Rep. Andy Biggs spews Kari Lake-like delusion from Washington, D.C.
EJ Montini, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
Rep. Andy Biggs delivers remarks in the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Based on her ongoing unhinged behavior there is no doubt Arizona dodged a bullet when Republican Kari Lake lost the governor’s race.
Knowing the state won’t have a person in a position of power who is motivated by a bizarre, single-minded sense of revenge based on moronic or (even worse) mindful delusions affords us a sense of relief.
That is … until we recognize that the spinning barrel of Arizona politics has more than one round in the chamber.
The first Lake-like politician to come out blasting after the election, bent on destruction and with little or no grasp of reality is U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs.
Last night, my Republican colleagues and I defeated the Democrats’ 87,000-person IRS army. We are working quickly to reverse the Democrats’ negligent policies. This is already a very good start to the 118th Congress!
Essentially, none of that is true.
Biggs and his Republican colleagues “defeated” nothing. To claim they did is not even wishful thinking. It’s close to hallucination. And Biggs knows it.
Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included roughly $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to be spent over 10 years. But, as numerous fact checkers have pointed out numerous times during the election cycle, claims of an IRS “army” going after middle class families are fiction.
The IRS, which had been underfunded by Congress for years, plans to use the money to update its technology systems, to hire and train new technology specialists and customer service representatives, to replace some of the tens of thousands of retiring agents and to hire some news ones.
No ‘army’ and nothing was ‘defeated’
The “army” claim comes from the fact that agents within the IRS’s Criminal Investigation division can carry firearms. In context, there are roughly 82,000 IRS employees. About 2,000 of them are CI agents. And they don’t go after regular folks.
Biggs’ claim that he and the new Republican-controlled house “defeated” the original bill is a fantasy. It’s shocking – or is it? – to think that he and his Republican colleagues believe their supporters are stupid enough to believe that.
The Inflation Reduction Act is law.
The new Republican-controlled House passed legislation to eliminate the IRS funding in that bill, but the House proposal must first get through the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.
Neither of those things will happen.
Biggs knows this.
That is reality.
You are equipped with body armor. Use it.
Biggs also knows that fashioning such legislation then pushing it through the House was a colossal waste of time, all designed to send a false message filled with false bravado to gullible constituents who, in turn, might be conned into sending money back to the campaigns of the politicians who, in essence, did nothing.
We have plenty of other elected officials like Biggs – Rep. Paul Gosar, most of the GOP state legislative caucus and more – all with an unlimited supply of conspiracies and misleading information.
Don’t duck for cover, however.
Don’t run from the oncoming barrage.
There is widely available, impenetrable body armor at your disposable: Truth.
Republicans who snubbed Gov. Katie Hobbs will quickly become irrelevant
Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern turns his back as Katie Hobbs delivers her State of the State address to the Arizona House of Representatives during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs delivered her first State of the State speech on Monday, only to watch as a handful of Republican legislators walked out or turned their backs.
The state of the state Legislature, it seems, is …
Rude.
Granted, it wasn’t exactly the Gettysburg Address, but Hobbs delivered a decent enough speech for her first time out, touching on many of the major issues confronting the state. There were no surprises.
“We are all here,” she began, “because we care deeply about Arizona.”
Well, most of those in attendance, anyway.
Members of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus walked out, unwilling even to listen to what a new governor, at the start of a new legislative session, had to say.
“As was foreseeable, Katie Hobbs utilized the time-honored State of the State Address to once again promote her radical, woke policy initiatives, rather than address the profoundly serious concerns that Arizonans have regarding the political and fiscal realities of daily life,” the caucus group said in a press release after the event.
So now it’s “radical” and “woke” to support public education, to require accountability when spending public money, to protect our dwindling groundwater supply?
Who, I wonder, is really out of step here?
Hobbs’ speech was hardly a wish list of the left. She called for:
– Overriding the aggregate spending limit so that schools attended by nearly 1 million Arizona children aren’t faced with widespread layoffs or even closures come April 1.
– Repairing crumbling schools and redirecting to all schools the $68 million in bonus funding that’s now reserved only for schools with good test scores.
– Creating a task force to figure out why 1 in 4 teachers are fleeing the classroom and what to do about it.
– Requiring privately owned charter schools to account for our how they spend the public’s money.
– Boosting state spending on affordable housing and offering a child tax credit to families earning less than $40,000 a year and exempting diapers and tampons from the state sales tax.
– Expanding college scholarships, including $40 million for undocumented students who now qualify for in-state tuition rates, thanks to passage of Proposition 308.
– Updating the state’s water management plan to put a stop to large agricultural interests that are pumping the ground dry in rural areas.
– Holding the line on further restrictions to abortion.
“I will use every power of the governor’s office to stop any legislation or action that attacks, strips or delays the liberty or inherent right of any individual to decide what’s best for themselves or their families,” Hobbs said.
