5.2 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Midwest
A 5.2-magnitude earthquake centered in southern Illinois rattled homes and skyscrapers across the Midwest early Friday, causing little damage but surprising residents unaccustomed to such a powerful temblor.
The quake — one of the strongest ever recorded in Illinois — occurred just before 4:37 a.m. and was centered six miles southeast of West Salem, Ill., and 45 miles west of Evansville, Ind.
Initially pegged as a 5.4 earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey revised its estimate to give it a value of 5.2.
Two aftershocks during the next three hours measured 2.6 and a 2.5, the agency reported.
The strongest earthquake recorded in Illinois was in 1968, a 5.3-magnitude temblor centered near Dale in Hamilton County, about 75 miles southeast of St. Louis, according to the USGS. Minor damage was widespread, but there were no serious injuries or fatalities.
West Salem is in Edwards County, and dispatcher Lucas Griswold said the sheriff’s department received several calls about the earthquake but only reports of minor damage and no injuries.
Oregon Earthquake Swarm Continues To Puzzle Researchers
April 17, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
That’s how researchers at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) are describing a swarm of earthquakes they are monitoring off the central Oregon coast, about 150 nautical miles southwest of Newport. Since April 1, they have recorded more than 600 quakes in an area not known for a high level of seismic activity.
“We’ve never seen a swarm of earthquakes in an area such as this,” said Robert Dziak, who is among the scientists from OSU using a network of underwater hydrophones to listen for the sounds of ocean floor earthquakes and other phenomena from their labs at HMSC. “We’re not certain what it means.”
A marine geologist and seismologist who works with both OSU and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Dziak called the swarm “unique” because it’s occurring in the middle of what’s known as the Juan de Fuca plate, rather than at the edges where it rubs against other such plates in the earth’s crust.
Bow Your Head, Break The Law
April 17, 2008 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
A federal appeals court has ruled a New Jersey high-school football coach who bowed his head while students on his team led prayer was actually breaking the law.
The decision, though, will be appealed, said John Whitehead, president of the Virginia-based civil-liberties group the Rutherford Institute.
“If this ruling is allowed to stand, it will mean that high-school teachers across the United States will have no free speech or academic freedom rights at all,” he said. “This undermines a time-honored tradition that has less to do with religion that it does athletic tradition. It’s a sad statement on our rights as Americans that schools are no longer bastions of freedom.”
The ruling came in the case involving Coach Marcus Borden.
World Population to Hit 6,666,666,666 on May 10th, 2008
April 17, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
The worlds population is expected to hit 6,666,666,666 on May 10th 2008.
As Australia Dries, A Global Shortage of Rice
Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.”
The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to satisfy the daily needs of 20 million people. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australias rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.
Ten thousand miles separate the mills hushed rows of oversized silos and sheds — beige, gray and now empty — from the riotous streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but a widening global crisis unites them.
The collapse of Australias rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the worlds largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
Drought affects every agricultural industry based here, not just rice — from sheepherding, the other mainstay in this dusty land, to the cultivation of wine grapes, the fastest-growing crop here, with that expansion often coming at the expense of rice.
Colombian Authorities Issue Volcano Warning as Nevado del Huila Erupts
Colombian authorities have issued a Volcano Warning as Nevado del Huila Erupts.
The Nevado del Huila, which is topped with a crown of ice, is Colombia’s third-highest peak at 18,484 feet. Located 170 miles southwest of Bogota, it became active again in March 2007 with a series of internal rumblings.
The Nevado del Huila volcano’s eruptions in 2007 were its first on record since Colombia was colonized by the Spanish 500 years ago.
There are about 10,000 people living in the area around the volcano.
California In For Devastating Earthquake Within 30 Years – The Big One
April 14, 2008 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
A strong and potentially deadly earthquake is virtually certain to strike on one of California’s major seismic faults with a magnitude of at least 6.7 within the next 30 years, scientists said Monday in releasing the first official forecast of statewide earthquake probabilities.
