Story highlights Two U.S. officials tell CNN that information was shared with the Russians 
 
 Source says threat is specific to start of the Olympics this week 
 
 Official tells CNN that Russians shared some information with U.S. 
 
 Warning to airlines globally that serve Russia based on new intelligence 
 
 The United States is advising airlines with direct flights serving Russia to be aware of the possibility that explosive materials could be concealed in toothpaste or cosmetic tubes, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Wednesday night. 
 
 Rep. Michael McCaul said the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin to airlines flying into Russia warning of the potential threat. 
 
 The bulletin, the Texas Republican said, indicated that officials believed the explosives might be used during flights or smuggled into the city of Sochi, where competition at the Winter Olympics begins Thursday. The opening ceremony is Friday. 
 
 A U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that the cause for the Homeland Security alert was specific to the imminent start of the games. 
 
 According to the source, authorities have increasing confidence about the safety of Sochi and the Olympic venues. Still, U.S. intelligence is picking up increasing chatter that causes worry about targets outside the Sochi area, including regional transportation links. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Rep.: Toothpaste bomb threats serious Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Rep.: Toothpaste bomb threats serious 02:35 
 
 JUST WATCHED Athletes arrive in Sochi amid threats Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Athletes arrive in Sochi amid threats 02:03 
 
 The biggest ongoing worry outside this new concern -- as expected -- is groups based in southern Russia's Caucasus region, in particular the restive Dagestan republic. 
 
 However, U.S. officials also are worried that al Qaeda-linked groups from elsewhere could take advantage of the attention being focused on Russian militant groups. 
 
 The concern about the use of toothpaste tubes is mostly focused on flights from Europe and neighboring Asian countries -- in part because the United States has less intelligence-sharing with those nations. 
 
 A separate U.S. official with knowledge of the current situation, who would not speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the U.S. intelligence community is still assessing the credibility and scope of the threat. 
 
 The official said the Russians brought some information to the United States. Two senior administration officials told CNN that U.S. authorities had intelligence that they shared with the Russians. 
 
 Assessing the credibility includes looking at the latest intelligence about the location and capabilities of known terrorist bomb makers and which groups may have the ability to build a bomb in a container such as a toothpaste tube. Such a device would likely require hard-to-detect explosives and little or no metal content in other critical parts, such as the detonator. 
 
 No known threat to the United States 
 
 Earlier Wednesday, a different law enforcement source emphasized there was no known threat to the United States, but the notice to U.S. and international air carriers is based on new intelligence information. 
 
 "It's real. It's real and we got very good information," a government source, who did not want to speak for full attribution, told CNN. "It's based on a credible source. We're taking it seriously. So are other countries. ..." 
 
 Homeland Security said that "out of an abundance of caution" it routinely shares "relevant information" with domestic and international entities, "including those associated with international events" like the Sochi Olympics. 
 
 19 photos: Sochi transformed 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The sun rises over Sochi's Olympic Park on January 10, 2014. The 2014 Winter Olympics will run February 7 - 23 in Sochi, Russia. Six thousand athletes from 85 countries are scheduled to attend the 22nd Winter Olympics. Here's a look at the estimated $50 billion transformation of Sochi for the Games. Hide Caption 1 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Soaring snowcapped peaks, some topping 10,000 feet, tower over the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on January 22, 2007. These are Russia's first Olympic Games, although the former Soviet Union hosted the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. Hide Caption 2 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The city of Sochi, which is also a fishing town, was among three finalists bidding for the Olympics. Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea, also competed. Hide Caption 3 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – In the Imeretinskay Valley, a woman plays with a dog in February 2007, near an advertisement for the Olympic Park soon to be built in the area. Organizers of the Sochi Olympics say they want these Games to be the greenest, most environmentally aware games ever staged. Hide Caption 4 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Construction vehicles travel along the Imeretinskaya Valley, the site of Olympic facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, in April 2009. 
 
