Wednesday Marks Summer Solstice, Today Longest Day of the Year

The summer solstice is upon us: Tuesday, June 20, will be the longest day of 2017 for anyone living north of the equator. If pagan rituals are your thing, this is probably a big moment for you. If not, the solstice is still pretty neat.

Technically speaking, the summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly overhead the Tropic of Cancer, or 23.5° north latitude. In 2017, this will occur at exactly 12:24 am (Eastern) on the 21st. (But we’ll celebrate on the 20th anyway.) 

Below is a short scientific guide to the longest day of the year (though not, as we’ll see, the longest day in Earth’s history — that happened back in 1912).

1) Why do we have a summer solstice, anyway?

Okay, most people know this one. Earth orbits around the sun on a tilted axis (probably because our planet collided with some other massive object billions of years ago, back when it was still being formed).

So between March and September, Earth’s Northern Hemisphere gets more exposure to direct sunlight over the course of a day. The rest of the year, the Southern Hemisphere gets more. It’s the reason for the seasons:

(Tauʻolunga)

In the Northern Hemisphere, "peak" sunlight usually occurs on June 20, 21, or 22 of any given year. That’s the summer solstice. By contrast, the Southern Hemisphere reaches peak sunlight on December 21, 22, or 23 and the north hits peak darkness — that’s our winter solstice.

(NASA)

2) How many hours of sunlight will I get on Tuesday?

That depends on where you live. The further north you are, the more sunlight you’ll see during the solstice. Alaska-based climatologist Brian Brettschneider created this terrific guide:

On the off chance you live near the Arctic Circle, the sun never really sets during the solstice. 

(By contrast, during the winter solstice, Fairbanks only gets about three hours of sunlight.)

Here’s another cool way to visualize the extreme of the summer solstice. In 2013, a resident of Alberta, Canada — several hundred miles south of Fairbanks, but still in a high latitude — took this pinhole camera photograph of the sun’s path throughout the year, and shared it with the astronomy website EarthSky. You can see the dramatic change in the arc of the sun from December to June. (You can easily make a similar image at home. All you need is a can, photo paper, some tape, and a pin. Instructions here.)

 

Note that the solstice also gives us the longest twilight of the year, usually about 1 to 1.5 extra hours after sunset. (Brettschneider has more charts on that; his entire post is worth your time.)

Side note: This year, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincides with the solstice. (Ramadan’s dates vary each year, but in 2017 it runs from May 26 to June 24.) Which makes for a grueling challenge in some places: Muslims are supposed to fast until sunset during Ramadan, but for those living in Norway, Sweden, or Iceland, daylight can last up to 20 hours. "In these cases," Vox's Jennifer Williams explains, "Muslim religious authorities have decreed that Muslims can either fast along with the closest Muslim country or fast along with Mecca, Saudi Arabia."

3) Is the solstice the latest sunset of the year?

Not necessarily. Just because June 20 is the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere doesn’t mean every location has its earliest sunrise or latest sunset on that day.

If you live in Washington, DC, you missed the earliest sunrise — it happened back on June 13. But you can still catch the latest sunset on June 27. If you like sleeping in, that’s arguably the most exciting day of the summer.

4) What does all this have to do with Stonehenge?

No one really knows why Stonehenge was built some 5,000 years ago (at least I don’t, sorry). But one possibility is that it was used to mark solstices and equinoxes. That’s because during the summer solstice, the sun rises just over the structure’s Heel Stone and hits the Altar Stone dead center.

Here’s a graphic from NASA imagining what a summer solstice sunrise might’ve looked like back when Stonehenge was fully intact:

(NASA)

Nowadays, humans still gather to pay homage the summer solstice at Stonehenge — they just use modern technology, like so:

Photo by Tim Ireland/Getty Images

The Wikipedia entry on Stonehenge is absurdly detailed, so read up on that if you want more.

5) Is this the longest day in Earth’s entire history?

Probably not, although it's close. And the reason why is quite interesting. Joseph Stromberg did a fantastic deep dive into this topic for Vox a few years back, but here’s the two-minute version.

Ever since the Earth has had liquid oceans and a moon, its rotation has been gradually slowing over time due to tidal friction. That means — over very, very long periods of time — the days have been getting steadily longer. About 4.5 billion years ago, it took the Earth just six hours to complete one rotation. About 350 million years ago, it took 23 hours. Today, of course, it takes about 24 hours. And the days will gradually get longer still.