By their calculations the probability of such a strong and damaging quake hitting somewhere the Golden state is now more than 99 percent.
A much more damaging quake of magnitude of 7.5 or greater is at least 46 percent likely to hit on one of California’s restless web of active fault systems within the same three decades, but probably in the southern part of the state, the team of federal and state earthquake scientists warned.
The new report by the team of federal and state geologists, seismologists and geophysicists does not significantly change the current probability estimates for future large quakes on the Bay Area’s major faults that were calculated five years ago, but it does provide the first detailed forecasts for the odds of future quakes on faults in the Los Angeles area: on the southern San Andreas, on the San Jacinto and on the Elsinore faults specifically.
“In our two major metropolitan areas where odds are high that a large quake is coming, people think a lot about quakes whenever even a smaller one shakes … but ten days later most folks forget them, and they shouldn’t,” said David Schwartz, an earthquake geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park who served on the scientific review panel that evaluated the new probability estimates. The analysis was requested by the California Earthquake Authority, a public agency created by the state Legislature in 1996 and funded by companies throughout the state that offer limited quake insurance to all comers.
The report’s details should also prove useful for city planners, building code designers and home and business owners “who can use this information to improve public safety and mitigate damage before the next destructive earthquake occurs,” said geophysicist Ned Field of the U.S. Geological Survey who headed the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities that developed the forecasts.
“This new, comprehensive forecast advances our understanding of earthquakes and pulls together existing research with new techniques and data,” Field said.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Southern California Earthquake Center and the California State Geological Survey participated in the report. Aside from the scientists in California who evaluated the Working Group’s conclusions, both the California and National Earthquake Prediction Councils evaluated the study too.
The scientists used complex analytical tools that they have developed over many years and new computer programs to arrive at their new forecasts of earthquake magnitudes and the faults they may rupture.
By their calculations, the probability that a 6.7 magnitude quake will hit on any one of the faults in the Bay Area is now set at 63 percent, only a tiny bit higher than the 62 percent estimated in 2003. But the probability for that kind of severely damaging quake on the Hayward-Rodgers Creek fault was increased in the new forecast from 27 percent to 31 percent.
The analysis was the first the scientists done of probabilities for quakes on several Southern California faults. They calculated the odds of a 6.7 magnitude quake striking within 30 years somewhere in the greater Los Angeles at two-to-one, a probability of 67 percent, according to the report.
The single fault in all California with the highest probability of a large quake occurring within the next 30 years is the Southern San Andreas, and the seismic odds-makers set the number for it at 59 percent.
Looking at Northern California’s farthest region – actually the southern end of the 750-mile-long Cascadia Subduction Zone which stretches far up the Pacific Coast into British Columbia – the quake experts set the probability for a large quake within 30 years at only 10 percent, but concluded it could register a magnitude of 8 or even 9. Quakes that powerful occur once every 500 years on average.
Estimating probabilities for future earthquakes is highly complicated and calls for analysis of many factors: the average time between quakes that have struck on a given fault; the location, the size and the time when a quake last ruptured a given fault; the type of quake that hit, the geology of the region, and the rate at which the Earth’s crust is moving.
“The further you are in time from the last quake on a fault, the higher the probability is for the next one,” Schwartz said.
Food Shortages Herald New Era Of Hunger As More Countries Suffer Riots Over Rising Prices And Shortages Of Staples
A third day of riots in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, had by Friday paralyzed the city with looting and violence.
The toll includes a U.N. soldier who has been shot and killed in the capital while delivering food to his unit.
U.N. Mission spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said the soldier was shot Saturday afternoon and that he was a member of a 1,000-strong unit that deals with riots.
She said U.N. troops did not exchange fire, but had no further details.
The demonstrations began earlier in the week, in protest against rising food prices, and turned into riots.
The looting has made access to food even more difficult, doing little to ease widespread hunger among Haitians.
Port-au-Prince hospitals were filled with people injured in the riots, being treated by volunteers from the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).
