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San Francisco residents are being warned to brace for heavy traffic and big crowds when Super Bowl festivities get underway.
The Super Bowl will take place on Feb. 7 about 40 miles south of San Francisco. But the run up to the game includes more than a week of events in the city.
Part of one of the city's most heavily traveled crosstown routes, the southbound Embarcadero, will be shut down from Jan. 23 to Feb. 12, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday (sfchron.cl/1Qa7FoQ). The area will play host to Super Bowl City, a giant theme park, food court and concert venue, starting Jan. 30.
Elsewhere in the city, the Moscone Center will host NFL Experience featuring Super Bowl rings and youth football clinics.
"It's going to be crowded. There is going to be traffic, and there are going to be streets closed," Charlotte Shultz, a member of the Advisory Group for the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee, told the Chronicle. "We're a city that knows how to either take that in stride or complain about it."
City officials are suspending parking permits for several construction sites downtown and also banning metered parking on some streets. They are urging people to take public transit, though neither Bay Area Rapid Transit nor the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District plan to add additional service, the Chronicle said.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) --
Scientists reported Wednesday they finally have "good evidence" for Planet X, a true ninth planet on the fringes of our solar system.
The gas giant is thought to be almost as big as Neptune and orbiting billions of miles beyond Neptune's path - distant enough to take 10,000 to 20,000 years to circle the sun.
This Planet 9, as the two California Institute of Technology researchers call it, hasn't been spotted yet. They base their findings on mathematical and computer modeling, and anticipate its discovery via telescope within five years or less.
The two reported on their research Wednesday in the Astronomical Journal because they want people to help them look for it.
"We could have stayed quiet and quietly spent the next five years searching the skies ourselves and hoping to find it. But I would rather somebody find it sooner, than me find it later," astronomer Mike Brown told The Associated Press.
"I want to see it. I want to see what it looks like. I want to understand where it is, and I think this will help."
Once it's detected, Brown insists there will be no Pluto-style planetary debate. Brown ought to know; he's the so-called Pluto killer who helped lead the charge against Pluto's planetary status in 2006. (It's now officially considered a dwarf planet.)
His colleague in this latest Planet 9 report, also from Caltech in Pasadena, is planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin.
"For the first time in more than 150 years, there's good evidence that the planetary census of the solar system is incomplete," Batygin said, referring to Neptune's discovery as Planet 8.
The two shaped their prediction on the fact that six objects in the icy Kuiper Belt, or Twilight Zone on the far reaches of the solar system, appear to be influenced by only one thing: a real planet.
Brown actually discovered one of these six objects more than a decade ago, Sedna, a large minor planet way out there on the solar system frontier.
"This is a prediction. What we have found is a gravitational signature of Planet 9 lurking in the outskirts of the solar system,' Batygin said. "We have not found the object itself," he stressed, adding that the actual discovery when it happens will be "era-defining."
Added Brown: "We have felt a great disturbance in the force."
Depending on where this Planet 9 is in its egg-shaped orbit, a space telescope may be needed to confirm its presence, the researchers said. Or good backyard telescopes may spot it, they noted, if the planet is relatively closer to us in its swing around the sun. It's an estimated 20 billion to 100 billion miles from us.
The Caltech researchers prefer calling it Planet 9, versus the historical term Planet X. The latter smacks of "aliens and the imminent destruction of the Earth," according to Brown.
The orb - believed to be 10 times more massive than Earth and 5,000 times more massive than dwarf Pluto - may well have rings and moons.
The last real planet to be discovered in our solar system was Neptune in 1846. Pluto, discovered in 1930, was once the 9th planet but is now considered a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt. It was visited by Earth for the first time last July; NASA's New Horizons spacecraft accomplished the first-ever flyby.
The spacecraft, unfortunately, is in the opposite direction of Planet 9, according to the researchers, and thus unable to help in its detection.
Alan Stern, principal scientist for New Horizons, is withholding judgment on Brown and Batygin's prediction.
"This kind of thing comes around every few years. To date, none of those predicts have been borne out by discoveries," Stern said in an email Wednesday. "I'd be very happy if the Brown-Batygin were the exception to the rule, but we'll have to wait and see. Prediction is not discovery."
Brown realizes skepticism will exist until the planet is actually observed.
"It's such a long history of people being basically wrong that standing up and saying we're right this time makes us almost look crazy," Brown said. "Except I'm going to stand up and say we're actually right this time. The evidence for the first time is actually very good that this thing is actually out there."
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Schools would have more flexibility to serve refined grains and salty foods to the nation's school children under legislation a Senate panel is considering.
The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the bipartisan bill, which is designed to help schools that have complained that the Obama administration's healthier school meal rules are too restrictive. Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, the GOP chairman of the agriculture panel, and Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the committee's top Democrat, introduced the bill Monday after reaching an agreement to ease requirements for whole grains and delay an upcoming deadline to cut sodium levels.
The compromise signals a truce between first lady Michelle Obama and congressional Republicans who have been at odds over the rules for more than two years. The first lady has highlighted the standards as part of her campaign against childhood obesity and said she would fight "to the bitter end" to keep them intact.
The White House has yet to weigh in on the agreement, but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement Tuesday supporting the legislation.
The agreement is also backed by the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and companies that sell food to schools. That group has led the fight to scale back the administration's requirements.
"In the absence of increased funding, this agreement eases operational challenges and provides school meal programs critical flexibility to help them plan healthy school meals that appeal to students," said Jean Ronnei, president of the association.
The rules phased in since 2012 set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on foods in the lunch line and beyond. They also require more whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Schools have long been required to follow government nutrition rules if they accept federal reimbursements for free and reduced-price meals for low-income students, but the new standards are stricter and some schools have said they are unworkable.
The five-year Senate legislation would direct the Agriculture Department to revise the whole grain and sodium standards within 90 days of the bill's enactment, meaning the new rules could be in place by next school year if Congress acts quickly. Under a separate agreement among those negotiating the bill, including USDA and the school nutrition group, the new rules would scale back the whole grain standards to require that 80 percent of grains on the lunch line must be whole grain rich, or more than half whole grain.
Currently, all grains are required to be whole grain rich, though some schools have applied for waivers. Schools say some kids don't like whole grain pastas, biscuits, grits and tortillas.
In addition, the agreement would delay stricter standards on sodium that are scheduled for the 2017 school year. They would now be delayed two years, and a study would measure the benefits of those reductions.
The legislation would also require the government to figure out ways to reduce waste of fruits and vegetables and put more resources into summer feeding programs.
Supporters of the Senate bill are hoping that an agreement among the formerly feuding parties could influence the House, which has not yet introduced a bill.
Not everyone is ready for compromise. GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie said Monday that the first lady has "no business" being involved in decisions over school lunches. The New Jersey governor, who has been public about his struggles with weight, said it's "just another example of how the Obamas believe that they've got a better answer for everything than you do."