Abbas' main political rival.

Israeli undercover raid sets off violent protests

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli undercover troops broke into a West Bank apartment building in a failed arrest raid Thursday, igniting a violent protest and signaling that Israeli-Palestinian security coordination may be in trouble, officials said.

Thursday's raid targeted a suspected Islamic militant and marked the second time this week an army operation sparked clashes. Palestinians accused Israel of taking provocative actions in retaliation for their successful bid in November to win U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in 1967.

Israel's military denied it was walking away from coordination with the security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose self-rule government administers just over one-third of the West Bank, where more than 90 percent of the Palestinians live.

Palestinian officials said Thursday's operation began when undercover troops, followed by uniformed soldiers in more than a dozen jeeps, broke into an apartment building on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Jenin. The apparent target, an activist in the militant Islamic Jihad group, was not in the area.

The Israeli military said several hundred Palestinians began throwing stones, and that some in the crowd hurled firebombs and rolled burning tires toward the soldiers. Troops fired warning shots, and also used tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel pellets to quell the protest, the military said.

Talal Dweikat, the Palestinian governor of the Jenin district, put the number of stone throwers at several dozen. He said a Palestinian was shot in the leg and an elderly woman was bitten by an army dog. The military confirmed a woman was bitten and taken for medical treatment.

In recent years, the West Bank has been relatively calm, in part because of Israeli-Palestinian coordination in tracking Islamic militants. The coordination came in response to the 2007 takeover of Gaza by the Islamic militant Hamas, Abbas' main political rival.

Trying to prevent a similar takeover in the West Bank, Abbas began cracking down on Hamas and found his interests aligned with Israel's. Abbas has long argued that violence is counterproductive, since Palestinians are bound to lose any armed confrontation with Israel. Hamas believes Israel will make concessions only in response to force.

Security coordination with Israel is unpopular in the West Bank, especially at a time when peace talks are frozen and Palestinian independence appears unlikely anytime soon. U.N. recognition gave the Palestinians a diplomatic boost but changed little on the ground.

Palestinian officials alleged Thursday that the recent Israeli raids are part of Israel's retaliation for the statehood bid. Israel strongly opposed the U.N. recognition, saying it was an attempt to bypass negotiations.

A Palestinian security official said Abbas has ordered his security forces to avoid any confrontations with Israeli troops. Abbas is concerned about an unwanted escalation he believes will not serve Palestinian interests, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations with reporters.

Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, said Israeli troops have increasingly entered Palestinian-run areas without coordination since November. "There has been an escalation in Israeli raids into our territories since the U.N. bid," he said.

Earlier this week, another undercover raid targeting suspected Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank prompted clashes that left 10 Palestinians wounded.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said Israel has not abandoned security coordination with the Palestinians. "As far as we are concerned, the coordination has not changed," she said. "Our activities are in relation to threats (by militants), and nothing else."

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett&hellip

NCAA calls Pennsylvania suit an affront to Sandusky's victims
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Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett…

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Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett…

(Reuters) - The National Collegiate Athletic Association on Wednesday said a lawsuit by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett appeared "without merit" and was "an affront to all of the victims" of convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

Corbett said he would sue the NCAA in federal court to challenge the sanctions it levied against Penn State University over the Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

"We are disappointed by the governor's action today," the NCAA said in a statement.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

the "Quads" are notoriously unpredictable.

Moon May Outshine Quadrantid Meteor Shower Tonight
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The Quadrantid meteor shower should…

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Amateur photographer Roberto Porto…

One of the best displays of "shooting stars" will peak overnight tonight and early Thursday morning (Jan. 3), but unfortunately will run into some stiff competition this year from a bright moon. 

The celestial fireworks display is the Quadrantid meteor shower (pronounced KWA-dran-tid), which kicks off the annual meteor shower schedule every January.To paraphrase Forrest Gump: The Quadrantids are like opening up a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get!  Indeed, the "Quads" are notoriously unpredictable.

This year, the meteor shower is peaking while the moon is in its bright gibbous phase, just days after the recent full moon on Dec. 28, which may interfere with the cosmic light show.