Wagner Pierre, who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres, said many of the wounds they were seeing were a result of bullets.
“In the last 4 days we have received 160 wounded, 40 of which were from gun bullet wounds,” said Wagner.
Many of the injured were bystanders caught in crossfire, like David Saint Felix, who was wounded in the leg during the protests.
“I was passing through the Haitian marine base looking for my brother who was in the protests, when I was hit with a bullet in my leg,” said Saint Felix.
The fighting across the capital was punctuated with calls for the Haitian president’s resignation.
This afternoon, a Haitian senator said that parliament has voted to dismiss Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.
President Rene Preval announced a drop in the price of rice Saturday in a bid to defuse anger over rising food prices.
After meeting with food importers in the national palace, Preval said the price of a 50-pound bag of rice will drop from US$51 to US$43 – a reduction of 15.7 percent.
The Haitian president said the government will use international aid money to subsidize the price of rice and that the private sector has agreed to knock US$3 off the price of each bag. Preval did not say when the price reduction would go into effect.
Preval also said he would ask Venezuela for help, especially about providing fertilizer for struggling farmers.
The announcements come in the wake of looting and clashes between hundreds of protesters and U.N. peacekeepers earlier this week. Protesters blame the government for failing to create jobs and control soaring food prices and some demonstrators called for Preval’s resignation. The violence left at least five people dead.
Trading Nude Photos Via Mobile Phone Now Part of Teen Dating, Experts Say
April 14, 2008 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
WARNING: This Story May Be Considered Offensive
Forget about passing notes in study hall; some teens are now using their cell phones to flirt and send nude pictures of themselves.
The instant text, picture and video messages have become part of some teens’ courtship behavior, police and school officials said. The messages often spread quickly and sometimes find their way to public Web sites.
“I’ve seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed,” said Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio. “You name it, they will do it at their home under this perceived anonymity.”
Westerville Central High School senior Jerome Ray said he’s received such unsolicited messages, including one from a classmate while he was sitting with his girlfriend.
“A lot more girls are aggressive,” said Ray, 18. “Some girls are crazy and they are putting themselves out there.”
Candice Kelsey, a teacher from California, said some teenage girls think they have to be provocative to get boys’ attention. As a result, they will send photos they hope their parents never see.
“This happens a lot,” said Kelsey, author of Generation MySpace: Helping Your Teen Survive Online Adolescence. “It crosses every racial socio-economic group. Christian kids are doing it. Jewish kids are doing it.”
Male teens are also doing it.
For instance, a central Ohio high school teen made a sexual cell phone video of himself and sent it to female classmates. One of the girls forward the Westerville South High School’s video to at least 30 other people.
A study last year found teens are placing more of an emphasis on image and fame than in the past. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who studies young people’s trends, found that teens are more confident and assertive than ever before.
“Adolescents are not known for thinking things through _ that’s a generational constant,” she said. “Now, with the technology that is out there, instead of taking a picture and passing it around the classroom, it’s online, which is a whole different ball game. (Teens) don’t see it that way.”
Mark Raiff, a principal at Columbus’ Olentangy Liberty High School, said some of his students and their cell phones have caused trouble.
“They don’t see anything wrong with it,” he said. “It leaves me speechless.”
Russia Closing Down Methodist Church
Members of a United Methodist congregation in Russia were without a church Sunday, April 13, after authorities closed it for running a Sunday School without government permission, the latest in a series of police raids targeting Christian education, Christians said.
The congregation in the western city of Smolensk was closed down by a local court March 24, on charges of “educational activity in a Sunday school without a corresponding license,” the church’s Pastor Aleksandr Vtorov said in a statement released by the news service of religious rights group Forum 18.
Investigation into the congregation and the school, attended by some four children, started after a complaint from local Russian Orthodox bishop Ignati Punin.
The complaint originally focused on a planned missionary college, but later the Sunday School became the target of a police investigation.
