A Nasa spacecraft that will hurtle past Pluto on Tuesday at more than 45,000 kilometres per hour has revealed the dwarf planet to be larger than scientists thought.

 Fresh measurements from New Horizons, the first spacecraft to reach Pluto on the outer edge of the solar system, show that it is 2,370 kilometres across, roughly two-thirds the size of Earth’s moon.

 Alan Stern, the lead scientist on the $700m (£450m) mission, said the increased dimensions meant Pluto must hold more ice and less rock beneath its surface than researchers had expected. Pluto has been hard to measure with any accuracy from Earth because it is so far away, and its atmosphere creates mirages that can fool ground-based telescopes.

 Other instruments onboard New Horizons confirmed that Pluto’s north pole bears an icy cap. The latest measurements beamed to Earth from the probe picked up chemical signatures of methane and nitrogen ice in the polar cap.

 One early image received from New Horizons last week showed Pluto as an orangey globe bearing a large bright spot shaped like a heart. More recent images have revealed cliffs, craters and chasms larger than the Grand Canyon.

 “The science we’ve already made is mouth-watering,” said Stern. “The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty.”

 New Horizons will perform its historic flyby at 12.49pm BST on Tuesday. But scientists must wait until 2am BST on Wednesday for the probe to make contact with Earth and confirm it has survived the encounter.

 The most dangerous hazards for New Horizons are dust particles trapped in orbit around Pluto after being dislodged from its moons by meteorite impacts. A strike from a dust particle the size of a grain of rice could destroy the spacecraft, but the risk of such a disaster is low, at around one in 10,000.

 The New Horizons spacecraft has spent more than nine years on its 4.8bn kilometre journey to Pluto, the last world in the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft. On board are seven sophisticated instruments and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930.

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 When the probe blasted off in January 2006, Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system. Seven months later, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union voted to downgrade the icy body to a dwarf planet, because it does not dominate its region of space in the way the other major planets do.

 The spacecraft will take scores of photographs as it speeds past Pluto and its five known moons, Charon, Hydra, Nix, STyx and Kerberos. The images will give the first close-up view of the mountains and valleys of the unknown world, and its tenuous atmosphere seen as the sun rises and sets behind it. Instruments on New Horizons might even find evidence that it snows on the tiny world.

 Nasa officials expect the first images from the flyby to be released on Wednesday night. The snapshots from onboard cameras will capture details up to 100 metres across, a vast improvement on those taken on approach, which pick out features about 15 kilometres across.

 But scientists are in for a long wait to learn everything New Horizons sees. The probe will collect so much information as it passes Pluto that it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth.

 The mission marks the end of the US space agency’s bid to explore every planet in the solar system, starting with Venus in 1962. Tuesday’s flyby coincides with the 50th anniversary of the first ever fly-by of Mars by the Mariner 4 probe. ||||| An illustration of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

 Nine and a half years after it launched into space, a NASA probe is set to become the first spacecraft to fly by the dwarf planet Pluto. The New Horizons spacecraft is expected to make its closest approach tomorrow (July 14) at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT), coming within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto's surface. But even 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion km) away, the historic mission could help scientists learn more about planet Earth. This is because studying other objects in the solar system can provide clues about Earth's history. Here are five things researchers can learn about Earth by studying the dwarf planet Pluto.

 How Earth formed

 Earth and the other planets in this solar system were likely born after a bunch of smaller objects smashed into each other. In fact, early in Earth's history, a Mars-sized object nearly annihilated the planet, according to NASA.The resulting pieces of debris eventually coalesced into the moon we see today. [Photo Timeline: How the Earth Formed]

 Artist's impression of a planetary system being formed. Credit: NASA

 Roughly 4 billion years ago, the inner solar system was a billiard zone, partly because Jupiter's strong gravity served as a slingshot that sent asteroids and comets hurtling toward the sun. In the region of space where Pluto is found, called the Kuiper Belt, icy and rocky objects had a relatively tranquil environment. This means that observing Pluto (and similar objects in the Kuiper Belt) offers hints about what the solar system looked like early in its history.

 Where Earth's water came from

 Last year, scientists discovered that water from comets may not have seeded Earth with life-building molecules, as had previously been thought. Observations from the European Rosetta spacecraft showed a different type of water on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The molecules of water (specifically, the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio) were different from the molecules found on Earth, according to a study published in the journal Science in December 2014.

 There are many objects in the solar system that are icy, including moons, dwarf planets and even parts of the planet Mars. It's possible that there is ice on Pluto as well, scientists have said. Examining the ice on the dwarf planet could help researchers refine theories about how water spread through the solar system.

 How life began on Earth

 Life on Earth is full of carbon. This is why the potential discovery of organics (carbon-based molecules) in other parts of the solar system is such an exciting prospect. While not every organic chemical originated from something living, they are considered the building blocks of life.

 Are there organics even on icy, hostile Pluto? There are some reasons to think there may be, given that organics have been found in similarly life-unfriendly environments such as Mercury and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Finding organic material — or even not finding them — could give scientists a better idea of how life first arose on Earth.

 Earth's atmospheric structure

 Earth's atmosphere, as seen from high above the surface. Credit: NASA

 Pluto has something of a bizarre atmosphere. The dwarf planet's gravity is so low that its tenuous atmosphere extends much higher than Earth's atmosphere does. Some scientists think the dwarf planet's atmosphere collapses onto the surface when Pluto is colder. Because Pluto's orbit is taking it closer to the sun right now, gases in the atmosphere are heating up and expanding. [5 Strange Facts About Pluto]

 By studying the atmospheres of other worlds, astronomers can learn more about how these same processes work on Earth. For example, Venus has a hothouse surface driven by a runaway greenhouse effect. Measurements of Venus' superhot, hellish atmosphere have helped scientists better understand global warming on Earth.

 How the sun affects Earth

 Life on Earth wouldn't survive for long without the sun. Most of the heat on Earth comes from its closest stellar neighbor. The sun even has effects high in the atmosphere, such as when solar flares belch gas (called coronal mass ejections) toward Earth and "excite" molecules in its atmosphere, causing stunning auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights).

 While auroras are benign, the sun's radiation can also zap power lines or satellites during so-called geomagnetic storms. Scientists are interested in seeing how the sun interacts with atmospheres throughout the solar system, including at Pluto. These observations will help researchers better predict the effects of intense solar activity, ranging from what happens after a solar flare to how the sun affects Earth's climate.

 Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| Image copyright NASA/JHU-APL/SWRI Image caption Pluto (R) and Charon (L) are the key targets for observation during the flyby

 Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft has begun the most intense period of its encounter with Pluto.

 The probe is set to hurtle past the dwarf world on Tuesday, grabbing a mass of pictures and other science data.

 Controllers got a last health status report, before the robotic craft turned its antenna away from the Earth to concentrate on its target.

 Only when New Horizons has its trove of images safely in its onboard memory will it call home again.

 This is not expected to happen until just after midnight (GMT) into Wednesday.

 It means there will be a long, anxious wait for everyone connected with the mission, as they hold out for a signal that will be coming from almost five billion km away.

 New Horizons' flyby of 2,370km-wide Pluto is a key moment in the history of space exploration.

 Its successful execution will complete the initial reconnaissance of the "classical" nine planets in our Solar System.

 It will mark the fact that every body in that system - from Mercury through to Pluto - will have been visited at least once by a space probe.

 Image copyright NASA Image caption The robotic probe turns its antenna away from Earth during the flyby

 New Horizons has been returning a steady stream of information on approach to the dwarf world in recent days, but this will be as nothing compared to the huge number of observations it plans to acquire when passing just 12,500km from the surface.

 This is timed to occur at 11:50 GMT (12:50 BST).

 The probe will investigate not only Pluto but also its five moons: Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra.

 To achieve that, it must perform a furious set of manoeuvres as it points every which way in the sky to get the images and other types of data it needs.

 "I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," New Horizons' principal investigator, Alan Stern, told BBC News.

 Just getting the probe in position to make the flyby has been a monumental feat.

 Because the observations are all run on an automated command sequence, New Horizons must fly a perfect path past Pluto, and with perfect timing - otherwise its cameras will shoot empty sky where the dwarf or its moons are expected to be.

 This has necessitated aiming New Horizons at a "keyhole" in space just 100km by 150km (60miles by 90 miles), and arriving at that location within a set margin of 100 seconds.

 All this has been achieved after a multi-billion-km flight across the Solar System lasting nine and a half years.

 The mission team will not celebrate until New Horizons contacts Earth again, which should happen at 00:53 GMT Wednesday (01:53 BST).