The Quadrantids provides one of the most intense annual meteor showers, with a brief, sharp maximum lasting but a few hours. Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory discovered the shower in the 1830's, and shortly afterward it was noted by several other astronomers in Europeand America. [Amazing Quadrantid Meteor Shower Photo of 2012]

The meteors are named after the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis the Mural or Wall Quadrant (an astronomical instrument), depicted in some 19th-century star atlases roughly midway between the end of the Handle of the Big Dipper and the quadrilateral of stars marking the head of the constellation Draco. (The International Astronomical Union phased out Quadrans Muralis in 1922.)

NASA will provide a live webcast of the 2013 Quadrantid meteor shower each night this week through Friday (Jan. 4). You can follow the meteor shower on SPACE.com here courtesy of the NASA feed.

Difficult to see

Unfortunately, many factors combine to make the peak of this display difficult to observe on a regular basis: 

A brief peak period: The Quadrantids’ meteor rates exceed half of their highest value for only about six hours (compared to two days for the Perseid meteor shower in August). This means that the stream of particles that produce this shower is a narrow one — apparently originating from a small comet within the last 500 years.

The parentage of the Quadrantids had long been a mystery until astronomer Peter Jenniskens, a meteor expert with the SETI Institute at Mountain View, Calif., noticed that the orbit of 2003 EH1 — a small asteroid discovered in March 2003 — ''falls snug in the shower.'' He believes that the 1.2-mile-wide (2 kilometers) asteroid is the source of the Quadrantids. The asteroid, in turn, is possibly the burnt out core of the lost comet C/1490 Y1. [Quadrantid Meteors in the Night Sky (Video)]

You have to be an early-bird (or extreme night owl): As viewed from mid-northern latitudes, we have to get up before dawn to see the Quadrantids at their best. This is because the radiant (the part of the sky from where the meteors to appear to originate) is down low on the northern horizon until about midnight, rising slowly higher as the night progresses. The growing light of dawn ends meteor observing usually by around 7 a.m.  So, if the "Quads" are to be seen at all, some part of that eight-hour active period must fall between 2 a.m.and 7 a.m.

It’s winter in the north: Over northern latitudes, early January often sees inclement or unsettled weather.

The moon interferes: In one out of every three years, bright moonlight spoils the view and unfortunately, 2013 is one of those years. According to British meteor expert Alastair McBeath: "The waning gibbous moon causes severe problems for detailed observations of the Quadrantid maximum in 2013."

It is not surprising then, that the Quadrantids are not as well-known as some of the other annual meteor showers.

Quadrantid meteor shower viewing tips

According to Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society, here is what to expect during the Quadrantid meteor shower’s peak: "A bright gibbous moon (will be) located near the Leo-Virgo border. Activity can be still seen from the Quadrantids if your skies are clear and transparent. It would also be wise to keep the moon out of your field of view by facing the north to east quadrant of the sky."

In 2013, Western North Americawill be favored to view of the peak of the Quadrantids. Maximum activity this year is expected on Thursday morning, Jan. 3 at 5 a.m.Pacific Standard Time. For those in the western United States, the meteor shower's origin radiant will be about two-thirds of the way up in the east-northeast sky. 

The farther to the north and east you go, the higher in the sky the radiant will be. To the south and west the radiant will be lower and the meteors will be fewer. 

Quadrantid meteors are described as bright and bluish with long silvery trains. As McBeath and Lunsford have pointed out, the moon's presence will make seeing the maximum number of meteors problematic.  Without the bright moon, western observers likely would see as many as 60 to 75 meteors per hour; a very dark sky might even yield 100 or more per hour. 

But this year, the moon will be the big obstacle. For every magnitude of naked eye stars hidden by moonlight or light pollution, the number of meteors is cut by roughly 60 percent.

You can check how bright your moonlit sky is by looking for the Little Dipper star pattern. The four stars in the bowl are of magnitudes 2, 3, 4 and 5 (the lower the number, the brighter the star). So, if you can see only three of the four stars in the bowl, your limiting magnitude would be 4, meaning you would see only about one-tenth the meteors you would if you were under a very dark, moonless sky.    

Quadrantid meteor rates will be lower across the central and eastern United States, as well as other places north of the equator where the peak of the shower will occur either after sunrise or with the shower radiant very low in the sky. Observers south of the equator will have little chance of seeing any "Quads" since the radiant will not clear the horizon before morning twilight interferes.