You’d think the far right – the people who scream about vaccines – would be thrilled with those words.
Instead, some of the state’s most conservative legislators walked out on Hobbs, the first Democrat to be elected as governor since 2006.
“It took 5 seconds for Katie Hobbs to begin legislating from the 9th floor, so I will not listen to her rhetoric for even 5 seconds,” incoming Rep. Rachel Jones, R-Tucson, tweeted.
“We could not sit idly by while she repeatedly declared her intention to advance her woke agenda that stands at odds with the people of our state,” Rep. Jacqueline Parker, R-Mesa, explained, in a press release.
Republican Reps. Alexander Kolodin of Scottsdale and Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek also walked out. Sens. Anthony Kern of Glendale and Justine Wadsack of Tucson, meanwhile, stood and turned their backs.
Class acts, one and all.
Earlier in the day, the Freedom Caucus announced plans to sue Hobbs over last week’s ”unconstitutional” executive order – the one that strengthens worker protections for LGBTQ state employees and contractors.
Imagine filing a lawsuit because the state says it won’t fire people for being gay?
“The Arizona Freedom Caucus will oppose Katie Hobbs’ woke agenda,” Hoffman, the group’s chairman, vowed, during a Monday morning press conference. “You can bet your ass that will happen.”
You know another sure thing on which you can bet your hindquarters?
The Republicans who walked out on Monday – unwilling even to listen to what the governor had to say – will, in the end, have no voice in how Arizona is governed.
A split government, after all, requires compromise, and compromise requires a level of maturity not seen in the snowflakes who couldn’t stand even to listen on Day 1 to what Arizona’s new governor had to say.
Gov. Katie Hobbs issued a ‘wake-up call’ on groundwater. Is anyone listening?
Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
Gov. Katie Hobbs give her State of the State address to the Arizona House of Representatives during the opening session of the 56th Legislature on Jan. 9, 2023, in Phoenix.
Gov. Katie Hobbs called it a “wake-up call” on water.
Whether it is remains to be seen.
The newly elected governor spent a good chunk of her first State of the State address talking about the “challenge of our time: Arizona’s decades-long drought, over usage of the Colorado River, and the combined ramifications on our water supply, our forests and our communities.”
She released a long-awaited model that shows parts of the far West Valley don’t have enough groundwater to sustain all users for the long term (more on that in a second).
And she called for swift action – particularly to address rural groundwater problems that have been festering for decades.
It’s the right tone, but will lawmakers agree?
Hobbs struck the tone that many in the water community have long sought from elected leaders – one that noted we’re not playing around, that there are consequential decisions we must make (and soon) to protect our dwindling water supplies.
There have been rumors aplenty about what may or may not be addressed this session, and right now, there are few answers, particularly on how far lawmakers might be willing to go on water regulation, something they have resisted for years.
Former Rep. Regina Cobb got nowhere on an effort to give rural communities more tools to manage groundwater use and more flexibility to choose which measures best fit their circumstances.
Retooled legislation is expected again this session, with more detail on how these new authorities would work with existing regulations.
And Hobbs is clearly pressing to have this discussion.
Hobbs’ council must have clear goals, deadlines
She told lawmakers she would convene a council to study ways to modernize and expand the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, which created Irrigation Non-expansion Areas and Active Management Areas, as well as an Assured Water Supply program that requires new subdivisions to prove they have a 100-year water supply before lots can be platted.
Hobbs also promised to include money in her proposed budget, due to be released later this week, to support rural communities that want to form Active Management Areas, the state’s most stringent form of groundwater regulation.
Granted, her predecessor created a council to study urban and rural groundwater management, but without strong direction and deadlines, it was generally where ideas went to die.
Hobbs cannot make the same mistake.
What if fast-growing areas can’t grow?
Because, as she correctly noted, real issues are beginning to manifest – even in metro Phoenix, where groundwater management is most robust.
Don’t overlook the significance of the report Hobbs released, one that she and others have claimed was withheld by former Gov. Doug Ducey.
The report found that the Lower Hassayampa groundwater subbasin – which contains Buckeye, one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation – is 4.4 million acre-feet shy of the groundwater it needs to service users for the long haul.
That’s roughly half of what a similar model found in the Pinal Active Management Area south of metro Phoenix. But presuming the state Department of Water Resources treats the Hassayampa subbasin’s imbalance the same way – meaning, it no longer allows developers to grow solely on groundwater – that could have major implications for Buckeye and the massive housing projects that have been proposed nearby.
New subdivisions would all but be shut down in that subbasin, under the state’s Assured Water Supply program, unless developers can secure and count renewable supplies toward their certificates, which are required to plat lots.
Arizona needed a call to arms. Now what?
Whether it’s real or not, there is a lot of fear that lawmakers will try to loosen the rules this session to maintain the status quo on growth in the outskirts, which has heavily relied on groundwater. Hobbs could certainly veto any such effort.