 This communication will contain only engineering information on the status of the probe, but controllers should be able to tell very quickly whether the flyby sequence worked properly or not.

 The first high-resolution pictures from the pass should be downlinked later on Wednesday.

 There is a very small possibility that New Horizons could be lost as it flies through the Pluto system.

 Any stray icy debris would be lethal if it collides with the spacecraft at its 14km/s velocity (31,000mph).

 As an insurance policy, the mission team therefore downlinked one last set of data from all seven of the probe's instruments on Monday.

 This included a final full-frame picture of Pluto before the approaching dwarf filled the entire field of view. This image is expected to be released by Nasa on its website at the moment of closest approach on Tuesday.

 Media caption Prof Alan Stern says Pluto is "a little larger than anticipated"

 On Monday, the New Horizons team announced a new, more precise measurement of Pluto's diameter at 2,370km. The probe sees the girth of Charon to be very similar to earlier estimates, at 1,208km.

 Nix is estimated to be about 35km across, and Hydra about 45km in diameter. Kerberos and Hydra are a lot smaller, but New Horizons has not yet been able to make a good determination of their size. This will come from the flyby data.

 Image copyright NASA Image caption How Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, compare in size to the Earth

 The BBC will be screening a special Sky At Night programme called Pluto Revealed on Monday 20 July, which will recap all the big moments from the New Horizons flyby.

 Follow Jonathan on Twitter. ||||| CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was expected to get up-close and personal with Pluto on Tuesday, on track to zoom within 7,800 miles of the small icy world left unexplored until now.

 This July 11, 2015, image provided by NASA shows Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft. On Tuesday, July 14, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will come closest to Pluto. New Horizons has traveled 3 billion... (Associated Press)

 It's the final destination on NASA's planetary tour of the solar system, which began more than a half-century ago. Pluto was still a full-fledged planet when New Horizons rocketed away in 2006, only to become demoted to dwarf status later that year.

 The 3 billion-mile journey from Cape Canaveral, Florida, culminates Tuesday at 7:49 a.m. EDT. That's when the spacecraft is due to fly past Pluto at 31,000 mph.

 The New Horizons team gathered at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, won't know for many hours if everything went well. The spacecraft will be too busy taking photographs and collecting information to "phone home." A confirmation signal is expected at around 9 p.m. EDT.

 New Horizons has already beamed back the best-ever images of Pluto and big moon Charon. Pluto also has four little moons.

 "The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness, its alien beauty," principal scientist Alan Stern told reporters Monday.

 Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the largest object in the so-called Kuiper Belt, considered the third zone of the solar system after the inner rocky planets and outer gaseous ones. This unknown territory is a shooting gallery of comets and other small bodies.

 An extension of the $720 million mission, not yet approved, could have New Horizons flying past another much smaller Kuiper Belt object, before departing the solar system.

 ___

 Online:

 NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/

 Johns Hopkins University: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ ||||| Ahead of Tuesday's historic flyby, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has already delivered data that 'is a gift for the ages.' Among the discoveries: Pluto is bigger than previously thought.

 Will Macy's become the next store to drop the Ivanka Trump brand?

 On the eve of NASA's historic flyby of Pluto, scientists and tourists at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona are excited about the images and discoveries the New Horizons' spacecraft will beam back to Earth.

 NASA's New Horizons mission to the Pluto-Charon system has yet to mark its finest hours – a historic flyby that makes its closest approach to the binary planet and its moons Tuesday morning.

 But even as the spacecraft puts the wraps on its final approach, data New Horizons has delivered within the past 48 hours "is a gift for the ages," says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and the mission's principal investigator.

 The craft's approach is revealing "tremendous diversity between the two planets in the system and their moons," he said. "We're already seeing complex and nuanced surfaces that tell us of history for these two bodies that is probably beyond our wildest dreams."

 In short, "the Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and alien beauty," Dr. Stern said during a briefing Monday.

 How alien?

 It's as though "we're on the bridge of the Enterprise approaching some alien planet around Alpha Centauri 3 or whatever it is," said Paul Schenk, a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston and a member of the New Horizons science team. "It's like someone painted it for a 'Star Trek' episode."

 Even seemingly mundane measurements, such as a new, more-accurate determination of Pluto's size – now pegged at 1,473 miles across, at the high end of estimates that have ranged from 1,429 miles to around 1,491 miles – carry import.

 The new size, combined with long-established, precise measurements of Pluto's mass, yields a dwarf planet a bit less dense than previously estimated. That means its interior contains more ice, versus rock, than previously estimated. This change has implications – yet to be worked out – for the process that formed the binary-planet system as well as for the chemistry of the disk of dust, gas, and ice that encircled the sun and provided the building blocks for the planets ad their moons, Stern explained.

 Bragging rights also come into play.

 "The new measurement unambiguously settles the debate about the largest object in the Kuiper Belt," Stern said, referring to a region of the solar system extending more than 2 billion miles beyond Neptune. By some estimates, the region hosts trillions of comets as well as several hundred thousand objects larger than 60 miles across. It's also the region that gave birth to Pluto and the object that would collide with it to form Charon. Another Kuiper Belt inhabitant, Eris, had previously laid claim to the "largest" label at 1,445 miles across.

 A larger Pluto also means that the lower layer of the atmosphere is shallower than previously thought, which will affect models that try to shed light on the atmosphere's structure and behavior.

 Another early result involves nitrogen escaping from Pluto's tenuous atmosphere. New Horizons' instruments began to pick up the great escape five days ago, when the craft supposedly was too far away to see it, Stern said. It could mean that the nitrogen is fleeing the planet at a higher rate than models have suggested or that the mechanism responsible for triggering the loss is different than researchers have anticipated.

 In addition, incoming data show that a hypothesized polar cap on Pluto is in fact an ice cap consisting of nitrogen and methane ices.

 New Horizons also is revealing features on Pluto that are generating speculation, pending more detail from measurements taken at the closest approach.

 For instance, images of Pluto released over the weekend show a surface that in many places hosted vast expanses of small, tightly packed dimple-like formations.

 The features appear to be similar to those on Neptune's moon Triton, Dr. Schenk said. Triton – itself thought to be a Kuiper Belt object that Neptune captured – hosts a surface "that looks like a boiling pot of porridge, with cells of material popping up. They create a cellular pattern that looks like the skin of a cantaloupe."

 There, researchers suspect that relatively buoyant rock or ice has risen from deeper in the crust to build the array of hills and depressions – similar in principle to salt domes that rise through surrounding rock to form low hills in southern Louisiana or southeastern Texas.

 The science team hopes to get a closer look at some of these dimpled regions in images New Horizons takes during its closest approach Tuesday morning.

 In addition, images so far show a relatively smooth surface over much of Pluto, suggesting that the surface could be relatively young, Schenk said.

 Again, he cites Triton as a possible analog. The relative smoothness of much of Triton's surface suggests that it's less than 100 million years old. "On Triton, everything is very young," Schenk said.

 It speaks to Triton as a captured Kuiper Belt object whose orbit around Neptune initially would have been elliptical, but over time became circular. The change in orbit would have heated Triton significantly, allowing fresh material to well up from depth and repave the surface, erasing any evidence of impact craters that would have accumulated over time.

 On Pluto, "we're not seeing any large craters that would pop out and say: There's a big basin here," he says. "So we're beginning to think that maybe that it's a very young surface."

 The source of internal heating required to provide material for repaving Pluto is unclear, Schenk acknowledges. Perhaps heat left over from the impact that formed Charon remained intense enough long enough to provide sources of fresh material for resurfacing Pluto.

 "We still don't know," he says. "But we'll find that out."

 [Correction: This article has been updated to correct the new measurements of Pluto's diameter.] ||||| Pluto is pictured from a million miles away in this July 11, 2015 handout image from New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).

 SYDNEY A space tracking station surrounded by cows in an Australian valley will on Tuesday become the first place in the world to get close-up images of Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored.

 After nine-and-half years of traveling 5.3 billion km (3.3 billion miles), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s spacecraft New Horizons will get within 12,500 km (7,800 miles) of Pluto on Tuesday evening.

 The spacecraft has been sent specifically to take pictures of Pluto, a part of the solar system that has been in deep freeze for billions of years. The data will be relayed back to the tracking station at Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC).

 "It's very exciting because we have never ever visited Pluto, either by robots or man missions because it is so far away," CDSCC Director Ed Kruzins told Reuters.

 Up to now, little has been known about Pluto, the most distant planetary body in the solar system and the last to be explored by NASA.

 It was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006 and is thought to contain important clues about the origins of the solar system.

 "There's a feeling among scientists that Pluto probably will tell us what the early solar system looked like and it's now locked in deep freeze and maybe it will tell us what we once were, a long time ago," Kruzins said.

