The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with record sales of firearms, has fueled a shortage of ammunition in the United States that’s impacting law enforcement agencies, people seeking personal protection, recreational shooters and hunters — and could deny new gun owners the practice they need to handle their weapons safely. Manufacturers say they’re producing as much ammunition as they can, but many gun store shelves are empty and prices keep rising. Ammunition imports are way up, but at least one U.S. manufacturer is exporting ammo. All while the pandemic, social unrest and a rise in violent crime have prompted millions to buy guns for protection or to take up shooting for sport. “We have had a number of firearms instructors cancel their registration to our courses because their agency was short on ammo or they were unable to find ammo to purchase,” said Jason Wuestenberg, executive director of the National Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association. Doug Tangen, firearms instructor at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the police academy for the state, said the academy also has had trouble obtaining ammo. “A few months ago, we were at a point where our shelves were nearly empty of 9mm ammunition,” he said. In response, instructors took conservation steps like reducing the number of shots fired per drill, which got them through several months until fresh supplies arrived, Tangen said. Officer Larry Hadfield, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said his department also has been affected by the shortage. “We have made efforts to conserve ammunition when possible,” he said. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade group, says more than 50 million people participate in shooting sports in the U.S. and estimates that 20 million guns were sold last year, with 8 million of those sales made by first-time buyers. “When you talk about all these people buying guns, it really has an impact on people buying ammunition,” spokesman Mark Oliva said. ”If you look at 8.4 million gun buyers and they all want to buy one box with 50 rounds, that’s going to be 420 million rounds.” The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System database also documented an increase in sales: In 2010, there were 14.4 million background checks for gun purchases. That jumped to almost 39.7 million in 2020 and to 22.2 million just through June 2021 alone. The actual number of guns sold could be much higher since multiple firearms can be linked to a single background check. No data is available for ammunition because sales are not regulated and no license is required to sell it. As the pandemic raced across the country in early 2020, the resulting lockdown orders and cutbacks on police response sowed safety fears, creating an “overwhelming demand” for both guns and ammo, Oliva said. Factories continued to produce ammunition, but sales far exceeded the amount that could be shipped, he said. “Where there is an increased sense of instability, fear and insecurity, more people will purchase guns,” said Ari Freilich of the Gifford Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. As supplies dwindled, Feilich said, some gun owners began stockpiling ammo. “Early on in the pandemic, we saw people hoarding toilet paper, disinfectant, and now it’s ammo,” he said. Wustenberg emphasized the danger in first-time gun buyers not being

A U.S.-European satellite designed to extend a decades-long measurement of global sea surface heights was launched into Earth orbit from California on Saturday. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellite blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:17 a.m. and arced southward over the Pacific Ocean. The Falcon’s first stage flew back to the launch site and landed for reuse. The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite was released from the second stage about an hour later. It then deployed its solar panels and made first contact with controllers. Named for a former NASA official who had a key role in developing space-based oceanography, the satellite’s main instrument is an extremely accurate radar altimeter that will bounce energy off the sea surface as it sweeps over Earth’s oceans. An identical twin, Sentinel-6B, will be launched in 2025 to ensure continuity of the record. Space-based sea level measurements have been uninterrupted since the 1992 launch of the U.S.-French satellite TOPEX-Poseidon, which was followed by a series of satellites including the current Jason-3. Sea surface heights are affected by heating and cooling of water, allowing scientist to use the altimeter data to detect such weather-influencing conditions as the warm El Nino and the cool La Nina. The measurements are also important for understanding overall sea level rise due to global warming that scientists warn is a risk to the world’s coastlines and billions of people. “Our Earth is a system of intricately connected dynamics between land, ocean, ice, atmosphere and also of course our human communities, and that system is changing,” Karen St. Germain, NASA’s Earth Science Division director, said in a pre-launch briefing Friday. “Because 70% of the Earth’s surface is ocean, the oceans play an enormous role in how the whole system changes,” she said. The new satellite is expected to have unprecedented accuracy. “This is an extremely important parameter for climate monitoring,” Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency’s director of Earth observation, told The Associated Press this week. “We know that sea level is rising,” Aschbacher said. The big question is, by how much, how quickly. Other instruments on board will measure how radio signals pass through the atmosphere, providing data on atmospheric temperature and humidity that can help improve global weather forecasts. Europe and the United States are sharing the $1.1 billion (900 million euro) cost of the mission, which includes the twin satellite. (AP)