 Ice events will be held in a "cluster" near the Black Sea in the Imeretinskaya Valley. The second "cluster" will be for skiing and sliding events and will be held in the Krasnaya Polyana Mountains. Hide Caption 5 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – People work on their vegetable gardens near the construction site of the Olympic facilities in the Imeretinskaya Valley in April 2009. Hide Caption 6 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – This September 2010 photo shows ski facilities under construction in Krasnaya Polyana near Sochi. Hide Caption 7 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The Grand Ice Palace, intended for ice hockey, is under construction here in October 2010. Hide Caption 8 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – A construction worker walks on the top of the building site of the Bolshoi Ice Palace in Sochi in June 2010. Hide Caption 9 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Pictured here from the Krasnaya Polyana ski resort is the combined motor and rail road that runs between Olympic sites. Hide Caption 10 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Central stadium is under construction in Sochi's Olympic Park in December 2011. Hide Caption 11 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Sochi's new Adler Arena for speed skating is pictured in November 2012. Hide Caption 12 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Sochi's new Adler Arena for speed skating is pictured in November 2012. Hide Caption 13 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – Construction continues on Sochi's "Iceberg" Skating Palace in February 2012. Hide Caption 14 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The Iceberg figure-skating and short-track venue is pictured in September 2013. Hide Caption 15 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The "coastal cluster" venues for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games are pictured in January 2014 in Sochi. Hide Caption 16 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The Olympic rings for the 2014 Winter Olympics are installed in Sochi on September 25, 2012. Hide Caption 17 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – About 37,000 security officers will be deployed for the Sochi Games. Police officers walk in front of the main press center at the Olympic Park in Sochi on January 7, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 19 19 photos: Sochi transformed Sochi transformed – The Olympic rings light up the sky outside Sochi International Airport. An estimated 3 billion people are expected to watch the Olympics on television. Hide Caption 19 of 19 
 
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 A large majority of direct flights into Russia will come from Europe or neighboring Asian countries. Only a few will originate in the United States. 
 
 Russian transportation officials have banned liquids in airline carry-on luggage ahead of the games, according to a report from the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. 
 
 A former airline security chief anticipated that the threat will prompt authorities in the United States and Europe to clamp down on toothpaste and cosmetics. 
 
 "My prediction is that they will give a direct order that they'll be removing toothpaste from passengers' hand-carried items" and possibly from checked luggage as well, said Glen Winn, a former security director at United and Continental airlines. 
 
 How far-reaching is 'ring of steel'? 
 
 Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration officials declined to say what, if any, security actions they are contemplating in light of the threat. 
 
 Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on terrorism and Intelligence, said on CNN's "The Situation Room" that Americans, the airlines and those at the Olympics should take the threat "very seriously." 
 
 King, a New York Republican, said he believes the athletes and American spectators are "reasonably safe," but noted that he would not go himself. 
 
 "Just as a spectator, I don't think it's worth the risk. I mean, odds are nothing is going to happen, but the odds are higher than for any other Olympics, I believe, that something could happen," he said. 
 
 King said he has some confidence in how the Russians are handling security, but "really not enough because they are not sharing enough intelligence" about what's happening inside the country. 
 
 "We are getting some information about what's happening outside of Russia, some external threats, that type thing, or potential threats. I don't want to overstate that," he said. 
 
 He noted a "ring of steel right around the Olympics itself" but said "there's a real cause for concern" about getting to Sochi and surrounding areas. 
 
 'Anybody who wants to go ... should go' 
 
 The Obama administration has not indicated it is not safe to travel to the Olympics. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry, in an exclusive interview with CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" before the toothpaste alert broke, said that "anybody who wants to go to the Olympics, which are just a great event, should go. And we're not telling people not to go." 
 
 Kerry added that people should be alert and take precautions, advice he says has been requisite since the 9/11 attacks. 
 
 "We've got a new consciousness about this," he said. 
 
 A senior administration official said it would make any information public through the State Department should it receive information that "changes our assessment of whether people should travel to Sochi." 
 
 Matthew Olsen, a top U.S. counterterrorism official, highlighted concern in testimony to Congress on Tuesday about whether Muslim fundamentalists in disputed regions of Russia -- or other groups -- could launch attacks on selected targets. 
 