 New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever launched, is due to send a message that will be received by the Australian tracking station on Wednesday - a key message that will determine if the mission has been a success.

 Each piece of data will then take about four-and-half hours to transmit, with the full dataset taking about 15 months to complete.

 New Horizons will travel at 58,000 km (36,039 miles) per hour past Pluto, Kruzins said, which could pose a problem if there is any space debris.

 "Even a grain of sand would cause significant damage to the vehicle, it would be like being hit by a brick at 70 kilometers per hour," Kruzins said.

 The tracking station, 35 km (20 miles) from the capital of Canberra, is part of NASA's Deep Space network and is one of only three tracking stations in the world.

 New Horizons will be at its closest to Pluto for about 24 hours before continuing on its journey to the outer solar system.

 (Editing by Robert Birsel) ||||| NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly within 8,000 miles of Pluto on Tuesday and reveal the last world in the solar system—or at least the last of the planets that most of us learned about in school. Until now, Pluto’s face has remained hidden because it's so far away. To really see it as more than a blurry blob, we needed to go there. (Learn more about the historic mission to Pluto on the National Geographic Channel.)

 But getting to the icy world is no easy feat. By the time New Horizons reaches Pluto at 7:50 a.m. EDT Tuesday, it will have traveled roughly 3 billion miles for a single, fleeting chance to fly past the dwarf planet.

 Launched in 2006, New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft to ever leave Earth. It crossed the orbit of Jupiter the next year and has been traveling nearly a million miles a day —but it still took 9.5 years for the spacecraft to reach Pluto and its moons.

 View Images On Saturday, New Horizons got one of its last looks at this side of Pluto, which faces its moon Charon. Captured from a distance of 2.5 million miles from Pluto, the photo shows mysterious geometric features above the equator, along with sinewy dark splotches. Photograph by NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

 In fact, New Horizons is going so fast—more than 30,000 miles per hour—that the spacecraft will pass by Pluto in just three minutes.

 The entire close encounter lasts for hours, though, with New Horizons making hundreds of observations of Pluto and its five bizarre moons . The first of the highest-resolution images will be released Wednesday afternoon, and the rest of the data will trickle in over the next 16 months.

 While waiting for the flyby at New Horizons mission headquarters, space writer Nadia Drake answers some of the biggest questions about Tuesday's event.

 1. Why a flyby? Why not slow down or orbit Pluto?

 Simply put, slowing down and orbiting Pluto is nearly impossible if you want to get there in a reasonable amount of time. The planet’s gravity is so weak that a spacecraft pulling into orbit would need to be going really slowly. For New Horizons to slow down enough, it would have to carry enough fuel to fire its brakes and reverse all its forward momentum—that’s about as much fuel as was used to launch the spacecraft and get it zooming along in the first place. Launching all that propellent, plus the spacecraft, is pretty much impossible . (Read about chasing Pluto's shadow ).

 WATCH: NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Pluto on July 14, after traveling three billion miles from Earth in roughly 9.5 years. Video by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

 2. We see amazing shots of faraway galaxies, so why haven't we ever gotten a good picture of Pluto?

 Though they’re far away, those distant, glittering galaxies are really big and bright, which is why telescopes like Hubble can see them. But Pluto is too small and dim for even our sharpest Earth-based eyes to get a good look at: It's only about two-thirds as wide as Earth’s moon. Even dwarf planet Ceres, which lives much closer to Earth, is too small to be anything but a blurry blob in Hubble pictures. (Learn more about Pluto's first close-up ).

 3. What's the biggest thing that could go wrong?

 It could be disastrous for the spacecraft to run into a dust particle as it flies through the Pluto system. Because the spacecraft is going so fast, colliding with something the size of a rice pellet could be catastrophic. So, the team has spent the last few weeks intensively surveying the system for anything that might be shedding dust and debris in the spacecraft’s path, and so far have found nothing to be concerned about. (Learn what happened when the spacecraft went silent ).

 4. What will the pictures of Pluto look like?

 The images coming back from New Horizons are already by far the best ever taken of the dwarf planet, even though the latest image, on July 12, was taken from about a million miles away. Tuesday’s encounter will produce close-up, detailed images of Pluto and Charon, plus some images of the smaller moons. (Also see " Three Possible Plutos ").

 On the side of Pluto that the spacecraft will be able to see, features as small as the lakes in New York City’s Central Park will be visible. But that’s not all: After New Horizons zooms by Pluto, it will swivel around and take a look at the planet’s south pole, which we haven’t seen yet. (Check out the weirdest feature I'd like to see on Pluto ). Facing away from the sun, that pole is in the dark, except for the soft glow of sunlight reflected off Charon. In other words, New Horizons will give us a glimpse of Pluto’s wintry pole, in Charon's moonlight. (Also see: " Proposed Names for Pluto System's Features Include Kirk and Spock ").

 5. How long does it take to send a photo of Pluto to Earth?

 Radio signals traveling at the speed of light take 4.5 hours to travel between Pluto and Earth. So, data received from New Horizons will have been on the road for about as long as it takes to drive between San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Because of that, it will take about 16 months for all of New Horizons’ flyby data to make it to Earth—meaning that new discoveries will be trickling in through the end of 2016. (See the first color image of Pluto from New Horizons ).

 View Images The New Horizons spacecraft, illustrated here flying past Pluto, traveled about 3 billion miles to visit the dwarf planet and its five known moons. Illustration by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)

 6. What are we going to learn about Pluto?

 New Horizons will take a good, detailed look at Pluto and its large moon Charon (in fact, Charon is so large it forms a binary system with Pluto). Scientists are curious about Pluto’s terrains and composition, whether there’s evidence for geologic activity, and what the planet’s thin, nitrogen atmosphere is doing. They’ll also be looking for clues to how the Pluto system formed and evolved—and many of those clues might lie in the features of the four small moons Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx . (Check out Pluto's possible polar cap ).

 7. What will New Horizons do after it passes Pluto? How long can it keep going?

 After New Horizons passes Pluto, it will continue sailing on into the Kuiper Belt, which is a vast, icy debris ring outside the orbit of Neptune. If NASA approves it, New Horizons will sail past and study another icy world within the next five years. The spacecraft carries enough fuel for that encounter (it’ll use the propellent to adjust its course), and will still be able to send data back to Earth, even though that body is nearly a billion miles farther out. Ultimately, it will continue heading out of the solar system, much as NASA’s Voyager I and II spacecraft are doing. (Learn more about New Horizon's Mission ).

 8. Is this our only chance, or will any other spacecraft be going to Pluto?

 There are no plans at this point to send another spacecraft to Pluto, but it sure would be nice to learn even more about that enigmatic little world and its cousins on the fringe of the observable solar system.

 9. Is it carrying a message for aliens?

 Not yet. There is a project, called the One Earth Message, that aims to upload a digital message to the spacecraft once it’s done collecting data and sending it all to Earth. That could be years from now, if New Horizons flies by another body in the Kuiper Belt. The message would be something like a new version of the Voyager Golden Record , which carried the sights and sounds of Planet Earth into the cosmos aboard the Voyager I and II spacecraft.

 10. What did New Horizons do during the nine years it took to get to Pluto?

 It spent a lot of that time hibernating, but did occasionally wake up for system tests. And, of course, it woke up to take a look at Jupiter as it flew by the giant planet in 2007. No sense missing out on that view! Later, when it crossed Neptune’s orbit in 2014, New Horizons woke up again to snap a picture of the icy blue giant—but Neptune was so far away it looked like a faint dot. (Learn about the spacecraft first awakening after a multi-year nap ). ||||| This collaborative project is an extension of the 2016 End of Term project, intended to document the federal government's web presence by archiving government websites and data. As part of this preservation effort, URLs supplied from partner institutions, as well as nominated by the public, will be crawled regularly to provide an on-going view of federal agencies' web and social media presence. Key partners on this effort are the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative and the Data Refuge project. This collection is a continuation of the 2016 End of Term web archiving and, as such, is deduplicated against that collection. It allows for the ongoing archiving of publicly nominated websites beyond the "official" end of the End of Term project.

 Interested members of the public, particularly government information specialists, are invited to submit selected web sites to be included in the collection using the public nomination tool.

