatures in the Boston area reached the 90s, extending a heat wave. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Joe Prostko of Tonica, Ill., unloads bails of hay from his truck for his American Paint horses at the Illinois State Fairgrounds Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in Springfield, Ill. The National Weather Service says daily temperatures are expected to reach highs in the mid to upper 90s throughout the Midwest. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Joe Prostko of Tonica, Ill., unloads an American Paint horse and leads it to the barn at the Illinois State Fairgrounds Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in Springfield, Ill. The National Weather Service says daily temperatures are expected to reach highs in the mid to upper 90s throughout the Midwest. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Children play on a fountain at Pier A Park during a heat wave, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in Hoboken, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Children play on a fountain at Pier A Park during a heat wave, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in Hoboken, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Tommy Grant drinks from an open hydrant while taking a break from gardening in the Jackie Robinson Community Garden, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, in New York., as Tenisha Thomas, right, looks on. Grant works in the garden, while Grant was raising money for the garden by selling drinks on the corner. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Philip Jeschke, 4, stays cool under the waterfall tower in the splash pool at The Wilton Family Y on Tuesday, July 16, 2013, in WIlton, Conn.. With temperatures near 100 degrees, the Y was one of the coolest places in town. (AP Photo/The Hour, Alex von Kleydorff)
House painter Jesus Rubela wipes the sweat from his face while restoring a home in the South Boston neighborhood, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Boston. Temperatures in the Boston area reached the 90′s, extending a heat wave. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
A man cools off on the shore of Castle Island in the South Boston neighborhood, Wednesday, July 17, 2013 in Boston. Temperatures in the Boston area reached the 90s, extending a heat wave. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
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NEW YORK (AP) — Cooler temperatures are within sight but likely not soon enough and cool enough for a large swath of the country hit with dangerously high temperatures for days as the largest heat wave of the summer failed to budge from South Dakota to Massachusetts.
The relief is expected to begin arriving Thursday in some regions of the country as a cold front drops south from Canada. But it is not soon enough for others. New York City, for instance, is bracing for another day of temperatures in the high 90s.
Cooler temperatures are likely to sweep through the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions by Saturday. They might be accompanied by severe thunderstorms.
The largest heat wave of the summer has stagnated over large regions, bringing sizzling temperatures and little hope of relief without rain, a growing possibility for some hard-hit areas as the weekend approaches.
Most states in the U.S. had at least one region where the temperature hit 90 degrees Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service, though the worst heat was in the Midwest to Northeast. Humid air just made it all feel worse, with heat indexes in some places over 100.
It was hot enough to buckle highway pavement in several states. Firefighters in Indianapolis evacuated 300 people from a senior living community after a power outage knocked out the air conditioning. The state of Illinois opened cooling centers. The Environmental Protection Agency said the heat was contributing to air pollution in New England.
Officials are blaming hot weather for at least one death. A 78-year-old Alzheimer’s patient died of heat exhaustion after wandering away from his northern Kentucky home Tuesday in temperatures that rose to 93 degrees.
In New York City, where it was 96 degrees, sidewalk food vendor Ahmad Qayumi said that by 11 a.m., the cramped space inside his steel-walled cart got so hot that he had to turn off his grill and coffee machine.
“It was just too hot. I couldn’t breathe,” he said, turning away a customer who asked for a hamburger. “Just cold drinks,” he said.
Amid the heat, officials in Washington D.C.’s Maryland suburbs worked to keep a failing water main from cutting off hundreds of thousands of people, just when they needed it most. People in Prince George’s County were asked not to run their faucets, water their lawns or flush toilets to keep the water system from emptying during emergency repairs.
Firefighters in southern California faced brutally hot — but dangerously dry — conditions as they battled a wildfire outside Palm Springs that had already consumed seven homes.
New Mexico and parts of Texas turned out to be rare outposts of cool air Wednesday — but not without trouble of their own: heavy rains prompted flood watches and warnings in some areas. More than five inches of rain fell in 24 hours in Plainview, north of Lubbock, according to the National Weather Service.
At the World Trade Center reconstruction site in New York City, workers building a rail hub dripped under their hardhats, thick gloves and heavy-duty boots. Some wore towels around their necks to wipe away the sweat.
“We’re drinking a lot of water, down under by the tracks, in and out of the sun all day — very hot,” said carpenter Elizabeth Fontanez, of the Bronx, who labored with 20 pounds of tools and safety equipment strapped to her waist. Since the heat wave began, she said she has been changing shirts several times during her shifts.
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Associated Press writer Verena Dobnik contributed to this report.
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