 "There are a number of specific threats of varying degrees of credibility that we're tracking," he said. "And we're working very closely with the Russians and with other partners to monitor any threats we see and to disrupt those." 
 
 CNN has learned this threat is the one Olsen was referring to in his testimony. 
 
 Terrorism experts say that airlines continue to be a target of terrorists wishing to make a spectacular impact with an attack. The focus since 2001 has shifted from hijackings to bombs, especially those that might be hidden in luggage. 
 
 U.S. authorities are also mindful of creative packaging or other novel ways to conceal explosives. For instance, a failed attempt to blow up an overseas flight heading to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 involved a bomb concealed in a passenger's underwear. 
 
 Shortly after 9/11 a man was convicted of trying to blow up a transatlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes. ||||| Maxim Shemetov / Reuters file Sochi's Olympic Park is seen in December. 
 
 A catastrophic terrorist strike at the Sochi Winter Olympics would present the United States with a logistically mind-boggling and diplomatically delicate challenge: How to get more than 200 American athletes safely out of Russia. 
 
 U.S. military officials have described plans to use two warships in the Black Sea and planes already on standby in Europe to evacuate Americans if the worst fears of security experts come true. 
 
 But these are the Olympics of President Vladimir Putin, who is spending a reported $50 billion on the games, including a purportedly impenetrable “ring of steel” around the Olympic city, and who sees the games through a prism of national pride. 
 
 Any American rescue operation would depend heavily on his approval, security experts say. And that’s unlikely if not impossible. 
 
 NBC News' Richard Engel reports from inside the difficult-to-reach Coastal Cluster in Sochi. 
 
 “As far as being able to do things without Russian cooperation, it’s basically a nonstarter,” said Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a former Russia expert in the Clinton White House and an NBC News analyst. 
 
 “This is their territory, their country,” he said. “They get to decide what kind of outside help they need.” 
 
 Fears of Olympic terror have grown in the countdown to the games, which formally open Feb. 7. In the past week, a militant video has promised a “surprise” in Sochi, and Russia has hunted for at least five suspected terrorists who may have designs on an attack. 
 
 On Tuesday, police said they had killed a senior Islamist militant in Russia's North Caucasus as they hunted three Muslim women dubbed “black widows” and other terror suspects ahead of the Winter Olympics. 
 
 So while Putin’s ring of steel may help thwart larger coordinated attacks, experts are warning that lone attackers also pose a significant threat to the Games. 
 
 According to Gordon Woo, terrorism expert at risk management modeling firm RMS, analysis shows that terror plots involving up to 10 operatives have a 5 percent chance of succeeding. 
 
 Ezra Shaw / Getty Images Snowboarder Kelly Clark at a competition earlier this month. 
 
 "Smart terrorists" rein in their ambition and aim for simpler plots with fewer operatives, he said. 
 
 The U.S. Olympic Committee declined to discuss the details of security for the American athletes or what would happen in the event of an evacuation. 
 
 “The safety and security of Team USA is our top priority,” Patrick Sandusky, a USOC spokesman, said in a statement. 
 
 “As is always the case, we are working with the U.S. Department of State, the local organizers and the relevant law enforcement agencies in an effort to ensure that our delegation and other Americans traveling to Sochi are safe,” he said. 
 
 But at least part of the American contingent for Sochi, the skiing and snowboard teams, is paying a private company, Global Rescue, for additional security. 
 
 The company promises communications help, “rally points” for athletes to shelter in place and ways to get them around, or out of, Sochi. Dan Richards, the CEO, said in an interview that Global Rescue has six aircraft that it could “utilize for rapid response.” 
 
 Exactly how that would work — a private security company landing its planes in or around Sochi in the immediate aftermath of an attack — is not clear, and Richards declined to provide details of the company’s plans. 
 
 Global Rescue also offers its services to individuals and companies, and in recent years has helped customers during the Arab Spring, the earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan. 
 
 Counterterrorism analyst Michael Leiter says transportation in Russia is vulnerable in the high-threat areas surrounding Sochi. The terrorists who previously launched an attack, he said, have every incentive to do so again. 
 
