Solar storm blasts Earth: The largest solar storm since 2005 swept across the planet this week, forcing airlines to reroute flights and disrupting communications from global positioning satellites. This spontaneous blast of solar radiation may have affected power grids and high-frequency radio communications in the northern latitudes, said the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center. A number of airlines, which route some U.S.–Asia flights over the North Pole, took precautions. Solar flares “can impact your ability to communicate,” said Delta spokesman Anthony Black. “So, basically, the polar routes are being flown farther south than normal.” The solar storm also expanded the heavenly light show called the aurora borealis as far south as England and southern Canada. This storm is a “taste of what’s going to come next year and in 2014,” said Dr. W. Jeffrey Hughes of Boston University.
Tucson
Giffords steps down: Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a gunshot wound to the head in January 2011, resigned from her seat in Congress this week to devote herself to her recovery. On the eve of her last day as a U.S. representative, Giffords slipped into the first row of the House chamber for President Obama’s State of the Union address, and was greeted by a standing ovation, thunderous applause, and chants of “Gabby, Gabby, Gabby.” In her resignation letter, she vowed to return to public service to “work together again for Arizona and for all Americans.” Some Democratic officials, fearing that Giffords’s seat would be difficult to hold, had hoped that her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, might enter the race, but he has no intention of running, said a longtime Giffords political adviser.
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Clay, Ala.
Tornado kills two: Rare January tornadoes, one with winds estimated at 150 mph, swept through Alabama this week, killing two people and injuring more than 100. Violent gusts flattened trees and peeled back roofing, destroying more than 211 homes and damaging hundreds more. Darrell Heichelbech, whose three-story brick house was demolished by the storm, discovered the body of his 16-year-old daughter, Christina, about 40 feet from the house, lying on her mattress. “She just looked like she was sleeping like a baby,” Heichelbech said. “But she wasn’t sleeping. She was gone.” Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley declared a state of emergency for all 67 counties. “I do not understand, except by God’s grace, that people can survive some of the damage that I see in some of the residential areas,” said Bentley.
Washington, D.C.
GPS search ruled illegal: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously this week that police must obtain a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. All nine justices agreed that the placement of a GPS tracking device on a vehicle belonging to a suspect in a 2005 drug case violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Police surreptitiously attached the GPS to a Jeep belonging to nightclub owner Antoine Jones and used it to trace him to a suburban house where he allegedly stashed money and drugs. Jones was found guilty of drug charges and sentenced to life in prison before the appeals court overturned the conviction. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government’s action constitutes a search, thus requiring a search warrant. “By attaching the device to the Jeep” that Jones was using, Scalia said, “officers encroached on a protected area.” Jones’s attorney hailed the decision a “signal event in Fourth Amendment history.”
Trenton, N.J.
Christie on gay marriage: Gov. Chris Christie pledged this week to veto a same-sex marriage bill if it is passed, as expected, by the state legislature. Speaking at a town hall meeting in Bridgewater, the first-term Republican governor reiterated his opposition to gay marriage, but offered an “alternate” path to decide the fate of the legislation: a voter referendum in November. “Let the people decide, and let’s be governed by the will of the people on this issue,” Christie said. New Jersey offers civil unions to same-sex partners, but gay residents have petitioned the courts and the legislature for the right to marry. Robb Sewell and his partner, Eric Wolff, who testified before the legislature, were married in Massachusetts and are seeking the same right in New Jersey. “We’re looking for equality,” said Wolff. “We want the same thing that everyone else has.”
Wellfleet, Mass.
Dolphin strandings: Rescue teams struggled to keep pace this week as the surge of stranded dolphins on Cape Cod continued. In two weeks, more than 85 dolphins have stranded themselves along this craggy coastline, including 30 in one day, said the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Typically, 120 dolphins beach themselves from January to April, the high season for stranding. They are regularly pulled by extreme tides into the U-shaped Cape Cod Bay, but never in these numbers, said Katie Moore, manager of IFAW’s mammal rescue and research team. The dolphins seem to be from a single group of perhaps 400, Moore said, but she had no explanation for why they landed here. “It’s driving us crazy that we don’t know.” Fifty of the dolphins were already dead when they were found, and 11 died later, a wildlife expert said. Two dozen were released into the ocean, though three of those have since died.
