Source: NPR

Chinese officials have seized 3.1 tonnes (more than 3.4 tons) of illegally trafficked pangolin scales from a port in Shanghai, according to state media.

It's the largest such seizure China has ever made, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Pangolins are the world's most widely trafficked mammals — their meat is a delicacy and their scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

All eight species of pangolin are facing extinction.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/28/507220370/china-announces-its-largest-ever-seizure-of-trafficked-pangolin-scales

Source: Alaska Public Radio Network

A volcano in the eastern Aleutians is erupting again.

For the fourth time in less than a week, Bogoslof volcano has erupted prompting the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) to issue its highest alert for air travel.

The observatory said the eruption on Dec. 26 threw ash 30,000 feet above the uninhabited island.

Experts cannot predict how long the eruption might last because there is no monitoring equipment on Bogoslof.

Read more: http://www.alaskapublic.org/2016/12/26/bogoslof-spews-lava-in-fourth-eruption/

Source: The Guardian

Taiwan’s president is planning to meet members of Congress next month during a stopover visit to the US that will go ahead despite strong Chinese government objections, a senior Taiwanese official has said.

China tried to block the visit by President Tsai Ing-wen in the wake of a row over perceived pro-Taiwan comments by the US president-elect, Donald Trump, who also held an unprecedented phone conversation with the Taiwan leader.

The visit has caused speculation in Washington and Taiwan that Tsai may meet Trump in person, or members of his transition team, during a nine-day trip that begins on 7 January and includes brief state visits to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/22/tsai-ing-wen-taiwan-president-us-visit-china-donald-trump

I'm going off two premises here.

1. the Dems can't oppose all the nominees without looking like obstructionists, which WILL hurt us.
2. some nominees are more worthy of opposition than others.

My vote is to offer up serious opposition to the following:

1. Scott Pruitt
2. Jeff Sessions

Source: Politico

The Republican National Committee is overseeing an expansive whip operation designed to lock down Donald Trump’s Electoral College majority and ensure that the 306 Republican electors cast their votes for the president-elect.

Two RNC sources familiar with the effort said the committee — with the assistance of state Republican parties and the Trump campaign — have been in touch with most of the GOP electors multiple times, and has concluded that only one is a risk to cast a vote against Trump on Dec. 19, when the Electoral College meets.

The RNC’s elector head count, the sources emphasized, is standard practice in presidential election years. But this year it also serves as an early-warning system for potentially wayward GOP electors amid an intense push by Democratic electors to convince 37 of their Republican counterparts to jump ship. The Democrats are hoping that dozens of GOP electors — many of whom were picked at local conventions and party meetings dominated by Trump’s opponents — are already primed to resist Trump.

“The state Republican parties in the states that went for Trump are heavily invested in this process,” said one of the RNC sources. “It’s a matter of personal pride for a state party chairman and a state party to ensure that all the electors that their people elected vote, and vote in the manner in which they’re supposed to.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/rnc-trump-electoral-college-232537

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump took aim at another major defense contractor on Monday, saying the cost of Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet program was too high.

The aerospace giant's shares dropped about 4 percent in early trading after Trump's tweet, while shares of several other defense contractors also weakened.

"The F-35 program and cost is out of control," Trump said on Twitter. "Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th."

Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin's F-35 program leader, responded by saying the company understands concerns about affordability and has invested millions of dollars to reduce the jet's price.

Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1411HF?client=safari

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For once he's said something I agree with.

Source: LA Times

The latest findings in Earth science are brought to you by ancient astronomers who observed the heavens as much as 2,700 years ago.

Thanks to hundreds of records of lunar and solar eclipses carved in clay tablets and written into dynastic histories, modern scientists have determined that the amount of time it takes for Earth to complete a single rotation on its axis has slowed by 1.8 milliseconds per century, according to a report published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

It may not sound significant, but over the course of 2½ millenniums, that time discrepancy adds up to about 7 hours.

In other words, if humanity had been measuring time with an atomic clock that started running back in 700 BC, today that clock would read 7 p.m. when the sun is directly overhead rather than noon.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-earth-longer-days-20161205-story.html

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Interesting.