 “In every major crisis we’ve been involved with, we’ve never had host governments deny us overflight or landing permission,” he said. “The likelihood is that we’ll all work together, the Russians, our government, other friendly government and other private companies.” 
 
 Richards would not say what the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association is paying for the additional protection. The skiers and snowboarders are among the richer American teams. 
 
 The American luge team — 10 athletes and four coaches, plus medical and support staff — will rely on the U.S. Olympic Committee, said Gordy Sheer, the team’s director of marketing and sponsorship. 
 
 “They’re working pretty hard, and we’ve been given a lot of assurances,” he said in a phone interview. “I feel that the USOC is really making it a priority, and obviously the Russians are as well.” 
 
 There are signs of concern among American athletes. Some, including at least two members of the high-profile hockey team, have told their families not to travel to Sochi to cheer them on. 
 
 “I’m actually really concerned about it,” Zach Parise, one of the hockey players, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul. “I know they say they have evacuation stuff for us and all, but you just never know. I guess you have to wonder at what point does someone say it isn’t a good idea for us to go.” 
 
 The biathlon team has bought satellite phones for its coaches and is recommending that traveling families of its 10 athletes purchase medical and evacuation insurance — the same already provided to Olympic athletes by the USOC — should anything go wrong, said Max Cobb, president and CEO of U.S. Biathlon. 
 
 Other American athletes say their minds are on getting ready for competition. 
 
 “I’m not worried about any safety issues in Russia at this point,” said Kelly Clark, a snowboarder competing in her fourth Winter Games. “We’re so focused on our competition and on our sport.” 
 
 U.S. officials say the terror threat is higher than at any previous Olympics. The State Department will have diplomatic security officers in Sochi, though it has declined to say how many, and the FBI will have a presence as well. 
 
 Evan Vucci / AP file President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin last June. 
 
 “The Russian government has the lead here for security,” Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters. “Obviously we’ve said we’re happy to assist in any way we can, certainly for American citizens.” 
 
 President Barack Obama spoke with Putin this week about Olympic security, and Russia has raised the possibility of the Americans’ sharing bomb-detecting technology for the games. That would mean having American military personnel on the ground to help. 
 
 But senior defense officials told NBC News on Wednesday that there was little or no chance that the technology could be in place in time. It would take months to train the Russians, and there has been no discussion of using the system in Sochi under total American control, they said. 
 
 And the Olympics take place at a time of frayed U.S.-Russian relations — tested by the Edward Snowden affair and the Boston Marathon bombings — not to mention the long shadow of the Cold War. 
 
 A large-scale attack would trigger almost unimaginable complications, said Weiss, the Russia expert. 
 
 For example: At least 85 countries and 2,500 athletes are taking part in the games. Sochi has a fairly small airport, so who gets to fly out first? And why should the Americans be given priority? 
 
 “Something that looks like the U.S. cavalry riding to rescue Russia or Vladimir Putin from an attack seems — well, it’s just hard to imagine that happening,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s all on Russia.” 
 
 Catherine Chomiak, Courtney Kube, Jim Miklaszewski, Andrea Mitchell and Michele Neubert of NBC News contributed to this report. 
 
 Related: 
 
 This story was originally published on ||||| New Zealand's Rebecca Torr takes a jump during the women's snowboard slopestyle qualifying at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana,... (Associated Press) 
 
 New Zealand's Rebecca Torr takes a jump during the women's snowboard slopestyle qualifying at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana,... (Associated Press) 
 
 SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Fast five, Thursday edition: Things you'll want to know about the 2014 Winter Olympics. 
 
 ___ 
 
 SECURITY: It's foremost on many minds as Olympic competition begins and thousands stream into the Black Sea resort city. The Russian government says it's doing all it can to ensure safety, and on Thursday a deputy prime minister went even further. "We can guarantee the safety of the people as well as any other government hosting a mass event," said Dmitry Kozak. 
 
 ___ 
 
 TOOTHPASTE: It's the latest item to fall under scrutiny after the U.S. Homeland Security Department warned airlines flying to Russia that terrorists might try to smuggle explosives on board hidden in toothpaste tubes. The threat was passed onto airlines that have direct flights to Russia, including some that originate in the United States, a law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press. 
 