Editor's Note: If you snap an amazing photo of the Quadrantid meteor shower and would like to share it with SPACE.com, send images and comments, including name, location and equipment used to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Meteor Shower Quiz: How Well Do You Know 'Shooting Stars'? January Skywatching: Ancient Constellation, Quadrantid Meteors and More | Video How Meteor Showers Work (Infographic) Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The spill risk from the drillship is limited to the 143

Runaway Alaska oil rig dragged two tugs for miles

LONDON/ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The runaway oil rig that ran aground in Alaska on New Year's Eve dragged two vessels trying to control it more than 10 miles toward shore in just over an hour before the crews cut it loose to save themselves in "near hurricane" conditions.

Details were still emerging on Wednesday from the U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Dutch/Shell, the company at the center of a controversial and accident-prone Arctic oil drilling program of which the Kulluk drillship is a vital part.

They paint a frightening picture of the 28,000-tonne, saucer-shaped rig being thrust toward the shore on waves up to 35 feet high driven by winds up to 62 mph, pulling its main towing vessel, the Aiviq, and a tug, the Alert, behind it.

"We are talking about near hurricane-strength conditions," said Darci Sinclair of the Kulluk Tow Incident Unified Command, set up by the U.S. Coast Guard and the companies involved. "Regaining control became extremely challenging."

The unified command said the Kulluk was still aground on Sitkalidak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, but "upright and stable". Updates were available at www.kullukresponse.com.

The 30-year-old Kulluk is operated by Noble Corp and was refitted by Shell for its summer 2012 drilling expedition in the Beaufort Sea off northern Alaska.

Shell spent $4.5 billion preparing for extraction activities there and in the Chukchi Sea further east, but has yet to complete a single well, while facing some embarrassing setbacks.

Headlines that raise questions about the wisdom of drilling so far north in such a environmentally delicate and technically challenging place were not expected so early in 2013, given that activity stopped for the season two months ago.

Any Kulluk damage could threaten Shell's 2013 drilling program because its oil-spill plans require a second rig to be available at all times in case a relief well needs to be drilled to kill the well. That is the Noble-owned Discoverer, which would also be unable to drill without another rig nearby.

David Smith, spokesman at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in Washington DC, said his division would not yet speculate on the summer. The earliest date that the drilling season could have started last year was July 1.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard said the Kulluk's hull appeared sound after a few over flights. More were planned on Wednesday, with more than 600 people supporting the response.

"This is a very large and complex response and it is important that the American public and our elected officials understand the dangerous and difficult challenges being faced by the response crews," Rear Admiral Thomas Ostebo, commander of the Coast Guard in Alaska, said in the statement.

The Kulluk was on its way south for the winter. It had been towed east from the Beaufort, and then south through the Bering Strait that separates the northernmost U.S. state from Siberia.

On December 28, about half way to its winter destination in Seattle, and 50 miles south of Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, engine failure struck the Aiviq - an icebreaker that is less than a year old, and whose name means "Walrus".

The weather was already rough and the Kulluk's 18-strong crew was lifted off, when a doomed four-day battle to keep the Kulluk off the rocks began.

The effort ran into deeper difficulty a few hours after nightfall on December 31, with the shore less than 19 miles away.

Aiviq, one of two vessels attached at the time, lost its line. It was re-attached, and battled on against the elements along with the Alert, but the coastline kept getting closer as the storm pushed all three vessels north-eastwards.

At 8:15 p.m. on Monday (January 1, 0515 GMT), the order came to cut the Kulluk lines to save the Aiviq, the Alert and the crews.

At 8:30 p.m., the lines were cut, and by 8:48, a trajectory map on the unified command website shows, the Kulluk was aground about 1,600 feet from the shore on Sitkalidak Island, near the larger Kodiak Island. The Kulluk, the wind, and the waves had dragged Aiviq and Alert more than 10 miles in just over an hour.

The vessel settled on what one Coast Guard official described as "loose rock and sand".

Noble had no immediate comment. Shell in London has made a series of statements on the progress of the operation, but had nothing to add on Wednesday, and referred calls to the unified command. Shell in Houston could not be reached for comment.

"ONE DISASTER TO THE NEXT"

The spill risk from the drillship is limited to the 143,000 gallons of ultra-low-sulfur diesel and 12,000 gallons of other oil products on board. Still, opponents of Arctic drilling said the accident showed Shell was unable to keep the Arctic safe.