But if we agree to abide by the rules – and we should, because loosening them now would be disastrous for our negotiating position on even more painful Colorado River cuts – we’re going to have to rethink a lot of assumptions about how we continue to grow.
This is not going to be easy work.
Especially if Hobbs’ speech was not the wake-up call she hoped it would be. Or if Rep. Gail Griffin, the chair of the House natural resources committee, continues to be the brick wall upon which all new water regulation explodes.
The governor will need allies willing to go around that wall, if it remains.
But give Hobbs credit for issuing a call to arms. The days of allowing 80% of the state to pump indiscriminately, without ground rules to protect everyone, are over.
And even in areas with regulation, we need to up our game.
Arizona says developers lack groundwater for big growth dreams in the desert west of Phoenix
Brandon Loomis, Arizona Republic – January 11, 2023
The Tartesso community development borders the desert in Buckeye. It’s one of the last noticeable developments on the way out of the Phoenix area.
A newly released state report on groundwater supplies under the desert west of Phoenix signals difficulty ahead for developers wishing to build hundreds of thousands of homes there.
It also signals the start of an effort by Arizona’s new governor to shore up groundwater management statewide.
Gov. Katie Hobbs released the modeling report Monday afternoon, and it shows that plans to add homes for more than 800,000 people west of the White Tank Mountains will require other water sources if they are to go forward.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources had developed the model showing inadequate water for much of the development envisioned as far-west suburbs, but had not released it during then-Gov. Doug Ducey’s term. Hobbs mentioned it during her State of the State address, along with other initiatives, including a new council dedicated to updating the state’s 1980 groundwater protection act for a new era of scarcity.
Hobbs also announced a new Governor’s Office of Resiliency, coordinating agencies, tribal governments and experts in finding land, water and energy solutions for the state.
“We must talk about the challenge of our time: Arizona’s decades-long drought, over-usage of the Colorado River, and the combined ramifications on our water supply, our forests, and our communities,” the governor said.
In the case of development on the western edges of the urban area, the information her team released makes clear that developers who own desert expanses largely in Buckeye’s planning area north of Interstate 10 and west and north of the White Tank Mountains will need more water to make their visions come true.
The report, called the Lower Hassayampa Sub-basin Groundwater Model, finds that projected growth would more than double groundwater use and put it out of balance by 15%. The state’s groundwater law requires developers in the Phoenix area to get state certificates of assured water supplies extending out 100 years before they can build.
Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke on Monday said he would not issue new certificates for the area unless developers find secure water sources in addition to the local groundwater.
Some of the Buckeye subdivisions in the area already have certifications for homes that Buschatzke estimated number in the thousands, and that will combine to add 50,000 acre-feet of demand in a basin that already uses 123,000 acre-feet. The aquifer apparently can bear that amount, but not the 100,000 acre-foot demand that department analysts have attributed to hundreds of thousands more homes envisioned for the zone.
The Howard Hughes Corp. is a major player in the area, with 100,000 homes planned on 37,000 acres in the Teravalis development, formerly called Douglas Ranch.
The question of where developers might get the water to support such vast housing tracts has previously presented a mystery, with some developers merely saying they were confident in their prospects. The report the state released this week provides an initial answer: They won’t be finding that water solely in the aquifer below the land. Instead, they will have to find new ways of importing and possibly recycling water if they want to build out the property.
“Some of the big plans that are out there for master-planned communities will need to find other water supplies or other solutions,” Buschatzke said.
Contacted on Tuesday, Howard Hughes Corp. did not respond to an interview request, but did provide a statement from Phoenix Region President Heath Melton: “We support the Governor’s initiative to proactively manage Arizona’s future water supply and will continue to be a collaborative partner with our elected officials, civic agencies, and community stakeholders to drive forward the most modern water management and conservation techniques and help ensure a prosperous and sustainable future for the West Valley, Arizona, and the greater Southwest.”
For now, the groundwater deficiency could stall much building on the Valley’s far west side. But it also could foreshadow a push for big new infrastructure projects, such as an ocean desalination plant and pipeline proposal that a state water finance board has agreed to evaluate. That proposal, led by an Israeli company that has built or operated desalination plants around the world, would pipe water north from Mexico and through Buckeye on its way to the Central Arizona Project canal.
Other options include moving water from other areas, such as the Harquahala Valley to the west, or recycling wastewater, Buschatzke said. Those options could take years, though.
Buckeye officials sent a statement to The Arizona Republic saying they need time to study the report but will work to ensure sustainable growth: “Buckeye is committed to responsible and sustainable growth and working to ensure we have adequate water for new businesses and residents, while protecting our existing customers.”
Arizona State University water researcher Kathleen Ferris had called for the groundwater report’s release, and on Tuesday said she was delighted that Hobbs made it public. Ferris, with the school’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, is a past director of the Department of Water Resources and helped craft the 1980 groundwater law that requires a 100-year supply for new development.