 For more information on partner institutions, web crawling and past End of Term projects, please visit the End of Term Archive. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– This is one of the biggest days in the exploration of our solar system since Voyager 2 approached Neptune in 1989—and there may not be a day like it again. According to NASA's calculations, its New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto at 31,000mph at 7:49am EDT today; confirmation of that will come tonight, some 13 hours later, reports the AP. The confirmation will mark the completion of NASA's tour of the "classical nine" planets, reports the AP, which notes that Pluto was considered a full-fledged planet instead of a dwarf one when the probe began its journey in 2006. Some things to know about the historic flyby, which comes 50 years to the day after the first successful flyby of Mars: New Horizons will have to capture a vast amount of data in a short time. The probe will be pushed to its limits as it pivots to capture photos and information on Pluto and its moons Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra during the flyby. "I can't wait to get into the data and really start making sense of it. Right now, we're just standing under the waterfall and enjoying it," principal New Horizons scientist Alan Stern tells the BBC. We don't know whether it was a success. The probe is far too busy to "phone home," the AP notes, but it's expected to send a confirmation signal at around 9pm tonight. The eagerly awaited first photos from the flyby should be released tomorrow night, the Guardian reports, though it will take 16 months to send all the data from the flyby back to Earth. We've already learned a lot of new things about Pluto. "The science we've already made is mouth-watering," says Stern. "The Pluto system is enchanting in its strangeness and its alien beauty." Among NASA's findings in recent days: Pluto's North Pole has an icy cap and the planet's diameter is 1,597 miles across, not 1,471 miles as previously thought. The finding suggests the planet contains a lot more ice and a lot less rock than thought, the Christian Science Monitor reports. There are still a lot of mysteries to be solved. Scientists hope the first close-up look at Pluto's surface will explain features like heart- and doughnut-shaped features recently spotted for the first time. LiveScience notes that new information from Pluto could help explain how our own planet formed and how life began. "There's a feeling among scientists that Pluto probably will tell us what the early solar system looked like and it's now locked in deep freeze and maybe it will tell us what we once were, a long time ago," the director of the Deep Space Communication Complex tells Reuters. The Australian facility will be first to receive new information from the spacecraft. New Horizons isn't done. New Horizons will keep traveling into the Kuiper Belt debris field and beyond after it passes Pluto, National Geographic notes, and it may have more research to do if NASA approves funding. (The astronomer who first spotted Pluto in 1930 is the spacecraft's only passenger.)


Article:

SEBRING - An 81-year-old Sebring woman arrested late last year after being accused of illegally feeding bears, was again arrested this week and accused of violation of probation, besides threatening to kill an officer, according to a report.

 Mary H. Musselman, 5240 Kenilworth Blvd., Sebring, was arrested by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and also charged with resisting an officer with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer.

 Musselman was placed on probation Jan. 24 for two counts of feeding black bears, according to a probable cause affidavit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

 Originally, she had been placed on diversion, meaning that if she didn't violate the law for a certain period of time, her charges would have been removed the record.

 But the affidavit said she violated the diversion agreement and was placed on probation.

 Musselman was arrested on the violation of probation charge after an FWCC officer saw outside Musselman's house "numerous bowls and trays with birdseed and corn, four hanging birdfeeders with birdseed in them, a wooden plank and a whole corn with and birdseed and whole corn on the ground."

 As part of her probation, Musselman had been ordered not to put out food for animals for a year, the affidavit said.

 Gary Morse, spokesman for the commission, said officers had been dealing with Musselman since November 2012 after getting a report that she fed bears. As a result, one of the bears was euthanized.

 Under Florida law its a misdemeanor to feed bears, Morse said.

 "It's pretty well known what the consequences are of feeding bears," Morse said. The bear will lose its fear of humans and will become more apt to search for food in areas where humans live, he said.

 Once a bear has been fed and lost its fear of humans, Morse said, there's little choice but to trap and euthanize the animal.

 "You can't relocate them because they become problems somewhere else," he said.

 Most of the problems between bears and humans in Florida come about because someone is intentionally - such as by leaving out food for other animals or leaving garbage cans unsecured - or unintentionally feeding the bears, Morse said. It's also illegal to feed alligators, raccoons, pelicans and sandhill cranes, he said.

 The issues regarding Musselman began in early November when the agency received a report about her feeding bears, Morse said. An FWCC officer visited Musselman and learned that she had been feeding one or more bears for several months, he said.

 Musselman was given a warning, told that feeding bears is illegal and educated about the problems associated with that, he said.

 On, Nov. 12, the bear she was feeding as of Nov. 8 was euthanized because it was deemed to be causing a problem, he said.

 But despite several visits and warnings, he said, Musselman continued to feed bears.

 Eventually, she got a notice to appear in court on the charge of feeding bears, Morse said.

 After she was placed on probation, a judge ordered that FWCC officers check weekly on whether she was feeding animals.

 When they found that she was, a judge ordered her arrested and officers went to her residence on Jan. 29, the affidavit said.

 Musselman ordered the officers off her property, the report said, adding that when FWCC officers assisted by Highlands County deputies tried to arrest her, she lunged at them and kicked them, the affidavit said.

 A deputy told the FWCC officer that Musselman said when she's released if the FWCC officer comes on her property Musselman will kill her, the report said.

 jmeisel@highlandstoday.com

 (863) 386-5834 ||||| SEBRING, Fla - An 81-year-old Sebring woman is behind bars tonight for repeatedly feeding black bears at home after being warned to stop by a judge multiple times.

 Mary Musselman, of 5240 Kenilworth Boulevard, is now facing charges ranging from violating probation to battery on a law enforcement officer.

 "I think it is outrageous," said Karron Tedder, Musselman's former student.

 In the small town of Sebring, Musselman is well known. She is a retired gym teacher who worked at the local middle school.

 Tedder described her as gentle hearted, sweet and someone who is harmless.

 Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officials told ABC Action News trouble with Musselman began last year when they had to euthanize a black bear she kept feeding.

 "Feeding bears results in bears losing their fear of people," explained Gary Morse, FWC spokesperson.

 He added that once those behaviors are learned a bear cannot be relocated. The behaviors interrupt the animal's natural instincts.

 Morse said officers 'went the extra mile' to educate Musselman about the dangers of feeding wildlife. They brought out educational videos, talked with her and left pamphlets.

 "She told us she wasn't going to stop," Morse recalled.

 And, she didn't.

 She even continued on after being issued a warning on Nov. 8.

 FWC officers went back to her property on Nov. 19 and reported that Musselman was feeding two more bears. At this point, officers came back with more educational videos.

 Then, on Dec. 4, Musselman was issued a notice to appear in court on Dec. 6.

 The judge ordered her to stop feeding all wild animals and FWC officers were ordered to check on her residence weekly.

 According to FWC officers, on Dec. 24, Musselman again appeared in court and admitted feeding two to three bears large amounts of food.

 "We are talking about putting out as many as 17 or 18 bowls of dog food," Morse explained.

 A judge found her guilty of two counts of feeding wildlife. She was placed on probation for one year and FWC officers were ordered to visit her home weekly.

 On Dec. 29, FWC officers say they found evidence Musselman was continuing to feed bears.

 "Unfortunately, she didn't heed the warnings," Morse said.

 A judge ordered FWC officers to arrest her.

 According to Morse, when FWC officers arrested Musselman, she threatened to kill the officers and resisted.

 Morse said Musselman put her neighbors and the community at risk.

 "Feeding wildlife puts the community at risk from property destruction to possible danger of life and limb," he explained.

 Musselman reportedly told officers she had to feed the bears or they would starve to death.

 "She didn't want to accept that fact that they'd be fine without her...they hibernate when there is no food," Morse added.

 Tedder said Musselman is an avid animal lover.

 Musselman's former students, some from four decades ago, gathered out front of her home and prayed Thursday night. They have tried to bail her out but she is being held without bond.

 Her former students fear Musselman cannot fully comprehend the judges orders or the seriousness of the charges.

 "This is out of her character to act as she did," Tedder said.

 Tedder added that Musselman would not have intentionally broken the law.

 Musselman's former students want to get her back home as soon as possible because her husband is dying of cancer.

 They say the couple has no children and no caregiver.

 They are also working to find a mental health advocate to go before a judge on her behalf.

 Musselman is slated appear before a judge on March 3.

 FWC EXPERTS CANVASSED COUNTY

 According to Morse, between October of last year and January of this year, FWC staff and volunteers canvassed hundreds of homes in the Sebring and Lake Placid area with information about how to live with bears and help conserve them, without creating the conditions that spawn nuisance, destructive, and potentially dangerous behavior.

 Staff even appeared on a radio show on WWOJ to promote the attitudes and actions that make living in bear country safe for everyone, including the bears, Morse said.

 To learn more about black bears, click here . |||||
What is a summary?