Given that, you'd think 2017 would be the longest day in all of history. But while it's certainly up there, it doesn't quite take top honors.

That's because tidal friction isn’t the only thing affecting Earth’s rotation — there are a few countervailing factors. The melting of glacial ice, which has been occurring since the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago (and is now ramping up because of global warming), is actually speeding up Earth’s rotation very slightly, shortening the days by a few fractions of a millisecond. Likewise, geologic activity in the planet’s core, earthquakes, ocean currents, and seasonal wind changes can also speed up or slow down Earth’s rotation.

When you put all these factors together, scientists have estimated that the longest day in Earth’s history (so far) likely occurred back in 1912. That year’s summer solstice was the longest period of daylight the Northern Hemisphere has ever seen (and, conversely, the 1912 winter solstice was the longest night we’ve ever seen).

Eventually, the effects of tidal friction should overcome all those other factors, and Earth’s days will get longer and longer as its rotation keeps slowing (forcing timekeepers to add leap seconds to the calendar periodically). Which means that in the future, there will be plenty of summer solstices that set new records as the "longest day in Earth's history."

6) Isn’t there going to be a solar eclipse? 

No, not on the solstice. 

But there will be a rare solar eclipse across the entire continental US a bit later in the summer, on August 21. 

On that day, the Earth, moon, and sun will be in perfect alignment to cast a 60-mile-wide shadow that will trace itself across the country like a dark laser pointer on a whiteboard. 

In the bull’s eye center of the moon’s shadow known as the totality, the sky will go dark for a few minutes in the middle of the day, stars will appear, and birds will become confused and start chirping their nighttime songs. And it’s all because of a cosmic coincidence: From the Earth, both the moon and sun appear to be roughly the same size. 

7) I clicked this article accidentally and really just want a cool picture of the sun

(NASA/Goddard/SDO AIA Team)

The image above was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, a spacecraft launched in 2010 to better understand the sun. Caption: "A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F)."

In 2018, NASA will launch the Parker Probe Plus, a spacecraft that will come within 4 million miles of the surface of the sun (much closer than any spacecraft has been before). The goal is to study the sun’s atmosphere, weather, and magnetism, and figure out the mystery of why the sun’s corona (i.e., its atmosphere) is much hotter than its surface. Still, even several million miles away, the probe will have to withstand temperatures of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. 

It’s essential to understand the sun: It’s nothing to mess with. Brad  Plumer wrote about what happens when the sun erupts and sends space weather our way to wreak havoc on Earth. Happy solstice!

$3,000 Reward Offered to Locate Stolen Car

Deputies with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office are asking for public assistance in locating a stolen red 1968 Chevrolet Camaro SS.

A $3,000 reward is being offered for the recovery of the car and the arrest and conviction of the person or persons connected to the car theft, per the sheriff's office.

Investigators say, the vehicle along with several other items valued over $50,000 was stolen from a Williamston property sometime between May 23 through 28.

Anyone with information about the current location of the vehicle or about the incident and individuals involved, should call Anderson Area Crime Stoppers at (888) CRIME-SC or (888) 274-6372.

Study: Health School Lunch Tied to Academic Achievement

Efforts to make school meals more nutritious have yielded noticeably positive results, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. That progress, however, isn’t measured in lower obesity rates, but in improved academic performance.

The study collected data between 2008 and 2013 from roughly 9,700 California public schools, comparing the vast majority that prepare meals in-house to those that contract with outside vendors. Measuring the nutritional quality of the vendors’ meals against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Healthy Eating Index, the authors found that students who ate healthy meals at school also scored slightly better on California’s STAR tests (then the state’s standardized examinations of annual student progress, which have since been replaced by another system.)

“While this effect is small in magnitude, the relatively low cost of healthy vendors relative to in-house meal preparation makes this a very cost-effective way to raise test scores,” the authors write. Tallying the expense of schools spending more on healthier food, they estimate that an expanded program could achieve test score gains similar to Tennessee’s ballyhooed class-size reduction experiment — all at less than one-sixth the cost ($222 versus $1,368 per student).

Economically disadvantaged students, who are more likely to eat food provided by their schools and less likely to benefit from nutritious food elsewhere, enjoyed an even bigger boost in performance. In the group of schools that contract with outside vendors, the jump is 50 percent larger for low-income students than for those designated as “advantaged.”

