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The extension is necessary because lawmakers have been unable to complete work on the 12-must pass spending bills required to keep the various arms of the federal government running each year.

With the federal government’s fiscal year in its waning hours, all non- essential parts of the government would have been required to shut down at midnight had the extension not been agreed to.

The Senate voted 62-38 to agree to the extension.

House lawmakers voted strongly in favor of the measure last week.

The idea of the weapon is to “create a heating sensation that repels individual adversaries”, according to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) in Quantico, Virginia, which develops less-lethal weapons for the US military and coastguard.

Tests with a rifle-mounted infrared laser, carried out at a US air force lab near Dayton, Ohio, have determined a combination of laser pulse power and wavelength that causes an alarming, hot sensation on the skin, but which stops short of causing a burn, says JNLWD project engineer Wesley Burgei.

“We have established the minimum irradiance to cause a sensation and have characterised where thermal injury begins,” he says. “But the exact operating irradiance which balances a useful military effect with a conservative margin of safety has not been nailed down yet.”

That’s something that will have to be done before the weapon is deployed, as too powerful a laser beam could permanently blind someone if fired at their eyes. Weapons that do this are banned under the UN Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons.

The Penske Automotive Group said it could not proceed with the deal because another auto manufacturer, which it did not identify, said it would not build vehicles to be distributed under the Saturn brand name.

The decision by Penske Automotive stunned G.M. and Saturn dealers, who had hailed Mr. Penske, who has built a track record of successful turnarounds, as the savior of the brand that G.M. was forced to sell as part of its government-financed bankruptcy reorganization.

“Today’s disappointing news comes at a time when we’d hoped for a successful launch of the Saturn brand into a new chapter,” G.M.’s chief executive, Fritz Henderson, said in a statement. “We will be working closely with our dealers to ensure Saturn customers are cared for as we transition them to other G.M. dealers in the months ahead.”

There were no indications that the negotiations — first announced in June — were faltering.

They use live video feeds (sometimes from many angles) to find the position and motion of various objects, which they then combine with behavioral simulations to produce real-time animations for Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

They use motion capture data to help their animated humans move realistically, and were able to extrapolate cars’ motion throughout an entire stretch of road from just a few spotty camera angles.

From their video of an augmented virtual Earth, you can see if the pickup soccer game in the park is short a player, how traffic is on the highway, and how fast the wind is blowing the clouds across the sky.

Up next, they say they want to add weather, birds, and motion in rivers.

Vanishing of the Bees, which will be released in Britain next month, claims the cause is the use of a new generation of pesticides that weakens the bees and makes them more susceptible to other diseases.

Narrated by the British actress Emilia Fox, the 90-minute film tells the story of what has become known as colony collapse disorder.

The problem first appeared in America in the winter of 2004, when many beekeepers across the country found that their bees had suddenly vanished, leaving behind empty hives. Since then scientists have failed to find a single cause for it.

The film goes on to suggest that neonicotinoid pesticides, some of them made by Bayer, one of the world’s biggest chemical companies, may be behind the disappearances.

This was it. The moment the reporter had been working for.

Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) emerged, briefly, from the chamber. A genial 60-year-old with bushy eyebrows, the diminutive Rahall didn’t look anything like a medieval crusader. In fact, his family roots are in Lebanon, not Europe.

But Rahall is also a 33rd Degree Mason, who joined the secretive society about five years before he ran for Congress in 1976. “When I joined, there were a great deal of older individuals who helped me along the way and to whom I am deeply indebted to this day,” he said.

“We call each other ‘travelers,’” Rahall explained. “To become a 32nd or 33rd Degree Mason, there are a whole slew of degrees before that, and it’s a long road we’ve taken together.”

Rahall said he achieved his 33rd Degree status by two routes: through the Scottish Rite and through the York Rite, where he participated in the Commandery. That’s the portion of the Freemason tradition that makes Rahall a Knight Templar.

And although he hadn’t read the Dan Brown book, Rahall says he understands why the Masons attract so many conspiracy theories.

“It’s because, particularly in the early days, there were code words to get into the lodge, and everything is done by rituals,” Rahall said. “The Masons themselves helped perpetuate the myth, knowing it was just that — a myth.”

The reporter screwed up his courage to ask one final question.

So is there a global conspiracy?

“No.”

But you wouldn’t tell me if there was, would you?

“That’s right,” Rahall said with a smile.