– An 81-year-old woman is in prison without bond for feeding bears vast quantities of dog food—and refusing to stop, officials say. Mary Musselman, a retired gym teacher, allegedly fed bears when they visited her property in Sebring, Florida. "We are talking about putting out as many as 17 or 18 bowls of dog food," a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission rep tells WFTS. Apparently the bears were big fans: They kept returning, CNN reports.Officials, who last year had to euthanize a bear Musselman was feeding, told her she had to stop. "Feeding bears results in bears losing their fear of people," a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission rep tells WFTS. But "she told us she wasn't going to stop." She reportedly kept feeding them despite repeated visits from wildlife officials carrying informational videos and brochures. Even a judge's warning wasn't enough to stop Musselman; apparently, she believed the bears would starve if she didn't feed them. Finally, officers arrived to arrest her—and she fought them, threatening to kill them, they say. She's charged with feeding wildlife, battery against an officer, and violating probation that had required her not to feed animals, per Highlands Today. Now her former students are coming to her aid, calling the arrest "outrageous" and looking for a mental health worker to join her in court. They say she needs to be released to continue to care for her husband, who has terminal cancer.


Write an article based on this summary:

– A Native American couple is suing Minnesota's department of human services, attorney general, and a commissioner with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, saying the requirement to tell their tribe about their baby violates their right to due process and equal protection. The state law, imposed in 1997, is intended to keep Native American children with Native American families. "We know that the children who grow up outside of their culture suffer greatly,” says one advocate who has counseled such individuals. "The grief is loss of identity. Nonnative homes cannot give an adopted Indian child their culture." But Mark Fiddler, the unidentified couple's attorney and a Chippewa, tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune that they "have the right to make these choices," and that Native American parents "are the only parents in the state that have that duty to notify." Federal law prohibits racial discrimination in adoption except in the case of Native American children, and Fiddler says this is the first lawsuit he's aware of that challenges notification requirements. If the parents aborted the child, they would not have to notify, but by choosing to have the baby and not notify they are considered guilty of fraud and the child could be placed in another adopted home. (The baby, born in April, is currently living with the adoptive parents the biological ones chose.) The Indian Child Welfare Act, meanwhile, could make it more difficult for parents outside a tribe to adopt a Native American child in order "to protect the best interest of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families," reports Fox 23. (Remember the Baby Veronica saga?)

For months, a Twin Cities couple worked to keep their pregnancy a secret, never telling their friends and family, and most important, their tribes.

 Minnesota law requires a tribe be notified of any adoption involving an American Indian child, but the couple feared that if their tribes learned of their plans to give the baby to a white couple, they would exercise their legal right to intervene and try to place the baby with Indian parents.

 Now the couple are suing the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the Minnesota Attorney General and a commissioner with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe to allow the adoption to go forward. In a federal lawsuit filed last week, the couple, identified only as John and Jane Doe, argue that the requirement to tell the tribe about the baby violates their constitutional right to due process and equal protection.

 Advocates for the law say the couple are putting their own interests above the rights of the child, who would be better served with an Indian family.

 The lawsuit challenges federal and state laws enacted in the 1970s and 1980s that sought to keep Indian children in Indian families. The laws were an attempt to remedy the tradition of breaking up Indian families by sending their children into institutions or to non-Indian adoptive parents. The couple want the court to throw out the state’s requirement to inform a tribe of an adoption.

 “Indian parents are the only parents in the state that have that duty to notify,” said one the couple’s attorneys, Mark Fiddler. “In an adoption, all of that information is private and confidential. If you’re Indian, that has to be surrendered to the tribe.”

 The couple chose a white family, Fiddler said, because “it’s been my experience in these cases that most of the birthparents identify problems with family, alcoholism and other dysfunction, and they don’t want kids placed in that kind of environment.”

 “It’s a sad comment on the Indian community,” said Fiddler, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota. “But the parents have the right to make these choices.”

 Fiddler said this is the first lawsuit he’s aware of that challenges the notification requirements, which were imposed in 1997. Federal law bans discrimination in adoptions on the basis of race, but makes an exception for Indian children.

 If either the couple or the adoption agency chose not to tell the tribe, they would open themselves to fraud charges and risk having the adoption voided if the truth were discovered, Fiddler said.

 He noted that if the parents chose to have an abortion, they would not have to tell the tribe.

 The parents declined to be interviewed for this story. The baby was born in April in Minneapolis and is currently living with the potential adoptive couple, Fiddler said.

 Putting the baby with an Indian family would better serve the child, said Patina Park, an attorney and the executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. A tribe plays a strong role as a parent to adopted Indian children, Park said, helping to connect them to their culture. That can’t be done by a white family, Park said, no matter how caring they are.

 “This is a way to get Indian children adopted into non-Indian families,” she said.

 Sandy White Hawk said she has counseled hundreds of Indians who were adopted into white families as part of the First Nations Repatriation Institute. She said the rates of suicide and depression among those Indians are high.

 “We know that the children who grow up outside of their culture suffer greatly,” she said. “The grief is loss of identity. Nonnative homes cannot give an adopted Indian child their culture.”

 The health commissioner for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe named in the suit, Samuel Moose, did not return a call requesting comment. A spokesman for the band said they have not yet been served with the lawsuit.

 A spokeswoman for Minnesota’s Department of Human Services declined to comment, saying the agency needed to review the lawsuit. A spokesman from the attorney general’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the office was improperly listed as a defendant. ||||| By Janna Clark

 A push to enforce current adoption laws could make it more difficult for non-Native American families to adopt Native American children.

 As demonstrated with the court case surrounding the adoption of Baby Veronica, there can be difficulty in adoptions involving Native American children.

 In 2013 after years of custody battles Veronica stayed with her adoptive parents when her biological father, a Native American, dropped his pursuit of custody.

 http://www.fox23.com/news/news/breaking-news/dusten-brown-to-drop-pursuit-of-custody-for-baby-v/ndd29/

 FOX23’s Janna Clark found there are many cases like that and the Indian Child Welfare Act could make it difficult for non-Native American parents to adopt Native American children.

 The Bureau of Indian Affairs is pushing for the enforcement but some say it's not what's best for the children.

 Legal documents call her S.A.W., she’s a little girl who bonded deeply with (her) foster mother but after one year the court almost removed (her) from the only stable home she had ever known because she's 1/128 Native American.

 It took a battle in court for her to get to stay with her foster family.

 “I don't know what they're trying to accomplish,” said Becki Murphy, an attorney.

 She said it’s one of two scenarios that could happen with a Native American child adoption.

 She said either a child's placed in a non-tribal home and later a tribal family decides to adopt the child or a child is placed in a tribal home and family members later decide they want the child.

 In both situations she said children are torn away.

 “I will always object to a removal, tribal or not, if you're trying to remove a child over 6 months, if the placement is not causing them harm and willing to make it permanent. I will not object I don't care who you are,” said Murphy.

 Murphy says some tribes wait too long intervene after children have stayed in a stable home for months.

 “We should not be revisiting this 10 months, 12 months, 24 months (later.) I have a case 10 years old,” she said.

 The court looks at the Indian Child Welfare Act and to help enforce it and the Bureau of Indian Affairs put out the proposed rule.

 They told FOX23 they didn't want to answer questions about it but we found on their website that says they want to "to protect the best interest of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families."

 “I don't believe ICWA hurts children. I believe the application by certain tribes does cause harm,” said Murphy.

 FOX23 called the Cherokee Nation and they emailed a statement that says in part:

 "Rule changes we are discussing are long overdue and our children and families can't wait any longer. They give greater guidance and clearer instructions to state courts working with tribes. - Cherokee Nation Deputy Chief S. Joe Crittenden.”

 Both tribal and public meetings about this will take place Thursday:

 The public meeting is from 1-4pm at the

 A push to enforce current adoption laws could make it more difficult for non-Native American families to adopt Native American children.

 As demonstrated with the court case surrounding the adoption of Baby Veronica, there can be difficulty in adoptions involving Native American children.

 In 2013 after years of custody battles Veronica stayed with her adoptive parents when her biological father, a Native American, dropped his pursuit of custody.

 FOX23’s Janna Clark found there are many cases like that and the Indian Child Welfare Act could make it difficult for non-Native American parents to adopt Native American children.

 The Bureau of Indian Affairs is pushing for the enforcement but some say it's not what's best for the children.

 Legal documents call her S.A.W., she’s a little girl who bonded deeply with (her) foster mother but after one year the court almost removed (her) from the only stable home she had ever known because she's 1/128 Native American.

 It took a battle in court for her to get to stay with her foster family.

 “I don't know what they're trying to accomplish,” said Becki Murphy, an attorney.

 She said it’s one of two scenarios that could happen with a Native American child adoption.

 She said either a child's placed in a non-tribal home and later a tribal family decides to adopt the child or a child is placed in a tribal home and family members later decide they want the child.