At a time when the Trump administration is rolling back Obama-era nutritional mandates around the presence of whole grains, salt, and milkfat — a signature priority of former First Lady Michelle Obama — NBER’s analysis raises the question of whether academic improvements will be reversed along with them.

Widespread Internet Outages Reported on Eastern Seaboard

Are you having trouble connecting to the internet or making phone calls? 

It appears that several phone and internet companies are having widespread outage issues. It is unclear what is causing the problems at this time.

It seems that Verizon and Spectrum customers are seeing the biggest issues, while Sprint and AT&T are having some issues. Check out the maps for yourself: 

Here's a look at the Verizon outage map: http://downdetector.com/status/verizon/map/ 

Here's a look at the Spectrum outage map: http://downdetector.com/status/spectrum/map/

Here's a look at the Sprint outage map: http://downdetector.com/status/sprint/map

Here's a look at the AT&T outage map: http://downdetector.com/status/att/map/

Age, Costs, Lead Elderly to Leave Hospital Early

It's a not uncommon occurrence: Patients discharge themselves from the hospital against their doctor's best advice.

Now, new research on over 29 million hospital stays sheds light on which types of patients are most prone to this behavior -- and why.

Using 2013 U.S. hospital data, researchers found that younger patients are much more likely than older patients to leave the hospital against the advice of their doctor.

In fact, patients aged 65 and older were four times less likely to leave the hospital against medical advice than were adults under 65, according to a team led by Dr. Jashvant Poeran, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Other factors played a role as well. Regardless of their age, men were more likely to leave the hospital against medical advice than were women, the study found. A lack of insurance, being covered by Medicaid, and the presence of a mental health disorder also raised the risk.

And among older patients, the risk of leaving the hospital against medical advice was 65 percent higher for blacks and 57 percent higher for those with low incomes, the researchers noted.

Incidents like these are on the rise, Poeran's team added. Between 2003 and 2013, rates of unadvised self-discharge for adults under 65 rose from about 1.4 percent of all patient stays to nearly 1.8 percent, the team said.

And the consequences of such actions -- for patient well-being and the health care system -- can be dire. According to the researchers, leaving the hospital against a doctor's orders is linked with a higher risk of hospital readmission, illness and death, as well as increased costs.

The study was published June 19 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

"One of the reasons mentioned in previous studies for leaving the hospital against medical advice is suboptimal communication, which may indeed affect older minority patients more," Poeran said in a journal news release.

Dr. Liron Sinvani directs the Geriatric Hospitalist Service at Northwell Health in Manhasset, N.Y. She agreed with Poeran that, "a person's decision to leave the hospital against the advice of his or her care provider often represents a breakdown in communication between patients, family members and providers."

She said the study "highlights the significance of communication between the patient and the care team."

Discharging oneself from the hospital despite a doctor's orders can have legal ramifications, too, said Michael Duffy.

He's a personal injury attorney and expert in malpractice law practicing in Uniondale, N.Y.

Duffy believes patients often feel pressure to discharge themselves from care because of coverage decisions made by their insurance company.

"We cannot allow insurance companies and hospital bean counters to determine when a patient is discharged," Duffy said. "It is immoral for those who concern themselves only with the bottom line to overrule and contradict the expertise of health care providers."

Poll: Most Americans Trust Government on Terrorism Protection

A Gallup poll shows 70 percent of Americans trust the U.S. government to protect its citizens from potential terrorist attacks, which reflects a recovery of confidence following the 2015 San Bernardino, Calif., attack.

Gallup conducted telephone interviews with 1,009 random U.S. adults from June 7-11 and asked how much -- a great deal, a fair amount, not very much or none at all -- confidence the respondent had in the U.S. government to protect citizens from future acts of terrorism.

Gallup posed the question soon after two attacks occurred in Britain, a key U.S. ally: the Manchester Arena bombing in late May in which 23 people died, including the attacker, and the London Bridge attack in early June in which 11 people died, including the attackers.

Gallup recorded the highest level of trust Americans had in the U.S. government protecting citizens -- 88 percent -- following the Sept. 11terrorist attacks.

Under former President George W. Bush's administration after 2002, Americans' confidence in government protection ranged from 73 percent to 82 percent.

Under former President Barack Obama's administration, Americans' confidence in government protection ranged from 67 percent and 75 percent until the San Bernardino attacks, after which Gallup recorded a confidence level of 55 percent.