“It’s a hugely important step,” Ferris said. “As the governor said, It’s about transparency and knowledge. We should not be allowing this growth to occur when the water isn’t there.”
Ferris said she counts herself among skeptics who don’t believe a desalination plant will come online quickly. The Colorado River’s drought-reduced storage means it can’t provide excess water to soon fill the gap in groundwater supplies, either. It doesn’t mean Buckeye can’t grow, she said, but finding the water to do so won’t be cheap or easy.
She cautioned, too, that other cities with stronger water portfolios are also on the lookout to snap up new water to secure their own futures.
Beyond Buckeye, Ferris said, Hobbs is right to push for better groundwater management statewide. The 1980 law applied mostly to urban areas, leaving vast areas of rural Arizona unregulated. The whole state doesn’t necessarily need the same 100-year-supply rule, Ferris said, but groundwater users everywhere should be responsible for tracking and reporting what they use. That would help the state know when it must act to conserve stressed aquifers, as it did this winter by halting expansion of irrigated farming around Kingman.
Any effort to address rural groundwater with statewide regulations is bound to face resistance in the Arizona Legislature, where lawmakers for several years have declined to extend state regulations to areas including Kingman. Voters in Cochise County approved a limited management area in November for one groundwater basin.
Whatever happens, Ferris said, the state is due for an honest conversation about where and by how much it can grow. She hopes the governor’s announcement is the start of such a reckoning. “We just can’t have subdivisions approved (solely) on groundwater,” she said.
One advocate for updating and strengthening groundwater protections around the state says she is encouraged that Hobbs has started her administration with moves to do just that.
“We are really encouraged and grateful that water is a top priority,” said Haley Paul, an Audubon Society regional policy director who co-chairs the Water for Arizona coalition.
The Hassayampa groundwater report demonstrates that Arizona needs to do something different now that it can’t rely on excess Colorado River water to backfill pumped groundwater, Paul said. Following a similar finding that has led groundwater depletion to limit Pinal County growth, she said, the report is “a reality check” on unlimited growth in the desert.
Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
Explainer-Why U.S. flights were grounded by a FAA system outage
January 11, 2023
(Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allowed some flights to resume after an outage of the system that alerts pilots to any obstructions before take-off had earlier forced the civil aviation regulator to ground all aircraft in the United States.
Over 4,000 flights were delayed and more than 600 canceled because of the outage as of early Wednesday morning. U.S. flights were slowly beginning to resume departures as a ground stop was lifted.
Here is a brief summary of what the pilot warning system does, what we know about what went wrong and background about the safety notices provided to pilots, known as NOTAM.
WHAT HAPPENED?
The FAA system that is meant to distribute notices to pilots on hazards failed at about 2 a.m. Eastern Time, officials said.
The FAA ordered airlines to put a halt on all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern time while it tested whether crews had managed to restore the system and bring it back online.
The White House said that U.S. President Joe Biden had been briefed on the outage by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. “There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a tweet. The U.S. Department of Transportation is conducting an investigation, she said.
WHAT IS A NOTAM?
The system that failed on Wednesday is part of a nearly century-old practice originally known as Notices to Airmen – originally modeled on a system for notices to mariners.
The system, which was changed to be called “Notices to Air Missions” in 2021, is meant to alert pilots to hazards, everything from snow, volcanic ash or birds near an airport.
It also provides information on closed runways and temporary air restrictions.
The NOTAMs sent by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration are part of a global safety system managed through the United Nations’ aviation agency.
Pilots are required to review the notices, either printed on paper or on an iPad, before take-off.
The information provided can run up to 200 pages for long-haul international flights.
NOTAMs are written in a kind of encoded shorthand that had been originally designed to make communication more efficient.
HOW HAS THE SYSTEM CHANGED?
The U.N. Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has been leading an effort to overhaul the system to make it easier for airlines and pilots to filter the most important warnings and present them in clearer language.
In July 2017, an Air Canada jet landed on the wrong runway at San Francisco’s airport and came within seconds of colliding with four other planes.
The notice of the closure of one of the two runways at the airport had been flagged in the pre-flight NOTAM – on page eight of a 27-page briefing – and missed by the pilots.
The incident, and the information overload that pilots complain the system encourages, prompted the effort to change the way the system operates.
“(NOTAMs) are just a bunch of garbage that nobody pays any attention to,” U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said at a 2018 hearing on the Air Canada incident, which helped spur a global campaign for change.
FAA officials have been involved in efforts to modernize the system in recent years.