 In both situations she said children are torn away.

 “I will always object to a removal, tribal or not, if you're trying to remove a child over 6 months, if the placement is not causing them harm and willing to make it permanent. I will not object I don't care who you are,” said Murphy.

 Murphy says some tribes wait too long intervene after children have stayed in a stable home for months.

 “We should not be revisiting this 10 months, 12 months, 24 months (later.) I have a case 10 years old,” she said.

 The court looks at the Indian Child Welfare Act and to help enforce it and the Bureau of Indian Affairs put out the proposed rule.

 They told FOX23 they didn't want to answer questions about it but we found on their website that says they want to "to protect the best interest of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families."

 “I don't believe ICWA hurts children. I believe the application by certain tribes does cause harm,” said Murphy.

 FOX23 called the Cherokee Nation and they emailed a statement that says in part:

 "Rule changes we are discussing are long overdue and our children and families can't wait any longer. They give greater guidance and clearer instructions to state courts working with tribes. - Cherokee Nation Deputy Chief S. Joe Crittenden.”

 Both tribal and public meetings about this will take place Thursday:

 The public meeting is from 1-4pm at the Tulsa Marriott Southern Hills near 71st Street and Lewis. |||||


Write a summary based on this article:

Teen dies after legs severed by train at Taree during 18th birthday celebrations

 Updated

 A teenager who had his legs severed by a train on the New South Wales mid-north coast four days before Christmas has died.

 Police today said Adrian Simon died at John Hunter Hospital on Christmas Eve, three days after he was hit by a train.

 The 18-year-old was asleep on the tracks at a railway crossing near Taree on December 21, police said.

 He had been celebrating his birthday and was hit by a train about 4:30am (AEDT), severing both his legs.

 The driver managed to stop the train soon after the accident and was taken to hospital for mandatory blood and urine testing.

 Taree Police said they were now preparing a report for the coroner.

 Police are also still investigating the actions of several party-goers who officers alleged tried to block paramedics from treating the teenager.

 They also allegedly threw rocks at police and the train driver.

 Topics: rail, death, taree-2430, newcastle-2300

 First posted ||||| A teenager whose legs were severed in a train accident on the NSW mid-north coast during his 18th birthday celebrations has died in hospital, police say.

 The man was taken to John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle in a serious condition after he was struck by the freight train in Taree in the early hours of December 21.

 Both of his legs were severed above the knee in the accident, which occurred at a level crossing on Bushland Drive.

 Police from the Manning-Great Lakes local area command confirmed the teenager died in hospital on Christmas Eve, three days after the accident.

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 The teenager, who is understood to have been visiting Taree with his family, had been celebrating his 18th birthday with a group of people on the night he was struck by the train, police said.

 Taree Mayor Paul Hogan said on Tuesday he had only just learnt of the teenager's death.

 "The death of the young lad is very sad, very upsetting," he said.

 Police are still examining how the man came to be on the train tracks at 4.30 on the morning he was struck.

 They are also looking at the actions of a group of people who hurled rocks and verbal abuse at emergency service workers as they arrived to try to help the teenager, who was trapped beneath the train and lapsing in and out of consciousness.

 The train driver, who stopped the train at the scene of the crash and called triple-0, initially appeared to be the target of their attacks, police said, however two police officers were also struck with rocks.

 The driver and officers initially took refuge in the driver's cabin before police reinforcements arrived.

 When paramedics arrived, their ambulance windscreen was smashed and paramedics were "blocked, pushed and verbally abused" during their initial attempts to treat the man, police said.

 Police say criminal charges could be laid against the crowd who targeted the emergency service workers.

 Mr Hogan said that, while the teenager's death was tragic, the actions of the group would not be tolerated.

 "It was a very unfortunate accident that had happened, but it was very upsetting the trouble that was caused with the emergency services. That was definitely unwarranted, and no one will tolerate that," he said. |||||

– An Australian teen whose legs were severed by a train while celebrating his 18th birthday died on Christmas Eve in the hospital, three days after the incident, ABC Australia reports. "The death of the young lad is very sad, very upsetting," Paul Hogan, mayor of Taree—where the incident took place in New South Wales—tells the Sydney Morning Herald. Alcohol is believed to have been a factor in Adrian Simon's death. Simon had been in serious condition since the accident on Dec. 21, when he was hit by a train around 4:30am, severing his legs above the knee. Police are still investigating why Simon was on the tracks; ABC reports he was asleep. Police are also investigating a group of partygoers from that night who attacked emergency workers and police as they attempted to tend to Simon; charges may be pending. "It was a very unfortunate accident that had happened, but (the attack) was definitely unwarranted, and no one will tolerate that," Hogan says. (Earlier this year, a California teen died trying to retrieve her phone from train tracks.)


Updated: 5:15 P.M.

 Senate Republican leaders have sent letters warning six professional sports leagues not to provide the Obama administration any assistance in promoting Obamacare.

 The letters, dated June 27, warn the chiefs of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, Professional Golf Association and NASCAR that partnering with the administration to publicize the benefits of the health care law would damage their reputations.

 “Given the divisiveness and persistent unpopularity of this bill, it is difficult to understand why an organization like yours would risk damaging its inclusive and apolitical brand by lending its name to its promotion,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX).

 The letters come days after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she’s spoken with the NFL about potentially partnering to let people know the benefits of the Affordable Care Act ahead of the implementation of its major components. (She said there was no deal yet.) The Republican senators rattled off a slew of conservative arguments against the law, stressing polls that signal its unpopularity with the public.

 The letter also suggests the Obama administration could be threatening the pro sports leagues to extract support for Obamacare:

 We have long been concerned by the Obama Administration’s record of using the threat of policy retaliation to solicit support for its policies or to silence its critics. Should the administration or its allies suggest that there will be any policy consequence for your decision not to participate in their outreach efforts, we urge you to resist any such pressure and to contact us immediately so that we may conduct appropriate oversight.

 Republicans have been working feverishly to gum up implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And they’ve launched investigations into HHS and Sebelius for asking health industry groups to help promote the law. The senators warned the pro sports leagues that joining forces with the administration on an issue like this would be unprecedented.

 “It is difficult for us to remember another occasion when major sports league took public sides in such a highly polarized public debate,” McConnell and Cornyn wrote. “Yet given this administration’s public request of your assistance in promoting this unpopular law, we felt it important to provide you with a fuller accounting of the facts before you made such a decision.”

 An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on the letters. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 Democratic aides point out that it’s nothing new for political leaders to partner with private organizations on behalf of their constituents, citing as one example the 2007 partnership between Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and the Boston Red Sox to promote Romneycare. McConnell and Cornyn argued in their letters that there were “key differences” between the two laws, observing that one was bipartisan and the other passed on a partisan vote.

 Meanwhile, House Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise (R-LA) sent letters dated Thursday to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NBA Commissioner David Stern seeking answers to three questions about what HHS has asked of them with regard to “promotion or implementation” of Obamacare. Scalise asked them to provide details.

 “Given the harmful impact on millions of your fans and the people of southeast Louisiana, coupled with the Obama Administration’s failure to meet the deadlines established to stand up their own law, I would caution you against being coerced into doing their dirty work for them,” Scalise wrote. “Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or if you’re uncomfortable responding in writing due to concerns about inappropriate or unwelcomed pressure from the Administration to cooperate with the implementation of [Obamacare].”

 LATE UPDATE:

 NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told TPM the league has “no plans” to engage on Obamacare.

 “We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about PPACA’s implementation,” McCarthy said in an email.

 Asked about the suggestion in the letters that the administration may be threatening or pressuring the NFL, McCarthy responded, “Not correct. [Q]uite simply, the NFL, NBA and others were contacted by the administration. We made no commitments nor discussed any substantive details with the administration.”

 McConnell’s spokesman Michael Brumas, asked to elaborate on the alleged threat, told TPM the senator “is not alleging the administration has threatened or pressured the sports leagues. See the next to the last graf of the letter which says ‘Should the administration,’ etc.”

 McConnell Cornyn Letter to NFL Obamacare ||||| There was a problem sending you an sms. Check your phone number or try again later.

 To get Scribd mobile enter your number and we'll send you a link to the Scribd app for iPhone & Android.We've sent a link to the Scribd app. If you didn't receive it, try again. |||||

Write a summary.