"Majorities of Americans over the years have expressed confidence in their government to protect its citizens against terrorism. However, the level of trust has varied and remains lower than it was in the years immediately after 9/11," Gallup said in a statement. "While confidence in the government to protect against terrorism was high after the 9/11 attacks, the 2015 attack in San Bernardino had the opposite effect -- confidence in federal protection declined to a record low."

In the poll that has a 4 percent margin of error, about 42 percent said they are "very" or "somewhat worried" that they or a family member will be the victim of a terrorist attack, a decrease from the 51 percent recorded after the San Bernardino attack. Since 1995, an average of 41 percent of Americans worried about themselves or family falling victim to terrorism.

Sixty percent of Americans believe it is "very" or "somewhat likely" that a terrorist attack will occur on U.S. soil in the coming weeks.

Council to Look at Budget as Deadline Looms

With time running out for the June 30 deadline, Anderson County Council will continue to fine tune the fiscal year 2017-2018 budget as part of Tuesday's meeting at 6 p.m. in the historic courthouse downtown.

Council is meeting at 10 a.m. today to work on the budget, which initially called for a 2.9-mill tax increase, or roughly $11 per year for the owner of a $100,000 house. Since the first proposal, raises to bring county law enforcement up to regional averages has also been added as a priority.

The increase would boost the salary of an officer completing the academy training to $37,500 annually. This would be close to salaries offered by the City of Anderson for their police officers and those of Pickens and Abbeville County deputies.

View the complete agenda here. 

National Organization Lauds P.A.W.S. Results, Leadership

From Out the Front Door, Which Reports on Animal Sheltering in the U.S.

Anderson County, South Carolina, is in the western part of the state, bordering Greenville County. It is located on the I-85 corridor between Charlotte and Atlanta – a corridor that is expected to see major growth in the future and is already seeing progressive change. The county has about 200,000 people. Anderson County P.A.W.S. (Pets Are Worth Saving) is a government-run shelter that serves the entire county.

Last fall some important changes were made in the operation of the shelter. Target Zero did a consultation. The county shelter was moved to the Public Works department following pressure from citizens about the quality of oversight. And veterinarian Kim Sanders was hired as interim director (later made permanent) in October. At that time, the live release rate at the shelter was 42%. I recently had the opportunity to interview Sanders, and she told me about some of the changes she has made to the shelter’s operations. The changes have been dramatically successful and the shelter’s live release rate is running at 92% so far in 2017.

Sanders, before becoming director of the shelter, worked at the Anderson County Humane Society’s high-quality, high-volume, spay-neuter (HQHVSN) clinic. About seven years ago when the HQHVSN clinic was opened, intake at the county shelter was around 14,000 animals per year. By 2016, intake had plummeted to 7,311 animals. Sanders was therefore aware of the importance of spay-neuter when she started her new job as shelter director, and one of her first initiatives was to start sterilizing all cats and dogs before they left the shelter.

That included community cats. With Target Zero’s help (including revision of a county ordinance), Anderson County P.A.W.S. started a Return-to-Field (RTF) program that sharply reduced the number of cats held at the shelter for adoption. Usually when a shelter starts an RTF program it must find a veterinarian or clinic that can sterilize all the cats. The Anderson County shelter did not have money appropriated for that, so Sanders does the surgeries herself. She did almost 300 such surgeries last month.

The program is for healthy, apparently unowned cats found outdoors, and most of the cats they get go into the program. The shelter has a part-time person who picks the cats up in the afternoon after their surgeries and returns them to their territory. They have had a good deal of success in asking people who drop off cats if they will come back and get the cats themselves, and close to 60% agree. Owner surrenders, declawed cats, kittens, and highly adoptable cats are held for adoption. Sick and injured cats are treated.

When I asked Sanders what one program had made the most difference in their turnaround, she named managed admission. The shelter requires an appointment for owner surrenders. Exceptions are made for injured animals, who are taken in immediately, and strays brought in by residents are also taken without appointment. The shelter accepts surrender of owned animals two days a week. Although there were a few complaints about the program at first, people in the county adjusted quickly to the idea that the shelter was no longer a place to casually drop off a pet.

The concept of managed admission is sometimes criticized on the ground that it will result in increased pet abandonment, but the experience in Anderson County shows that managed admission has the opposite effect. When officials expect people to take responsibility for their animals, people will live up to that responsibility. No Kill advocate Craig Brestrup argued in his 1997 book Disposable Animals that when shelters take in animals on demand with no questions asked it actually encourages people to regard their pets as having little value. By contrast, when shelters ask people to help them help their pet, most are happy to make an appointment.