(Reporting by Nathan Gomes and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru, Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Nick Zieminski)
US official warns of risks posed by heavy electric vehicles
Tom Krisher – January 11, 2023
FILE – Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board speaks during a news conference, Oct. 3, 2019, in Windsor Locks, Conn. On Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, Homendy, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said she is concerned about the risk that heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles. (AP Photo/Chris Ehrmann, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DETROIT (AP) — The head of the National Transportation Safety Board expressed concern Wednesday about the safety risks that heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles.
The official, Jennifer Homendy, raised the issue in a speech in Washington to the Transportation Research Board. She noted, by way of example, that an electric GMC Hummer weighs about 9,000 pounds (4,000 kilograms), with a battery pack that alone is 2,900 pounds (1,300 kilograms) — roughly the entire weight of a typical Honda Civic.
“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” Homendy said in remarks prepared for the group.
The extra weight that EVs typically carry stems from the outsize mass of their batteries. To achieve 300 or more miles (480 or more kilometers) of range per charge from an EV, batteries have to weigh thousands of pounds.
Some battery chemistries being developed have the potential to pack more energy into less mass. But for now, there’s a mismatch in weight between EVs and smaller internal combustion vehicles. EVs also deliver instant power to their wheels, making them accelerate faster in most cases than most gas-powered cars, trucks and SUVs.
Homendy said she was encouraged by the Biden administration’s plans to phase out carbon emissions from vehicles to deal with the climate crisis. But she said she still worries about safety risks resulting from a proliferation of EVs on roads ands highways.
“We have to be careful that we aren’t also creating unintended consequences: More death on our roads,” she said. “Safety, especially when it comes to new transportation policies and new technologies, cannot be overlooked.”
Homendy noted that Ford’s F-150 Lightning EV pickup is 2,000 to 3,000 pounds (900 to 1,350 kilograms) heavier than the same model’s combustion version. The Mustang Mach E electric SUV and the Volvo XC40 EV, she said, are roughly 33% heavier than their gasoline counterparts.
“That has a significant impact on safety for all road users,” Homendy added.
The NTSB investigates transportation crashes but has no authority to make regulations. For vehicles, such authority rests largely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Even apart from EVs, the nation’s roads are crowded with heavy vehicles, thanks to a decadelong boom in sales of larger cars, trucks and SUVs that’s led to extreme mismatches in collisions with smaller vehicles. But electric vehicles are typically much heavier than even the largest trucks and SUVs that are powered by gasoline or diesel.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said he, too, is concerned about the weight of EVs because buyers seem to be demanding a range of 300 or more miles per charge, requiring heavy batteries.
Setting up a charging network to accommodate that may be a mistake from a safety perspective, Brooks said.
“These bigger, heavier batteries are going to cause more damage,” he said. “It’s a simple matter of mass and speed.”
Brooks said he knows of little research done on the safety risks of increasing vehicle weights. In 2011, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper that said being hit by a vehicle with an added 1,000 pounds increases by 47% the probability of being killed in a crash.
He points out that electric vehicles have very high horsepower ratings, allowing them to accelerate quickly even in crowded urban areas. “People are not trained to handle that type of acceleration. It’s just not something that drivers are used to doing,” Brooks said.
Also, many newer electric SUVs are tall with limited visibility that poses risks to pedestrians or drivers of smaller vehicles, he said.
Sales of new electric vehicles in the U.S. rose nearly 65% last year to 807,000 — about 5.8% of all new vehicle sales. The Biden administration has set a goal of having EVs reach 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030 and is offering tax credits of up to $7,500 to get there. The consulting firm LMC Automotive has made a more modest prediction: It expects EVs to make up one-third of the new-vehicle market by 2030.
Comet last seen during Ice Age will be visible over Idaho. Here’s when and how to watch
Shaun Goodwin, Patrick McCreless, Genevieve Belmaker – January 11, 2023
A comet last visible by the naked eye when Neanderthals roamed the Earth should be observable in Idaho skies again soon.
The comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is passing through the inner solar system and will get closest to the sun on Jan. 12, according to space.com. The comet will continue to travel near the Earth, making its closest passage between Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.
The comet could be visible to the naked eye if it continues to brighten. Such a sight can be difficult to predict for comets, space.com states. However, even if the comet does dim a bit, it should still be visible with binoculars or a telescope for several days around its approach.
Though ancient, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was only discovered by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility at CalTech in March 2022. The facility operates at the Palomar Observatory at California’s Palomar Mountain, about 90 minutes northeast of San Diego.
The comet has a period of about 50,000 years, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory states. As such, the last time the comet came so close to the sun and Earth was during the last Ice Age, when humans and Neanderthals existed on the planet at the same time.
According to NASA, observers in Idaho and throughout the northern hemisphere should be able to find the comet in the morning sky as it travels northwest in late January.
Viewers should look for the comet when the moon is dim in the sky. The new moon on Jan. 21 will offer an excellent opportunity. Although the National Weather Service only provides accurate day-by-day forecasts five days out, the Climate Prediction Center predicts a 40-50% higher-than-normal chance for rain in the next eight to 14 days.