 ___ 
 
 SNOWBOARDING: It begins, but without marquee name Shaun White, the world's most famous snowboarder. He pulled out of slopestyle, a new Olympic event, to concentrate on the halfpipe, where he'll have a chance to win his third straight title next week. After practice slopestyle runs, White said: "The potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on." 
 
 ___ 
 
 WORLD LEADERS: It's a record, says the Sochi Olympics' chief organizer: Sixty-five heads of state and government and international organizations will be attending Russia's first Winter Games. Dmitry Chernyshenko says that's more than any other Winter Olympics and three times the number of leaders who attended the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Here's who you won't see, though: President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German President Joachim Gauck. 
 
 ___ 
 
 OPENING APPROACHES: Friday night's opening ceremony will showcase Russia to the world on its own terms — a storyline intended to impress the many nations in attendance and allow President Vladimir Putin to put forth the message he's been trumpeting for months now: that his country has successfully combined its storied history with modern innovation and is ready for anything. The intended audience is as much Russians as it is the rest of the world. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: http://apne.ws/1c3WMiu ||||| Story highlights Before Sochi Olympics, predictions of terrorist action were rampant 
 
 Peter Bergen says the Games were unaffected and predictions turned out to be wrong 
 
 He says such forecasts fit into a long history of "sky is falling" warnings 
 
 Bergen: Statements that al Qaeda represents big threat to U.S. now are off base 
 
 "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future" is an aphorism attributed to the great baseball player Yogi Berra. 
 
 But one topic where pundits, politicians and prognosticators of every persuasion don't have any problem about making pessimistic predictions is terrorism. 
 
 The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, was an Olympic-level example of this. In the lead-up to the Games, the airwaves were filled with glum predictions that Sochi would be the 1972 Munich Olympics on steroids. 
 
 Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News, "There's a high degree of probability that something will detonate, something will go off. ... But I do think it's probably, most likely going to happen outside the 'ring of steel' at the Olympic Village." 
 
 Similarly, Michael G. Grimm, co-chair of the House Russian Caucus, issued a press release headlined, "Sochi Olympics Cannot Become a Benghazi Nightmare." The New York Republican warned, "We cannot sweep these threats under the rug, like we did with Benghazi or the warnings from Russia on the Tsarnaev brother behind the Boston Marathon bombing. Each time we fail to recognize these threats, we not only risk the lives of innocent Americans, but appear weaker and vulnerable in the eyes of the enemy." 
 
 Bill Rathburn, who directed security for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, in an interview with Yahoo News predicted of Sochi, "It's not a matter of whether there will be some incident, it's just a matter of how bad it's going to be." 
 
 No wonder that two days before the Sochi Olympics, more than half of Americans believed a terrorist attack on the Games was likely, according to a CNN/ORC poll. 
 
 Just Watched Terrorists near Sochi target planes replay More Videos ... Terrorists near Sochi target planes 04:20 PLAY VIDEO 
 
 Just Watched U.S. on alert for terror in Sochi replay More Videos ... U.S. on alert for terror in Sochi 02:24 PLAY VIDEO 
 
 Just Watched Terrorism in Russia and the Olympics replay More Videos ... Terrorism in Russia and the Olympics 04:36 PLAY VIDEO 
 
 Now cue up the swarms of "black widows" descending on Sochi to kill themselves along with many Olympic spectators. 
 
 And then the Games were held and ... nothing happened 
 
 It turned out that the most terrifying image from Sochi was the look of disgust on the face of American figure skater Ashley Wagner when she learned of her lower-than-expected score. 
 
 Sochi is only the most recent example of the hyperventilating hyperbole of the doomsday terrorism prognosticators. Because so many folks were caught flat-footed by 9/11, some seem to overcompensate by keeping up a steady drumbeat of dire terror warnings. 
 
 In November, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, told CNN that al Qaeda "poses a bigger threat to attack inside the U.S. right now than it did before 9/11." 
 
 Rogers' statement defies common sense. 
 