The managed admission program allows shelter personnel to communicate with an owner before a pet is surrendered, and that can help the shelter keep pets in their homes when possible. If someone wants to surrender an animal because it needs veterinary treatment that the owner cannot afford, or if there is a behavior problem, the shelter can often help the owner fix the problem and head off surrender. A local non-profit called Freedom Fences can work with people to get their dogs off chains.

One part of Anderson County’s managed admission program is to ask people who want to surrender litters of puppies and kittens to keep them and care for them until they are old enough to be adopted. Sanders reports that most people readily agree to this, and that it has been a “complete game changer” for the shelter. The shelter provides supplies and support for the caregivers. This program not only reduces length of stay and demands on shelter staff, it also keeps puppies and kittens out of the shelter during the time they are most vulnerable to infections.

Pet retention, sterilizing animals before adoption, treating sick and injured animals, and providing supplies for fosters are all programs that cost money. The shelter has not received additional funds yet, but Sanders is hoping to see an increase in its budget next year. She has been able to make ends meet so far, due to a decrease in the number of animals in the shelter and reduced length of stay.

An important change that occurred around the time Sanders became director was moving the shelter to the Public Works division under the management of Holt Hopkins. Animal shelters are a unique government service, and sometimes the method of management of a particular county department might not mesh well with the needs of the shelter. Directors who want to make big changes in shelter operations need to have authority to act on their own, and to act on short notice. A change from one department to another can have a good effect if it allows the director more flexibility in operations.

Another important change in operations at the shelter has been an emphasis on working with rescues. Locally, the shelter works with Day Before the Rainbow, Lucky Pup Rescue, Low Country Lab Rescue, and Carolina Poodle Rescue, among others. Two large organizations from the northeast, All Breed Rescue and St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center, send vans to the shelter once or twice a month to pick up dogs and cats for transport.

South Carolina has an ambitious statewide No Kill effort called No Kill South Carolina (NKSC) that is spearheaded by the Charleston Animal Society. The operating plan for the effort is to establish several “hubs” in the state that can offer advice and resources to nearby shelters. NKSC wants every shelter animal to be no more than one hour away from help. Anderson County P.A.W.S. joined NKSC in December 2016 and very quickly became a provider of help. The shelter has been called in to assist Abbeville County, and took in animals from a hoarding case.

Sanders projects confidence and competence, but she admitted that even she was surprised by how quickly the shelter improved. She credits the successful turnaround to a great staff, the pride and interest that the community took in the shelter, and support from the county council. As she says, it was a whole group of people coming together to do the right thing for the animals. Sanders believes that Anderson County P.A.W.S. is proof that any community can become No Kill if they have the commitment to do it.

See video interview with Dr. Sanders at Anderson County P.A.W.S. from earlier this year by the Anderson Observer.

Poll: Rural Americans Worried Most About Jobs, Economy

Americans who live in rural communities have a significantly worse view of the U.S. economy and job opportunities than those who live in cities or their suburbs, a new poll shows.

A Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation survey found 67 percent of rural Americans surveyed rated job opportunities in their community "fair" or "poor." City dwellers were split almost evenly on the question, with 50 percent rating job prospects as "excellent" or "good."

Economic data are mixed on whether the rural pessimism is warranted. The unemployment rate in rural parts of the country is only slightly higher than in cities – 5.3 percent versus 4.8 percent. But numbers produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show rural America has been much slower to recover from the 2008 recession.

According to the Labor Department, employment in urban and suburban areas has rebounded, adding 3 million jobs onto pre-recession levels. Those gains have largely come thanks to an influx of new workers who fled joblessness in rural America for population centers. Rural America still has about 129,000 fewer jobs than it did before the recession.

The Post/Kaiser poll also asked respondents whether they would recommend young people stay in their communities or leave to seek economic opportunities elsewhere. Among rural Americans, 32 percent said young people should stay, while 59 percent said they should leave. Among urban respondents, 54 percent said they should stay, while 41 percent said they should leave.

The poll surveyed 1,070 adults in equal numbers from counties considered urban, suburban and rural. It was conducted from April 13 to May 1 and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Total Solar Eclipse Can Cause Sudden Drop in Temperature

During the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, the moon will completely cover the disk of the sun from Oregon to South Carolina. During this period of "totality," eclipse observers will likely report feeling a sudden drop in temperature. Just how much does the mercury drop during this celestial event? 