Although a higher chance of precipitation does not necessarily mean more cloud cover, clouds form when the atmosphere reaches its saturation point; more moisture in the atmosphere means a higher chance for clouds.
Brian Jackson, an associate professor at Boise State’s Physics Department, has previously told the Idaho Statesman that Camel’s Back Park in North Boise is an excellent spot to look toward the night sky. The park allows watchers to turn their backs on the light pollution from Boise and look out toward the Boise Mountains.
Jackson also recommended the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve in the Sun Valley, which offers one of the darkest night skies in the United States. The Light Pollution Map website also shows the best spots in Idaho to escape light pollution.
Weather Service meteorologist Josh Smith told the Statesman that Bogus Basin is an excellent place to stargaze and look for comets if there is cloud cover. Bogus Basin’s base sits at 5,800 feet, meaning it should be above any low cloud ceiling above the Treasure Valley.
What are comets?
Comets consist of ice and frozen gases, along with rocks and dust left after the solar system’s formation more than 4 billion years ago. They orbit the sun in highly elliptical orbits. When a comet approaches the sun, it heats up quickly, causing some ice to turn into gas. This heated gas and dust are what form a comet’s tail.
A green comet that takes about 50,000 years to complete its orbit around the sun will come closest to Earth for the first time since the Stone Age
Kenneth Niemeyer and Morgan McFall-Johnsen – January 10, 2023
A green comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is expected to be about 26 million miles from Earth on February 2.Mike Hankey
A green comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is approaching Earth, according to NASA.
The comet most recently passed our planet 50,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, according to astronomers.
The comet is expected to be visible at night as it swings past Earth in early February.
A green comet is set to pass by Earth for the first time since the Stone Age, according to NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and it may be visible in the skies in late January and early February.
Astronomers discovered the comet, a ball of ice named C/2022 E3 (ZTF), in March 2022. They’d never seen it before, because it takes an incredibly long time to circle the sun, completing an orbit over tens of thousands of years. Modern astronomy didn’t exist last time this comet was in our neighborhood.
The comet is expected to be about 26 million miles from Earth on February 2. That would be the closest it has been to the Earth in 50,000 years, according to astronomers.
Back then, a period known as the Upper Paleolithic era, was when humans are believed to have left Africa and settled in Asia and Europe. Neanderthals still walked the Earth. The planet was in the middle of an Ice Age.
Hyperrealistic face of a neanderthal male is displayed in a cave in the new Neanderthal Museum in northern Croatia.REUTERS/Nikola Solic
The icy cosmic visitor will pass our planet at nearly 109 times the average distance of the moon, but the comet is burning so bright that it could still be visible in the night sky.
“Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness, it’ll be easy to spot with binoculars, and it’s just possible it could become visible to the unaided eye under dark skies,” NASA wrote in an update on December 29.
How, where, and when to spot comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
In the Northern Hemisphere, the green comet should be visible just before dawn in late January. At first, spotting it may require a telescope, but as it approaches Earth NASA expects viewers can see it with binoculars.
“The new long-period comet has brightened substantially and is now sweeping across the northern constellation Corona Borealis in predawn skies,” NASA said in a news release December 24. At that time, it was still too dim to see with a telescope.
A completely darkened new moon could provide ideal dark skies for spying the comet on January 21.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the green cosmic snowball will be visible in early February.
Why the comet is green
Another green comet, called ISON, passed Earth in 2013.NASA
The comet has a “greenish coma, short broad dust tail, and long faint ion tail,” according to NASA.
Many comets glow green. Laboratory research has linked this aura to a reactive molecule called dicarbon, which emits green light as sunlight decays it.
Dicarbon is common in comets, but it’s not usually found in their tails. That’s why the coma — the haze surrounding the ball of frozen gas, dust, and rock at the center of a comet — is glowing green, while the tail remains white.
The comet likely came from the mysterious Oort Cloud
The Oort Cloud is the most distant part of the solar system.NASA/JPL-Caltech
Experts told USA Today that the comet most likely came from the Oort Cloud, the farthest region of the solar system, which NASA describes as a “big, thick-walled bubble made of icy pieces of space debris the sizes of mountains and sometimes larger.”
The Oort Cloud is the most distant part of our solar system, encircling everything like a “giant spherical shell,” according to NASA. It’s so far away that astronomers measures its distance in astronomical units (AU). One AU is the distance between Earth and the sun. The inner edge of the Oort Cloud is 2,000 to 5,000 AU away.
That distance means astronomers have never observed an object in the Oort Cloud, so it’s still a “theoretical concept,” according to NASA. But astronomers suspect many far-traveling comets like C/2022 E3 (ZTF) come from there.
The comet won’t return for another 50,000 years — if ever
This is your only chance to see comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), and may be the last chance humanity ever gets.