– The latest political skirmish over ObamaCare comes in the unlikeliest of places: the world of sports. As in, the NFL has found itself compelled to issue a statement saying it doesn't plan to help the White House promote the plan. How did it come to this? As Talking Points Memo explains, it started when health chief Kathleen Sebelius suggested earlier this week that the Obama administration would enlist the help of the NFL and its star athletes to spread the word about the coming changes. That prompted top Senate Republicans to write a letter to the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NHL, and other leagues strongly suggesting that they butt out because ObamaCare is characterized by such "divisiveness and persistent unpopularity," reports the Washington Post. The NFL's response? "We currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration" about the new law, says a spokesman. The NHL and MLB also said they had no plans to help. The flap speaks to the coming PR war ahead of the law's 2014 rollout, notes the Post.


News article:

Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)

 Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)

 By Gina Mace

 Special to the Beacon Journal

 Police believe they have their man.

 But they fear their suspect in a bank robbery may have eaten some of the evidence — the note handed to a Streetsboro bank teller demanding cash — while he was handcuffed and leaning over the hood of a police cruiser.

 Twinsburg police Patrolman Daniel Biada said a dash cam video of Thursday's arrest of John H. Ford, 35, of Cleveland, shows Ford gobbling a piece of paper while officers searched his pockets.

 ''As we're searching him, officers are removing items and throwing them on the cruiser [hood],'' Biada said. ''We're searching him for weapons. We're not looking at his head.''

 The whereabouts of the note demanding money came into question after Biada was taken into custody and Streetsboro investigators asked whether officers had found the piece of paper.

 Twinsburg police reviewed the images captured on camera and said they observed Ford leaning over to eat something off the hood of the cruiser.

 ''He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,'' Biada said. ''He just ate it right there.''

 Authorities said they found a .38-caliber pistol on the driver's side floor of Ford's car and a wad of cash covered in red ink on the passenger side of the vehicle.

 Ford is also a suspect in bank robberies in Stow and Akron.

 In the Streetsboro case, a man walked into the FirstMerit branch on state Route 14 around 10 a.m. and handed a teller a note that demanded money. The robber did not produce a gun inside of the bank.

 Witnesses say he fled in a dark Ford Escort.

 Twinsburg police stopped Ford, who was driving a black Ford Escort, on Interstate 480 shortly after the robbery was reported and turned him over to Streetsboro police. ||||| * This is going to be the funniest thing you see all day. [Legal Blog Watch via The Volokh Conspiracy]

 * Now I get the draw of Scientology. You get your own slave. [Courthouse News Service]

 * Just because you’re not working as a lawyer doesn’t mean you can’t still have a lot of fun. [Legal Nomads]

 * T’ai chi can help a defense lawyer bring perspective to his practice. That’s pretty cool. I practice the ancient art of screaming as loud as I can until blood starts pouring out of my ears. You know, whatever works. [Underdog]

 * So, all those firms that have opened offices in Dubai are still golden, right? [Am Law Daily]

 * Just to be clear, they take the Sabbath very seriously in Israel. [Transracial] |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– It was almost a good idea. Above the Law takes note of a video making the rounds of a bank robbery suspect in Ohio. When an officer finds the alleged note to the teller and dumps it on the hood of the cruiser, the man eats it without the cops noticing. Too bad for him, a dashboard cam captured it all. ''He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,'' an officer tells the Akron Beacon Journal. ''He just ate it right there.'' Lucky for police, they also found a pistol and ink-stained cash in the suspect's car.


Brian Williams becomes the next reporter to almost, but not quite, hold Rick Perry to account for the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. During the GOP debate Wednesday night, Williams asked without naming Willingham, or going at Perry armed with the science that undermined the prosecution's case. (A pity: this came on the heels of the moderators trying to get Perry in a spat with Jon Huntsman about who was "anti-science.")

 Williams simply asked in general if Perry had ever struggled with the idea that someone who was killed via capital punishment was innocent. The weak sauce allowed Perry to wriggle off the hook: "No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which -- when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that's required.

 "But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed."

 After 18 years of incarceration and countless protestations of innocence, Anthony Graves finally got a nod of approval from the one person who mattered Wednesday and at last returned home -- free from charges that he participated in the butchery of a family in Somerville he did not know and free of the possibility that he would have to answer for them with his life. The district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties, Bill Parham, gave Graves his release. The prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss charges that had sent Graves to Texas' death row for most of his adult life. Graves returned to his mother's home in Brenham no longer the "cold-blooded killer," so characterized by the prosecutor who first tried him, but as another exonerated inmate who even in the joy of redemption will face the daunting prospect of reassembling the pieces of a shattered life. "He's an innocent man," Parham said, noting that his office investigated the case for five months. "There is nothing that connects Anthony Graves to this crime. I did what I did because that's the right thing to do."

 It's worth worrying about!

 Williams plodded ahead with a sentimental follow-up, asking Perry to react to the fact that members of the audience applauded when hearing Perry has executed 234 individuals. Perry replied, "I think Americans understand justice. I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of -- of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens -- and it's a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don't want you to commit those crimes against our citizens. And if you do, you will face the ultimate justice.

 But what if scientists say you sent a man to his death for having committed no crime at all? For everything you need to know about Perry and Willingham, click here. ||||| The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

 Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

 Willingham told the Barbees to call the Fire Department, and while Diane raced down the street to get help he found a stick and broke the children’s bedroom window. Fire lashed through the hole. He broke another window; flames burst through it, too, and he retreated into the yard, kneeling in front of the house. A neighbor later told police that Willingham intermittently cried, “My babies!” then fell silent, as if he had “blocked the fire out of his mind.”

 Diane Barbee, returning to the scene, could feel intense heat radiating off the house. Moments later, the five windows of the children’s room exploded and flames “blew out,” as Barbee put it. Within minutes, the first firemen had arrived, and Willingham approached them, shouting that his children were in their bedroom, where the flames were thickest. A fireman sent word over his radio for rescue teams to “step on it.”

 More men showed up, uncoiling hoses and aiming water at the blaze. One fireman, who had an air tank strapped to his back and a mask covering his face, slipped through a window but was hit by water from a hose and had to retreat. He then charged through the front door, into a swirl of smoke and fire. Heading down the main corridor, he reached the kitchen, where he saw a refrigerator blocking the back door.

 Todd Willingham, looking on, appeared to grow more hysterical, and a police chaplain named George Monaghan led him to the back of a fire truck and tried to calm him down. Willingham explained that his wife, Stacy, had gone out earlier that morning, and that he had been jolted from sleep by Amber screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!”

 “My little girl was trying to wake me up and tell me about the fire,” he said, adding, “I couldn’t get my babies out.”

 While he was talking, a fireman emerged from the house, cradling Amber. As she was given C.P.R., Willingham, who was twenty-three years old and powerfully built, ran to see her, then suddenly headed toward the babies’ room. Monaghan and another man restrained him. “We had to wrestle with him and then handcuff him, for his and our protection,” Monaghan later told police. “I received a black eye.” One of the first firemen at the scene told investigators that, at an earlier point, he had also held Willingham back. “Based on what I saw on how the fire was burning, it would have been crazy for anyone to try and go into the house,” he said.

 Willingham was taken to a hospital, where he was told that Amber—who had actually been found in the master bedroom—had died of smoke inhalation. Kameron and Karmon had been lying on the floor of the children’s bedroom, their bodies severely burned. According to the medical examiner, they, too, died from smoke inhalation.

 News of the tragedy, which took place on December 23, 1991, spread through Corsicana. A small city fifty-five miles northeast of Waco, it had once been the center of Texas’s first oil boom, but many of the wells had since dried up, and more than a quarter of the city’s twenty thousand inhabitants had fallen into poverty. Several stores along the main street were shuttered, giving the place the feel of an abandoned outpost.

 Willingham and his wife, who was twenty-two years old, had virtually no money. Stacy worked in her brother’s bar, called Some Other Place, and Willingham, an unemployed auto mechanic, had been caring for the kids. The community took up a collection to help the Willinghams pay for funeral arrangements.

 Fire investigators, meanwhile, tried to determine the cause of the blaze. (Willingham gave authorities permission to search the house: “I know we might not ever know all the answers, but I’d just like to know why my babies were taken from me.”) Douglas Fogg, who was then the assistant fire chief in Corsicana, conducted the initial inspection. He was tall, with a crew cut, and his voice was raspy from years of inhaling smoke from fires and cigarettes. He had grown up in Corsicana and, after graduating from high school, in 1963, he had joined the Navy, serving as a medic in Vietnam, where he was wounded on four occasions. He was awarded a Purple Heart each time. After he returned from Vietnam, he became a firefighter, and by the time of the Willingham blaze he had been battling fire—or what he calls “the beast”—for more than twenty years, and had become a certified arson investigator. “You learn that fire talks to you,” he told me.

