U.S. Military Milestone In Afghanistan -- Pentagon Braces For Sequester -- Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Jobs Dwindle -- Supreme Court To Take Up Donation Limits -- Mars Curiosity Rover Breakthrough -- Senator Fathers Son With Senator -- Skeleton Found On Mars? -- Stanford Raises $1 Billion
30 DAYS WITHOUT A U.S. MILITARY DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN
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| Getty Images |
A milestone was reached in Afghanistan Wednesday that has not happened in six years: 30 days without a U.S. military fatality.
It is the longest gap between U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan since February and March of 2007, when there was a similar 30 day gap.
The winter months in Afghanistan always see a relative reduction in American military casualties as the cold weather and the elements restricts combat engagements.
But this winter season has seen one of the lowest casualty rates in years.
PENTAGON INFORMS CONGRESS OF 800 THOUSAND CIVILIAN WORKER FURLOUGHS
The Pentagon notified Congress on Wednesday it will be furloughing its civilian workforce of 800,000 employees if sequestration goes into effect March 1
defense officials have warned lawmakers that sequestration will devastate the military and lead to a hollow force, but the civilian furloughs will be one of the first major impacts felt by the across-the-board cuts.
The Pentagon furloughs will affect civilians across the country. Pentagon officials have said that civilians could face up to 22 days of furloughs, one per week, through the end of the fiscal year in September. The employees would receive 30 days' notice before being furloughed.
KEYSTONE'S 'THOUSANDS' Of JOBS FALL TO 20
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| Bloomberg |
TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline, heralded by supporters as a major job creator, will add few permanent positions once the $7 billion project is built.
The number of people needed to operate and maintain the 1,661-mile (2,673-kilometer) pipeline may be as few as 20, according to the U.S. State Department, or as many as a few hundred, according to TransCanada.
“I don’t see a big jobs impact,” Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, said in an interview. “It gets the oil into refineries that already exist. It’s like replacing a bridge on the highway.”
JUSTICES TO HEAR APPEAL OF INDIVIDUAL DONATION LIMITS
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| Roll Call |
WASHINGTON— The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to consider taking another step toward dismantling campaign finance laws, potentially freeing wealthy donors to give as much as they want in any election cycle and raising the possibility that it could overturn limits that apply to individual candidates as well.
In its landmark Citizens United decision, the court ruled in 2010 that corporations, unions and individuals could spend unlimited sums on campaign ads so long as they are independent of the candidates and political parties. That triggered the creation of so-called "super PACs," which can raise and spend huge sums on politics, so long as they are ostensibly independent of a candidate or party.
NASA CONFIRMS FIRST DRILLED MARS ROCK SAMPLE
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| NASA |
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has relayed new images that confirm it has successfully obtained the first sample ever collected from the interior of a rock on another planet. No rover has ever drilled into a rock beyond Earth and collected a sample from its interior.
Transfer of the powdered-rock sample into an open scoop was visible for the first time in images received Wednesday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
"Seeing the powder from the drill in the scoop allows us to verify for the first time the drill collected a sample as it bore into the rock," said JPL's Scott McCloskey, drill systems engineer for Curiosity. "Many of us have been working toward this day for years. Getting final confirmation of successful drilling is incredibly gratifying. For the sampling team, this is the equivalent of the landing team going crazy after the successful touchdown."
SENATOR FATHERS CHILD WITH DAUGHTER OF ANOTHER SENATOR
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| Getty Images |
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Former Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico fathered a son outside of his marriage more than 30 years ago with the then-24-year-old daughter of a Senate colleague, the retired Republican has acknowledged.
The revelation stunned many who know the state's longest-serving senator as a family man who advocated honesty.
Domenici and Michelle Laxalt sent statements to the Albuquerque Journal identifying their son as Nevada attorney Adam Paul Laxalt. They said they decided to go public with their decades-old secret because they believed someone was about to reveal the information in an attempt to smear Domenici.
FOSSILIZED SKELETON FOUND ON MARS?
A video making the rounds on the web has alien hunters and Mars watchers excited with what looks remarkably like a fossilized skeleton of a lizard-like creature photographed by the Mars Curiosity rover. What is it?
Paranormal bulletin boards are on fire with still images, enhanced and enlarged, which do bear a striking resemblance to fossils of ancient creatures found on Earth.
The video, uploaded to YouTube on Feb. 19, is a vignette made from a single photo taken by Curiosity earlier in the month. The photo seems to show the outline of animal vertebrae snaking into what looks like a tail and exposed above the rocky Martian soil.
STATE UNIVERSITY RAISES RECORD BREAKING $1BN
Stanford University has become the first US college to raise more than $1bn (£650m) in a year.
The California institution ranked first in the 2012 Council for Aid to Education's survey, for the eighth straight year.
The report found that 3,500 US universities raised a total of $31bn, 2.3% more than the previous year.
The top 10 schools, including Harvard and Yale, accounted for 17% of the total fundraising efforts.
But the total was just short of the all-time record in 2008.
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