“We don’t have an estimate for the furthest it will get from the Earth yet—estimates vary—but if it does return it won’t be for at least 50,000 years,” Jessica Lee, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich, told Newsweek.
“Some predictions suggest that the orbit of this comet is so eccentric it’s no longer in an orbit—so it’s not going to return at all and will just keep going,” she added.
Correction: January 9, 2023 — A photo caption in an earlier version of this story misstated when the comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is expected to get to 26 million miles from Earth. It is February 2, 2023, not 2022.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional information about the comet and how to see it.
Why Trump loyalist went to prison rather than blame the boss
Nada Tawfik – BBC News, New York – January 10, 2023
Allen Weisselberg worked for former President Donald Trump for decades (file image)
Former US President Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has been sentenced to five months in jail for his role in a tax fraud scheme.
Weisselberg, 75, was given a shorter-than-expected jail term after agreeing to a plea deal in which he served as a prosecutor’s witness against the Trump Organization.
But Mr Trump had little reason to fear that Weisselberg’s testimony in the autumn trial would harm him or overshadow his announcement in mid-November that he was launching another run for president.
Indeed, as expected, his employee – who started with his father Fred Trump and who was one of the first to join his company in 1986 – remained loyal even under immense pressure.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
While Mr Trump sounded off on social media, pinning the fraud scheme on Weisselberg, he continued to offer him his support in arguably more meaningful ways. Jurors heard how the Trump Organization was still paying Weisselberg his same salary under the title senior adviser, covering his legal fees, and recently celebrated his birthday in the office.
“In a normal organisation, a corrupt CFO would be terminated and thrown out the door,” says Professor Maurice Schweitzer from the Wharton School of Business. “And you would want to separate and preserve the integrity of the institution. In this case, it’s the exact opposite.”
The trial provided a fascinating insight into the relationship between the loyal lieutenant and his boss – as well as prosecutors’ efforts to try to turn one against the other by threatening Weisselberg with a lengthy sentence at Rikers Island.
Weisselberg is expected to report to the notorious New York prison to begin serving his sentence immediately.
His attorney, Nicholas Gravante, said after Tuesday’s hearing: “He deeply regrets the lapse in judgment that resulted in his conviction, and he regrets it most because of the pain it has caused his loving wife, his sons and wonderful grandchildren.”
Under the plea deal, Weisselberg admitted to 15 felonies including tax evasion, and must pay nearly $2m (£1.65m) in fines in addition to the five-month prison term.
But without the deal, he could have faced as much as 15 years in prison.
But despite prosecutors’ focus on Mr Trump, Weisselberg refused to co-operate with the wider investigation into the former president and his business practices.
The question of what Mr Trump potentially knew about executives deceiving the tax authorities and not properly reporting benefits became a persistent and tricky one throughout the trial given he was not personally charged with wrongdoing.
Weisselberg prepared for his testimony with both the prosecution and the defence, an unusual arrangement. The Trump Organization’s lawyers repeatedly argued during the trial that he was motivated by greed, and that “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg”. The defence strategy, in a nutshell, was that the former CFO was not shown the door because he was regarded as a family member, “a prodigal son”.
Prosecutors throughout the trial carefully tried to extract concessions from Weisselberg to bolster their case, while also poking holes in his story that Mr Trump and the business knew nothing of his 15-year tax dodging scheme. They walked the jury through how Weisselberg joined Mr Trump from day one and rose from accountant to controller to CFO. He had deep knowledge of all of the financial workings of the business as it grew. His testimony was key to exposing corruption and fraud at the Trump Organization and gave insight into how the family operated.
On the stand, he teared up as he was asked: “Did you betray the trust that was placed in you?”
“I did,” he answered.
Defence lawyer Alan Futerfas continued: “Are you embarrassed by what you did?”
“More than you can imagine,” he replied.
The man who Mr Trump once described as tough to contestants on an episode of The Apprentice, his old reality show, appeared timid and nervous.
A source close to the case insists Weisselberg’s testimony under oath was truthful and that he chose not to make up stories about Mr Trump. “That’s just common moral decency. And it’s also consistent with the rule of law, you should not make up lies about someone and then offer to give that testimony, which is perjury, just to improve your own legal situation after you have messed up in order to try to get a reduced sentence,” the source told the BBC.
His determination to take blame, however, did not convince the jury, which unanimously decided to convict the Trump Organization. Nor did it convince former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner, who got the impression that the 75-year-old was very scared. “He was hoping to be able to placate Donald Trump by his testimony. And I took those tears to be self-pity for fear that he is going to be frozen out of Trump World,” said Mr Epner.
Prof Schweitzer says the dynamics at play in this trial were in line with Mr Trump’s management style, what academics refer to as a “dominant” leader.
“There’s broadly two kinds of leaders, there are leaders who gain status because of their expertise and wisdom and capabilities, and there are leaders who maintain their positions of power because of dominance,” says Prof Schweitzer.
