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The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, tells the Senate that the U.S.-led mission is in a "stalemate." He says the Taliban gained 15 percent more ground in 2016 and that "a few thousand" more NATO trainers are needed.

The OGE cites "an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events." This appears to refer to White House adviser Kellyanne Conway promoting Ivanka Trump's brand in a TV interview.

NPR's David Kestenbaum reports on a possible wrinkle in the space-time continuum. Really. Physicists measuring the fundamental characteristics of a subatomic particle, the muon, have come up with some very puzzling results that could punch a hole in the long-standing "standard model" of how matter is put together. And that could help usher in a completely new theory of matter, time and space. Unless, of course, some scientist has made a mistake. (4:30) (It was later revealed this was a mistake: "Well, I would say I'm responsible for the mistake. My collaborator did most of the work, but I am equally guilty of making mistakes." Toichiro Kinoshita, a physicist at Princeton University. Kinoshita's sin was to have a minus sign where he should have had a plus or maybe the other way around. He can't quite remember, though it ended up having gigantic consequences. Kinoshita and his colleague were calculating how a particular subatomic particle behaves when it's stuck in a magnetic field. The particle, it turns out, wobbles like a toy top at a particular frequency. Kinoshita enlisted hundreds of computers and, after a decade of heroic work, had precisely predicted how fast it should wobble according to the laws of physics. Last winter, other physicists who were out measuring the wobble found it differed significantly from Kinoshita's prediction. In the clockwork world of physics, this was potentially a huge finding, signaling something new and mysterious, except that it wasn't. Kinoshita traced his error to a tiny quirk in a computer program he was using. He hadn't checked that bit, in part because other physicists using a different approach had gotten the same answer."

The rule change is an apparent victory for Norway's female handball team after it was fined for wearing shorts rather than the requisite bikini bottoms over the summer.

Research shows that sleep deprivation makes people emotionally volatile and temperamental — a fact that hasn't escaped the notice of some reality TV producers, who deny contestants sleep in an effort to kick up televised drama.

The threat of Russia invading Ukraine is real, the Biden administration insists. At the same time, top officials say they hope that being vocal about the intelligence they have could deter action.

As top law enforcement officials prepared to brief the media on the arrest of seven suspected terrorists in Miami, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was otherwise involved. He was meeting with producers and some cast members of the Fox TV counterterrorism show 24.

People living near the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., are returning to their homes as river waters recede. But flooding still threatens other communities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other parts of the Northeast.

Ever since the dawn of digital delivery, we've been hearing about how the single-song download is killing the album. But at the Grammy Awards, which take place Sunday night in Los Angeles, there's still a category for Album of the Year. Tom Moon profiles the nominees.

Organizers at Roland-Garros said Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic should be allowed to compete at the French Open thanks to loosened COVID rules in France.