 Before 9/11, al Qaeda had an entire county, Afghanistan, as a safe haven; its training camps there churned out thousands of militants every year; it had access to funding substantial enough so that it could spend several hundred thousand dollars on the 9/11 plot. It was a formidable enemy. 
 
 Now al Qaeda's safe haven is long gone; the group hasn't mounted any successful attack in the States since 9/11 or, for that matter, anywhere in the West since the London transportation system bombings in 2005. 
 
 On 9/11, the United States had never used armed drones in combat. Since then, the CIA has launched 370 drone strikes at suspected militant targets in Pakistan. During President Barack Obama's tenure alone, those drone strikes have killed more than 30 of al Qaeda's leaders in Pakistan. 
 
 Not only that: The United States is a much harder target than it was on 9/11. Then there were 16 people on the U.S. "no fly" list. 
 
 Today there are more than 20,000. In 2001, there were 32 Joint Terrorism Task Force "fusion centers," where multiple law enforcement agencies worked together to chase down leads and build terrorism cases. Now there are 103. 
 
 The U.S. intelligence budget also grew dramatically after 9/11. In 2010, the United States spent more than $80 billion on intelligence collection and other covert activities, much of it directed at terrorist groups -- more than three times what the country spent in 1998. 
 
 At the time of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Transportation Security Administration all didn't exist. All these new post-9/11 institutions make it much harder for terrorists to operate in the United States. 
 
 The gloom and doom about terrorism becomes much worse when the specter of terrorists deploying chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons is added to the mix. 
 
 Graham Allison, the respected political scientist and founding dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, published a book in 2004 titled "Nuclear Terrorism, which garnered considerable attention with its prediction that "on the current path, a nuclear terrorist attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not." 
 
 Of course, now we are a decade later, and nothing of the sort has happened. 
 
 Indeed, a striking finding of a database of every jihadist terrorism case in the United States since 9/11 maintained by the New America Foundation is that not one of the more than 200 individuals who were indicted or convicted of a jihadist terrorism crime acquired, manufactured or deployed chemical, biological or radiological weapons, let alone a nuclear device. 
 
 It's relatively easy to say the sky is always falling. Indeed, given the human capacity for evil, bad things are, indeed, going to happen. But when the sky doesn't fall, which is much of the time when it comes to terrorism, the doomsday prognosticators are rarely held to account. In any event, they are too busy warning of the next catastrophe. 
 
 Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion. 
 
 Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.
– Sochi's opening ceremony kicks off at 11am ET tomorrow, and if you just can't wait for the Olympic news to begin, well, here you go. Competition has already started: Some 32 hours before the opening ceremony, to be exact. The AP reports that early starts are required because Sochi's slate holds a dozen men's and women's medal events added since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Everything happening in advance of tomorrow are just qualifying rounds, though. Among them: men's snowboard slopestyle and women's moguls. Security: Everyone is worried about it, and Russia says everyone should chill. USA Today reports that Russian deputy PM Dmitry Kozak today said, "The level of threat in Sochi is no worse than in New York, Washington, or Boston. Based on information we received from our intelligence services, there's no reason to believe Sochi is under more threat than any city on the planet." He would not, however, comment specifically on... ...Toothpaste bombs: Homeland Security officials yesterday said airlines flying to Russia ahead of the Olympics ought to pay special attention to passengers' toothpaste tubes because they could contain explosives to make a bomb. DHS officials aren't aware of any specific plot in the works, though. Dangerous course? Shaun White made waves when he pulled out of aforementioned new Olympic event slopestyle yesterday, saying that "the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on." The Washington Post reports that it's only added to the questions of the extreme nature of the course, which killed the gold medal dreams of Norway's Torstein Horgmo on Monday when he broke his collarbone in a training session. After a number of athletes clamored for changes, the tops and bottoms of a few of the jumps were "smoothed out." A record: These Winter Olympics will see more heads of state and government and international organizations than any prior Winter Games, and three times the number of leaders who showed up in Vancouver, reports the AP. Of course, big names like Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, and David Cameron won't be there. And then there's the gripes about the accommodations and the food...