[LEAPSECS] leap seconds, newspapers, earth rotation

[Steve Summit]

tvb wrote:
> "Atomic clock scientists suggest shortening minute to 59 seconds"
>
> This is so bad it's funny.  A newspaper headline that's inaccurate by 
> a factor of, just, 100 million.
>
> By the way, a number of news web sites have been carrying "earth is 
> speeding up" and "50 years" stories the past week or so. I've read a 
> number of them. Ouch. Does anyone know who started it?

I don't know where it started.  The New York Post article you mentioned
cited this article in The Telegraph, which seems decently written:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/04/earth-spinning-faster-now-time-past-half-century/

Of course the story is mutating as it spreads to more and more
news outlets.  USA Today just ran this comically wrong headline:

	Scientists say Earth is spinning faster than it has in decades;
	a 'leap second' may be added

So close, and yet so far...