"Shell has lurched from one Arctic disaster to the next, displaying staggering ineptitude every step of the way," Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe said on Wednesday.

"Were the pristine environment of the frozen north not at risk of an oil spill it would be almost comical. Instead it's tragic," Ayliffe said. "We're moving closer to a major catastrophe in the Arctic and the U.S. government appears unwilling to provide either the needed oversight or emergency backup the company's incompetence requires."

Shell's Arctic campaign has been bedeviled by problems. The Coast Guard briefly detained the Discoverer in December in Seward, Alaska, on safety concerns. A mandatory oil-containment barge, the Arctic Challenger, failed for months to meet requirements for seaworthiness, and a ship mishap resulted in damage to a key piece of equipment intended to cap a blown well.

Asked why the Kulluk was still at sea two months after work stopped, one contract drilling source said the "demobilization" process after drilling can take days or weeks depending on the rig model and its anchoring. It was also possible the weather was rough enough over the last few months to delay transit.

Replacing the Kulluk, if it ends up being badly damaged, would add to the cost of the accident for Shell, which must reimburse the federal and state governments for response costs.

The Discoverer, which it has under a contract with Noble, costs Shell $240,000 per day - or a few-hundred million dollars over the life of the two-year contract. Shell had to spend $292 million upgrading the Kulluk, when was built in 1983 and had been slated to be scrapped before Shell bought it in 2005.

(Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz, David Gregorio and Andre Grenon)

Join us below at 12

Live Chat on Weight Loss Strategies--January 2 at 12:30 P.M. EST

Join us below at 12:30 P.M. EST on Wednesday, January 2, for a live 30-minute online chat with Edward Phillips, a physician who specializes in lifestyle health at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and other institutions. He will discuss how he helps patients meet their weight management and other related health goals. 

Phillips will answer questions about the most effective changes--large and small--that people can make to lose weight, keep it off and stay healthy. He will also talk about why some of the trends and fads in weight loss might not be the most scientifically sound options. We invite you to post questions below in advance of the chat. 

Phillips is an assistant professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, director of outpatient medical services at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network in Boston, assistant psychiatrist in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department of Massachusetts General Hospital, and serves other advisory roles. He also founded, in 2007, the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine, which helps to train doctors and other health care professionals to better care for patients' long-term health by helping them make healthful choices on a daily basis. 

 

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.

Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.

© 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

which poses the biggest obstacle to advances by opposition fighters.

Fighting rages around strategic Syrian military air base in the country's north

BEIRUT - Syrian activists and state media are reporting intense fighting around a strategic air base in the country's north.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says rebels stormed parts of the Taftanaz air base in the northwestern province of Idlib before withdrawing.

The state-run SANA news agency said government forces protecting the base "repelled the terrorists' attempt to attack the airport" and inflicted heavy losses.

The Observatory says attacks by the rebels resumed early Thursday in an attempt to capture the base. Several efforts in recent months to take the Taftanaz facility have failed.

Syrian rebels have been attacking five air bases in Idlib and the nearby province of Aleppo, trying to chip away at the government's air power, which poses the biggest obstacle to advances by opposition fighters.

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Entrepreneurs are more stressed, but happier than other workers. People who like their home cities report better health. Republicans are bummed about President Barack Obama's reelection. Middle-age puts you at the biggest risk of being fat.

Those findings are among the Gallup polling agency's top insights about health and happiness in America in 2012.

As part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, tens of thousands of Americans are surveyed every year about all aspects of their lives, from their financial security and health habits to their emotional state and overall satisfaction with life. Here are 10 findings from these polls that Gallup's editors say intrigued them the most this year:

1. Stressed entrepreneurs are happier and healthier than other workers

Entrepreneurs experience more worry and stress than other workers, but they also report more positive experiences on the job, Gallup found in 2012. In particular, entrepreneurs are more optimistic and more likely to report that they learned something new or felt enjoyment in the past workday.

And being your own boss comes with a health edge, too. Entrepreneurs are less likely to have chronic diagnoses, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes. They also are much less likely to be obese than other workers (19 percent vs. 25 percent), Gallup found. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

2. Fewer young adults go without health insurance

After a provision in the Affordable Care Act allowed children to stay on their parents' health plans until age 26, a growing number of young Americans have reported having health coverage. Since that rule went into effect in 2010, the number of uninsured 18- to 25-year-olds without insurance dropped by 3.8 percentage points to 24.2 percent in 2011. In 2012 that figure shrank to 23.4 percent, according to the polling group.