In published remarks, C. Vladimir Ryakhovsky of the Moscow-based Slavic Centre for Law and Justice said he fears the Methodist congregation’s liquidation increases the threat to other religious education.
“Almost every religious organization has a Sunday School…”I don’t know of one that has a separate education license. Do they intend to liquidate them all?” Elsewhere in Russia, adult religious education without a license has already led to raids and enforced closures. Forum 18 said. Human right group
Voice Of the Martyrs told BosNewsLife that “while the court’s decision to dissolve the church means loss of legal status rather than a complete ban, it does bar the Methodists from maintaining or developing any form of public profile as an organization.”
There has been concerns that non-Orthodox churches and Christian groups are facing a new crackdown in Russia, following some years of relative freedom. Analysts say the organizations are often viewed as a danger to the power base of outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies. Authorities have not commented on the latest raids.
Over 80% of US Christians back Israel
Over 80 percent of US Christians – including Evangelicals, mainstream Protestants and Catholics – say they have a “moral and biblical obligation” to support Israel, according to the results of a recent poll released last Thursday.
Commissioned by bestselling author Joel Rosenberg’s Joshua Fund aid organization, the poll showed that while support for Israel was strongest among Evangelical Christians at 89 percent, an overwhelming 76 percent of Catholics also agreed they have a divine mandate to back the reborn Jewish state.
Well over half of the 1,000 Christians polled said Israel should not divide Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians, and a 76 percent majority warned that a sovereign Palestinian state either could or certainly would become a terrorist and terror-supporting entity.
Two-thirds of American Christians believe Israel is completely justified in its concern that a nuclear-armed Iran would attack the Jewish state or facilitate others in the region in doing so.
And finally, 45 percent of respondents said that US presidential candidates’ support for and commitment to defending Israel from regional threats would influence their votes in the upcoming American presidential election.
US Bank Losses Continue To Worsen
Citigroup and Merrill Lynch will heap further pain on Wall Street this week as they reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totalling $15 billion (£7.6 billion) or more.
In another sign of the intense pressure on leading banks, Deutsche Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion (£28 billion) of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms.
Huge exposure to American mortgages is expected to result in Citi taking a $10 billion hit to its accounts, dragging the bank to a first-quarter loss of almost $3 billion. Some analysts believe Citi’s write-downs could stretch to as much as $12 billion.
Merrill will suffer $5 billion of write-downs, analysts say, which would push the bank $2.7 billion into the red.
Israel, Egypt on High Alert For Hamas Attack
Egypt and Israel have been on alert for a major Hamas border strike.
Israeli and Egyptian forces have been placed on high alert along the Gaza Strip amid intelligence that the Hamas regime was planning a series of major attacks. The intelligence warned of Hamas attacks on Israeli facilities and the destruction of the Egypt-Gaza border.
“The Hamas attacks could take place any day,” a security source said.
On Wednesday, Hamas-aligned combatants attacked a gasoline storage terminal along the Gaza-Israel border, Middle East Newsline reported. At least two Israeli workers were killed in what was termed a major security breach. The Popular Resistance Committees and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the strike, meant to either blow up the terminal or abduct Israelis.
More Catholic Schools Closing Across US
For 46 years, crime, recessions and hurricanes proved no threat to the daily ritual of St. Monica School, where the entire blue-and-white uniformed student body gathered outside each morning to join in prayer.
Come June, though, the tradition will fade away, and “amen” will close St. Monica’s morning recitations for the last time. The school, a home-away-from-home for mostly minority students, will close.
As Pope Benedict XVI next week makes his first trip to the U.S. as pontiff, Catholic schools across the country, long a force in educating the underprivileged regardless of their faith, face the same fate as St. Monica.
About 1,267 Catholic schools have closed since 2000 and enrollment nationwide has dropped by 382,125 students, or 14 percent, according to the National Catholic Education Association. The problem is most apparent in inner cities, in schools like St. Monica with large concentrations of minorities whose parents often struggle to pay tuition rather than send them to failing public schools.