During the total solar eclipse on Dec. 9, 1834, the Gettysburg Republican Banner reported that in some places, the eclipse caused the temperature to drop by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit, from 78 degrees F to 50 degrees F (25 degrees Celsius to 10 degrees C). During a total solar eclipse on the Norwegian island of Svalbard in March 2015, temperatures dropped from 8 degrees F to minus 7 degrees F (minus 13 C to minus 21 degrees C). 

The change in temperature during a total eclipse will vary based on location and time of year. The temperature change created by the loss of light from the sun's disk will be similar to the difference between the temperature at midday and the temperature just after sunset, except the change will occur more suddenly, which is why this is often one of the very noticeable effects of a total solar eclipse. [What You'll See During the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse]  

Rick Feinberg, head of media relations for the American Astronomical Society, says people can expect an average drop of about 10 degrees F (about 5 degrees C).

There are written accounts of total solar eclipses going back millennia. And yet, there seems to be lacking any long-term, consistent effort to measure many of the local effects of total solar eclipses — such as the drop in temperature — according to Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College who studies eclipses. 

This NASA map of the United States shows the entire path of totality for the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/SVS/Ernie Wright 

Pasachoff and his colleague Marcos Peñaloza-Murillo are working to conduct standardized measurements of many of the local effects of total solar eclipses. The pair produced their first publication on this topic in the Aug. 22, 2016, issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, where they reported on the change in temperature in Svalbard in 2015. The entire issue of that journal was dedicated to "eclipse weather," or the study of the various atmospheric effects that take place during total solar eclipses. The two researchers will make more measurements during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, from Salem, Oregon. 

Pasachoff and Peñaloza-Murillo measured the temperature at a height of about 5 feet (1.5 meters) above the ground, and found that the lowest daytime temperature occurred 2 minutes after the end of totality. That might be because most of the sun's energy doesn't heat the air directly. The Earth's atmosphere is a good insulator, meaning it doesn't exchange heat easily. Most of the sun's energy warms the ground, which then gradually warms the air; the warm air rises, and cool air settles on the ground, creating a convection cycle of heating. This delayed transfer of heat could explain the slight delay in the cooling of the air during totality. 

Total solar eclipses happen, on average, about every 18 months, but they are visible only on a narrow strip of land. (The Aug. 21 total solar eclipse will be visible along a 70-mile-wide path that crosses the continental U.S.) So-called "eclipse hunters" often have to travel to remote parts of the globe to see these cosmic events. That means it could take Pasachoff and Peñaloza-Murillo many years to gather data on "eclipse weather" from a significant number of total eclipses.  

Father's Day Holiday Not Made Official Holiday Until 1972

While Mother's Day has been a national holiday since 1914, Father's Day wouldn't get the same legal status until more than half a century later, when President Nixon signed into law a measure declaring the third Sunday of June be observed as Father's Day.

The proclamation acknowledged that it had already "long been our national custom to observe each year one special Sunday in honor of America's fathers," and Presidents had been making public statements in support of Father's Day since the early 1900s. Annual celebrations for dads date back to 1910, when Sonora Louise Smart Dodd organized such an event to honor the life of her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran and who raised six children on his own after his wife died in childbirth.

But things changed in the 1970s. Experts say that one crucial force was a major shift in how the American father was perceived.

The "New Fatherhood" movement developed in the early 20th century — in the midst of the temperance movement and concerns that urbanization was creating a generation of degenerates — as a growing body of research on child-rearing urged dads to support their kids not only financially but also emotionally, from changing diapers to playing with them to giving them life advice, as Ralph LaRossa, the historian behind the History of Fatherhood Project, notes in Deconstructing Dads: Changing Images of Fathers in Popular Culture. 

As such, early iterations of the push for a national Father's Day often focused on validating the importance of the father's role in the family. For example, during the Great Depression, some saw Father's Day as a way to boost the self-esteem of men who'd lost their jobs or had their wages cut — to show these dads they could still be there for their kids as a companion and male role model. Then, during World War II, when fathers were more likely to be away fighting, Father's Day ads showed images of dads in uniform and touted the role of "the father as a protector" of home and hearth.