“Basically, they pull levers of rewards and punishments to coerce or compel people to do what they want.”
Mr Trump has been successful throughout his business and political career figuring out “loyalty levers to reward friends and hammer foes”, says Prof Schweitzer.
The former president has a history of rewarding those who stand by him and attacking those who don’t. Before he left office, he pardoned several of his former aides of their convictions, including his National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, his ex-adviser Roger Stone and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
On social media, President Trump praised Manafort for not “breaking” like his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen and Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates were convicted in the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but both co-operated with prosecutors. They, to the surprise of no-one, did not get pardons from Mr Trump.
Weisselberg stands behind Mr Pence and the former president at Trump Tower in New York in 2017
The former president’s treatment of Mike Pence is another example of how he places loyalty above other values. Mr Trump reportedly told the former vice-president not to “wimp out” and to not certify the results of the 2020 election, according to an excerpt from Mr Pence’s book. He recounts Mr Trump asking him: “If it gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”
Prof Schweitzer says both Mr Trump and Weisselberg were shaped by the era of ’80s New York and the mindset that greed is good. “Greed was celebrated and endorsed in a way that it is not today, we had different mindsets about this wild west of capitalism,” he says. “Things that we are saying are illegal were common practice. These men really enjoyed the privileges that came with being a very powerful, wealthy person in the 1980s who were not constrained by the rules that bound the rest of us.”
Mr Epner agrees. “The New York real estate business has been a dirty business for not decades, but centuries. And he [Mr Trump] was part and parcel of the dirty part of the NY real estate business and then he shone the biggest spotlight in the world on himself [with the presidency].”
On the final day of the trial, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said during closing statements that the evidence had shown that Mr Trump knew exactly what was going on. He reminded the jury of that evidence, including a memo the former president initialled authorising a pay cut for another executive for the exact amount of his perk, rent paid by the company.
“Mr Trump explicitly sanctioning tax fraud! That’s what this document shows,” Mr Steinglass said.
To many, it begged the question why the former president, who built his entire reputation and bravado off the back of his namesake company, wasn’t charged, too. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office says investigations into Mr Trump are ongoing.
Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a ‘savage’ battle, ‘trading’ them and others for bullets, US official says
Jake Epstein – January 10, 2023
Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a ‘savage’ battle, ‘trading’ them and others for bullets, US official says. Ukrainian servicemen fire with a CAESAR self-propelled howitzer towards Russian positions in eastern Ukraine on December 28, 2022.SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP via Getty Images
Russian forces are sending prisoners to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire around the war-torn city of Bakhmut.
Moscow’s applying a classic tactic of “trading individuals for bullets,” a senior US military official said.
Eastern Ukraine’s Bakhmut has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv.
Russia is using prisoners and freshly mobilized troops to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire along the war’s front lines in order to clear the way for its better trained forces to take ground, a US official said, calling the move a classic Russian tactic.
Prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group — a notorious paramilitary organization with close ties to the Kremlin — and others have recently been deployed to the forefront of fighting around eastern Ukraine’s war-torn city of Bakhmut, which has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv.
These recruits have been forced to “take the brunt” of Ukrainian firepower in the area before they are replaced by “better trained forces” who move in behind them to try and claim territory, a senior US military official told reporters on Monday.
The official added that Moscow’s current tactic of “trading individuals for bullets” has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. Russia, for example, did this with conscripts who were sent into the Chechnya region during the First Chechen War of the mid-1990s.
The senior military official described fighting in the area around Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of over 73,000 people, as “really severe and savage.” They said rolling exchanges of artillery fire are often followed up with maneuvers by “people that are not their best fighters.”
“You’re talking about thousands upon thousands of artillery rounds that have been delivered between both sides,” the official said. In many cases, they said, there may be “several thousand artillery rounds in a day that are being exchanged.”
Britain’s defense ministry shared in a Tuesday intelligence update that Russian and Wagner forces have been able to advance into the town of Soledar, just a few miles north of Bakhmut. It added that Moscow is likely to use this access to attempt to approach Bakhmut from the north, though it is unlikely to “imminently” do so because Ukraine has control of its supply routes and has held solid defensive lines.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly address on Monday that Russia has concentrated its “greatest efforts” on Soledar.
“And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost,” he said. “The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. This is what madness looks like.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a recent analysis that Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leader of Wagner, has used the mercenary group’s achievements in Soledar as a way to demonstrate that it’s the one force that is able of finding any success in Ukraine.
Laura Cooper, the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, acknowledged at a Friday briefing that Wagner has been able to move at a “more rapid clip” than other units in the Russian military.
However, even Prigozhin has said that capturing Bakhmut will be a challenge. In a video published to social media earlier this month, the Wagner founder said that the city features layers of defense and that his fighters lack the necessary heavy armor and equipment.