On Tuesday night, December 17, Chai Lifeline hosted its annual Family Chanukah Party at The Palace in Brooklyn. More than 1,500 people were in attendance, including Chai Lifeline children, families, volunteers and staff. One hundred and fifty families received special Chanukah presents from generous donors. In total, more than 50,000 toys will be distributed to Chai Lifeline children and families around the world this Chanukah season. The evening’s entertainment included performances by Benny Friedman and Uri Davidi, accompanied by Freilich orchestra. The party’s elaborate décor was generously provided by Luxe. Special thank you to Ruchie Waldman, Gershey Moskowitz and Shulem Schwartz for all their assistance in arranging the event. “Throughout the year, Chai Lifeline is there for children and families during their darkest hours,” said Chai Lifeline CEO Rabbi Simcha Scholar. “Our dedicated staff and volunteers work tirelessly to brighten lives which have been dimmed by illness or loss, and there is no better time to spread that joy and hope than Chanukah.” “The annual Chanukah party is a wonderful opportunity for our New York area families to get together, enjoy themselves and be inspired,” said Rabbi Mordechai Gobioff, Chai Lifeline national director of client services. “It’s also an important reminder for them they are not alone in battling their child’s illness and that there’s a community of support there for them.” Learn more about Chai Lifeline at www.chailifeline.org.

Travis Reinking exhibited multiple warning signs that he was mentally unstable: He talked openly about delusions that he was being stalked by pop-star Taylor Swift. He insisted unknown people were making barking noises outside his home. He even went to the White House on a mission to talk to the president. Reinking’s behavior resulted in the revocation of his Illinois firearms license, and his weapons were turned over to his father. But authorities say his father simply returned the three rifles and a handgun to his son when he decided to move out of state. The son now stands accused of opening fire Sunday at a Waffle House in Tennessee using an AR-15 that had been among the firearms seized. Four people were killed in the attack. The case illustrates the difficulty of keeping guns away from mentally disturbed people and shows how easy it is for them to retrieve confiscated weapons. “It’s a story of a highly effective law that then has a really dangerous loophole,” said Jonas Oransky, deputy legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, which works to tighten gun laws. Reinking was disarmed by a man at the restaurant and fled. He was captured Monday. Under federal law, a gun owner’s weapons can be seized if that person is convicted of a felony or involuntarily committed for mental health treatment. Illinois is one of the few states with a mechanism to allow firearms to be seized if someone’s behavior constitutes a “clear and present danger” but does not necessarily rise to the level of a felony conviction or an involuntary commitment. Police reports describe Reinking as unstable but not violent. He was well known by local law enforcement, and his troubles were not a mystery to his relatives, who told authorities that he had been having delusions since 2014. In May 2016, Reinking told deputies from Tazewell County, Illinois, that Swift was stalking him and hacking his phone, and that his family was also involved. He agreed to go to a hospital for an evaluation after repeatedly resisting the request, a sheriff’s report said. Another sheriff’s report said Reinking barged into a community pool in Tremont, Illinois, last June, and jumped into the water wearing a pink woman’s coat over his underwear. Investigators believed he had an AR-15 rifle in his car trunk, but it was never displayed. No charges were filed. Last July, Reinking was arrested by the Secret Service after he crossed into a restricted area near the White House and refused to leave, saying he wanted to meet President Donald Trump. Reinking was not armed at the time, but at the FBI’s request, state police in Illinois revoked his state firearms card and seized four guns from him, authorities said. “It seems like they were proactive and effective at suspending this dangerous person’s access to guns in the first place, particularly since that’s not something they could’ve done in most states,” said Ari Freilich, a staff attorney at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. But they “did not foresee the father being so irresponsible and dangerous in returning the guns to this person.” The father could face charges for returning the guns, according to Marcus Watson, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who spoke Monday at