LaRossa argues that that same kind of valorization of the father as protector — though not necessarily as a physical presence in the home — may have been happening in the late '60s and early '70s too, during the Vietnam War, citing a section of the Congressional Record in which Montana Senator Mike Mansfield argued that Father's Day deserved as much recognition as Mother's Day got, because the "trying times" through which Americans were living placed new "burdens and responsibilities" on dads.

But Vietnam wasn't the only thing happening at the time.

Another crucial element in the nationalization of Father's Day was the women's liberation movement, which offered women a forum in which to fight for the same workplace opportunities as those men were entitled to. For some, the idea of that equality had echoes in the home. As parents started to split the tasks of parenting more equally, it got stranger that mothers were celebrated in a way that fathers weren't yet. “What seemed to be different in the late 20th century is the belief that dads should take on more of the routine tasks of taking care of kids, like changing diapers, and to do it in the interest of gender equality, which wasn’t as central a thing in the early 20th-century ‘New Fatherhood’ movement,” LaRossa says.

For others, however, the desire for a day for fathers was more about a backlash to the perception of the father's place in the family slipping, suggests Timothy Marr, a professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . “It was only after the Sexual Revolution and the establishment of no-fault divorce in the 1960s challenged the prominence and permanence of the father’s role in the home that Congress officially authorized a permanent observance in 1972," he writes in American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia.

Nowadays, while many parents are still working on mastering the perfect balance of gender equality in parenting in the 21st century, everyone seems to generally agree — thanks in part to the men's clothing industry— that dads deserve a token of appreciation one day of the year, even as Americans continue to debate what a father's responsibilities should be in the home.

Two Largest S.C. Hospital Systems Plan Merger

South Carolina's two largest hospital systems are joining, as Palmetto Health in Columbia and Greenville Health System announced they're creating a new organization Jan. 1.

The hospitals did not immediately say what the new system will be called, but it will have 13 hospitals and 28,000 employees, including 2,800 doctors. They will have more than 3,000 beds. The new group will be the largest private employer in South Carolina.

Hospital administrators say the system is expected to generate nearly $4 billion in annual revenue.

The nonprofit systems in Columbia and Greenville will operate separately, with a joint board. No money is being exchanged.

Palmetto Health chief executive Charles Beaman said the partnership is the result of nearly a year of work. He notes the two systems have worked together for a long time, and co-own Baptist Easley Hospital.

"We said, 'Let's take what we're doing and see if we can do something better,'" Charles Beaman, chief executive officer for Palmetto Health, said.

There are no immediate plans for staff reductions, but Beaman said some consolidation is possible.

Officials say the approval was unanimous by both hospital boards. The boards will combine with equal representation from each. The companies' chief executives, Beaman and Greenville's Michael Riordan, will become co-CEOs and share leadership responsibilities.

The University of South Carolina opened a medical school next to Greenville Memorial Hospital in 2012. USC is also moving its Columbia medical school campus to a site near Palmetto Health Richland. USC and Palmetto Health merged medical practices last year.

Patrick Cawley, CEO of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, said he's not surprised by the merger, pointing out one way the health care industry tries to reduce costs is to consolidate.

Beaman said the merger is designed partially to help cope with uncertainty in the health care market, as Congress tries to replace the Affordable Care Act.

"There are a lot of unknowns facing the health industry starting with how we're going to be reimbursed in the future," Beaman said.

Those concerns were echoed by Greenville's Riordan.

"We're not seeing more money on the horizon," he said, pointing to proposed Medicaid cuts.

S.C. Attorney General Investigating Drug Manufacturers

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is working with other attorneys general from across the country to investigate whether drug manufactures have "engaged in unlawful practices in marketing the sale of opioids." 

Wilson said the investigation is ongoing.

"We're not pointing the finger at any one person in the distribution, our any one group, we're looking at this holistically and trying to determine the best way for South Carolina to attack and combat this epidemic to keep our citizens safe," he said.

The attorney general said the opioid problem has been going on for at least four decades and he and his staff want to see change. He said a consumer protection division is working to gather as much information from these manufactures and on down the line. 

The South Carolina Attorney General's Office said "Nationwide and in South Carolina, opioids—prescription and illicit—are the main driver of drug overdose deaths.  Opioids were involved in 33,091 deaths in 2015, and opioid overdoses have quadrupled since 1999."

Wilson said they are looking to the manufactures for more information.

"Maybe they knew this drug was far more addictive than they let on and purposely withheld that information, there are all kinds of things that we have to look into to determine if in fact that is true, and if it is then we have to make a decision on how to make that individual accountable," he said.