At the same time, the percentage of uninsured 26- to 64-year-olds is still trending higher — standing at 19.4 percent in the third quarter of 2012, up from 15 percent in January 2008, when Gallup first started tracking Americans' health insurance coverage.

3. Liking where you live could be good for your health

This year, Gallup found that people who say they are satisfied with their community are less likely to report physical pain, obesity, headaches or a diagnosis of asthma or high cholesterol than those who aren't satisfied. People who like their home cities scored an average of 78 on Gallup's physical health index, compared with an average score of 69.1 for those who don't like where they live.

It might be that location can determine access to healthy food and opportunities for exercise. For example, people who said their community offered a safe place to exercise scored a full 16 points healthier on the physical health index than people who said they didn't have a safe place to work out, Gallup found. And people who felt safe walking alone at night scored 9 points higher on the same health scale compared to those who didn't.

4. Republicans life ratings drop in good year for Democrats

Democrats' outlook on life generally improved in 2012, while Republicans' life ratings declined — and at no point in the year did their attitudes diverge as much as they did in November. In the month that President Obama clinched his reelection, Republicans' score on the collective life evaluation index (which measures optimism regarding current life and anticipated future life situations) dropped to 40.3 from 47.0 in October, Gallup found. Democrats, meanwhile, became slightly more upbeat, with their score on the same scale climbing to 56.9 from 53.7 in October.

5. Middle-age could make you fat

For Americans, being middle-aged is the highest risk factor for being overweight, and this holds true even when controlling for ethnicity, race, marital status, gender, employment, income, education and region, according to Gallup. Being black is the second biggest risk factor for a high Body Mass Index (BMI), a measurement used to gauge how much fat a person is carrying around. [8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding]

6. Doctors seem to be practice what they preach

U.S. doctors have better health habits than other working adults, according to Gallup. Doctors are less likely to smoke, less likely to be obese, and more likely to say they exercised three or more days a week, compared with nurses and other employed adults as a whole, the polling group found this year.

Their better health is in part explained by their education — more highly educated Americans in general have better health habits. Nevertheless, the finding still suggests that physicians are setting a good example for their patients.

7. Putting strengths to work boosts well-being

Workers are more likely to be engaged in their work and to report lower levels of stress when they use their strengths at work, according to Gallup. But many American employees feel like their talents are being wasted — 21 percent say they use their strengths for just three hours or fewer per day and they're more likely to report experiencing worry, stress, anger and sadness.

But these emotional burdens start vanishing when talents get put to use, Gallup found. Americans who say they use their strengths for 10 hours or more per day (about one in four do) report more happiness and energy and say they feel better-rested.

8. Stay-at-home moms are at risk of depression

Compared with employed moms, stay-at-home moms were more likely to tell Gallup pollsters that they experienced a lot of sadness and anger during the previous day. Women who don't have jobs for pay but stay at home with young children also are more likely to report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives, while employed moms are about emotionally well-off as working women who don't have kids at home, Gallup officials said. These trends held true across age and income groups.

9. Warmest year coincides with more exercise

For the United States, 2012 is expected to rank as the warmest year ever on record. At the same time, Americans this year reported exercising more than ever. In each month this year (except for April), more Americans said they worked out on three or more days per week than did so in the same month for each of the past four years, Gallup found.

There's no evidence that the high temperatures and exercise uptick are directly linked. However, Americans' seasonal workout habits suggest it's not a coincidence. Americans tend to work out more in the spring and summer than the spring and fall, hinting that weather plays a big role in the likelihood of exercise.

10. Disengaged employees are more likely to come down with a case of the Mondays

Heading back to work after the weekend is easy for employees who like their jobs, but it's a much more jarring transition for those who don't. Gallup found that employees who are disengaged at work experience a significant slump in mood when going from weekends to weekdays. In another finding, actively engaged workers who are enthusiastic about their work are unfazed by long commute times, which otherwise can be a drag on happiness.

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7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You Never Too Late: 5 Bad Habits You Should Still Quit 5 Wacky Things That Are Good for Your Health Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.