 He was soon joined on the case by one of the state’s leading arson sleuths, a deputy fire marshal named Manuel Vasquez, who has since died. Short, with a paunch, Vasquez had investigated more than twelve hundred fires. Arson investigators have always been considered a special breed of detective. In the 1991 movie “Backdraft,” a heroic arson investigator says of fire, “It breathes, it eats, and it hates. The only way to beat it is to think like it. To know that this flame will spread this way across the door and up across the ceiling.” Vasquez, who had previously worked in Army intelligence, had several maxims of his own. One was “Fire does not destroy evidence—it creates it.” Another was “The fire tells the story. I am just the interpreter.” He cultivated a Sherlock Holmes-like aura of invincibility. Once, he was asked under oath whether he had ever been mistaken in a case. “If I have, sir, I don’t know,” he responded. “It’s never been pointed out.” |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– One thing Rick Perry doesn't lose sleep over are the executions in his state. Asked last night if he ever worried that Texas has put an innocent man to death, he answered confidently: "No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all." He praised the state's "thoughtful, very clear process when someone commits the most heinous of crimes." If "you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer ... you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, you will be executed." Members of the audience applauded when it was revealed that 234 prisoners have been put to death while Perry has been governor, notes the Huffington Post. The New Yorker in 2009 revealed very serious doubts by scientific experts about evidence against Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 on Perry's watch for a fire that killed Willingham's three daughters. A year after the execution the Texas Forensic Science Commission re-examined the case, and its investigator concluded that there was no reliable evidence that arson had been committed.


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– Surf tragedy in Britain: Three people died after being caught in a rip current off a beach in Cornwall yesterday. Police say a man and woman in their 40s and a man in his 50s died after they were pulled unconscious from the water and airlifted to the hospital, reports the BBC. Four children in the same group were saved. An emergency services worker describes conditions at the popular Mawgan Porth as "dangerous" and says one of the casualties entered the water to assist others who were struggling. The owner of a nearby surf school tells the Guardian that while the currents may have been slightly more dangerous than usual, he has seen far worse conditions. "The waves were bigger, they were quite big. And it wasn't the safest of days to be in the sea," he says. "But it wasn't particularly dangerous. There were lots of safe places to be and they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." (In California earlier this month, surfers were in the right place at the right time to rescue a couple whose romantic hot-air-balloon ride had gone awry.)

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Conditions on the beach were fairly typical, as the BBC's Jon Kay reports

 Two men and a woman have died after getting into difficulty in the sea off a beach in Cornwall.

 They were among seven surfers who had to be helped from the water at Mawgan Porth, near Newquay.

 Four children, who were among the seven, were saved but the adults died after being airlifted to hospital.

 The dead included a man in his 50s from outside the Devon and Cornwall area and a man and woman in their 40s from Cornwall, police said.

 Devon and Cornwall Police said the family of the man in his 50s had been informed of his death.

 Image copyright Cornish Guardian/SWNS Image caption The three adults were taken from the sea unconscious and received medical treatment on the beach

 Image copyright Cornish Guardian/SWNS Image caption Air ambulances from Devon and Cornwall helped ferry the casualties to hospital in Truro

 Coastguards received "multiple 999 calls" at about 13:15 GMT when the seven got into trouble in what is believed to have been a rip current.

 The South Western Ambulance Service said the initial call reported "seven people had been caught in a rip tide".

 After the alarm was raised, a search was launched involving Newquay and Padstow Coastguard rescue teams, RNLI lifeboats and a Royal Navy helicopter from RNAS Culdrose.

 Image copyright Google Image caption Police described the deaths at Mawgan Porth as a "tragic incident"

 Ian Guy, from the Coastguard's National Maritime Operations Centre, said the three adults were brought in from the sea via a combination of lifeboats and the helicopter.

 The helicopter winch was used to bring one of them to shore and all three were given medical treatment on the beach.

 They were transferred to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro by the navy helicopter and Devon and Cornwall's air ambulances but pronounced dead in hospital.

 'Tragic accident'

 A spokeswoman for the South Western Ambulance Service described the children as "walking wounded" and said they were also taken to the same hospital for treatment.

 The manager of the nearby Merrymoor Inn, said the children, whom he described as "teenagers", were taken to the pub by police after the incident.

 "They were not injured in any way," he said. "They stayed with us in the building for approximately two-and-a-half hours and left with the emergency services."

 Mr Bennett said the weather conditions were "OK" and described the deaths as a "tragic accident."

 "It's a very sad day for us," he said.

 Image copyright Cornish Guardian/SWNS Image caption Rescuers scoured the waters at Mawgan Porth to make sure no-one was left in the sea

 Image copyright Picture from Eyewitness Image caption A Royal Navy helicopter from RNAS Culdrose was involved in a search for the surfers

 Gareth Horner, Newquay lifeboat operations manager, told ITV News his understanding was the seven were "in two groups and that one of the casualties actually entered the sea to assist other people who were in trouble".

 He also said the beach was "dangerous" and conditions in the area were "not really very good for surfing and bodyboarding".

 Peter Abell, owner of the nearby Kingsurf surfing school - which was not involved in the incident - said sea conditions on Sunday were "not as bad as it can be", but added some currents were "slightly more dangerous than usual".

 He said: "The waves were bigger, they were quite big. It wasn't the safest of days to be in the sea but it wasn't particularly dangerous.

 "There were lots of safe places to be and they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

 Image copyright Lucy Higgins Image caption Coastguards received "multiple 999 calls" when the group got into trouble

 Supt Jim Pearce, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said: "This is a tragic incident and our condolences go out to the families of those involved.

 "Along with the other emergency services, we are now working to ascertain the full circumstances of this incident and our priority is to contact the families of those involved and offer all the support we can."

 The tragedy follows the death of a 23-year-old man who drowned in the sea off Newquay in early hours of Saturday.

 Rip currents

 Sometimes wrongly referred to as rip tides, rip currents are strong, localised and narrow currents of water

 They move directly away from the shore and cut through the lines of breaking waves

 The RNLI has said they can be major problem for surfers, swimmers and bodyboarders, dragging them out of safe depths

 People who do not have the necessary water skills can be placed at risk in a rip current if they panic or exhaust themselves swimming directly against the flow

 Source: Press Association and RNLI ||||| Three surfers have died after getting into difficulties in the sea in Cornwall, police have said.

 Two men and a woman were caught in a rip current off Mawgan Porth beach near Newquay at around 1.30pm on Sunday. An air and sea rescue mission was launched after onlookers spotted a group of seven, including four children, in difficulty in the water.

 The three adults were recovered unconscious from the water but were later pronounced dead. The four children were rescued and were safe, police said.

 Police said the woman and one of the men who died were in their 40s and from Cornwall. The second man was in his 50s and was from outside the police force’s area. A spokesman said his family has been contacted.

 Supt Jim Pearce, of Devon and Cornwall police, said: “This is a tragic incident and our condolences go out to the families of those involved. Along with the other emergency services we are now working to ascertain the full circumstances of this incident and our priority is to contact the families of those involved and offer all the support we can.”

 Locals said there were rough seas along the coast on Sunday afternoon. Peter Abell, owner of the Kingsurf surf school at Mawgan Porth – which was not involved in the incident – said some currents were “slightly more dangerous than usual” but conditions were “not as bad” as they could be. “The waves were bigger, they were quite big. And it wasn’t the safest of days to be in the sea,” he said. “But it wasn’t particularly dangerous. There were lots of safe places to be and they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

 Abell, 30, said beaches were always changing, adding: “You can never predict this.”

 Describing the scene as emergency services started to arrive, Abell said: “I’ve never seen so many police cars and coastguards arrive at the beach before. Everyone was standing around the beach going ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’

 “There were two helicopters and three lifeboats … so we knew it was a big deal as soon as we saw that.”

 A spokesman at the Merrymoor Inn, which overlooks the beach, praised the response of emergency services: “The emergency services were here incredibly quickly. It was out of this world. They brought some of them into the pub wrapped in blankets, but it is terrible what has happened.”

 It is not known whether the group were experienced surfers. Inexperienced surfers can place themselves at risk in a rip current if they exhaust themselves swimming against the flow or panic.

 It is unclear whether the water was being watched by lifeguards at the time of the incident. They usually operate on the beach between April and September.

 A spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said a search and rescue mission was launched at 1.31pm when onlookers noticed the group in difficulty. RNLI lifeboats and a rescue helicopter, along with Devon and Cornwall police officers and an ambulance crew attended the scene.

 Two of the three recovered from the water were given CPR at the scene before they were airlifted to hospital.

 Mawgan Porth is popular with surfers, who flock to the beach for waves known as Atlantic breakers, and with walkers following the idyllic coastal path. |||||