Month: July 2020

Southern California was rocked by its most powerful earthquake in 25 years on Thursday, touching off fires, damaging buildings and forcing the evacuation of a hospital in a desert town northeast of Los Angeles.

The 6.4 magnitude quake struck about 113 miles northeast of Los Angeles near the city of Ridgecrest at around 10:30am, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The epicentre was on the edge of Death Valley National Park.

The Kern County Fire Department said it was dealing with "multiple injuries" that it described as minor, two house fires, small brush fires and gas leaks.

California Governor Gavin Newsom approved an emergency proclamation, and Ridgecrest Mayor Peggy Breeden said she had declared a state of emergency, a step that enables the town to receive help from outside agencies.

Ridgecrest Regional Hospital was being evacuated and patients were being moved to other locations for fear of a powerful aftershock, she said. About 15 patients were moved, local media said, citing fire officials.

My dads liquor store in Ridgecrest (11 miles from the earthquake) 🥴 pic.twitter.com/4RC0mY3eha

— Zomo (@zomo_abd) July 4, 2019

Although no injuries had been reported, Ms Breeden said she had asked residents to check on their neighbours in the high desert town, which has a population of about 28,000.

"We’re a close-knit community and everybody is working to take care of each other," she told Reuters by telephone.

The quake is the largest in Southern California since the 1994 magnitude 6.6 Northridge earthquake, USGS geophysicist Paul Caruso said. That quake, which was centred in a heavily populated area of Los Angeles, killed 57 people and caused billions of dollars of damage.

Ridgecrest may not get much respite in the hours and days ahead.

USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said more than 80 aftershocks had hit the area in the hours since the initial quake. "We should be expecting lots of aftershocks and some of them will be bigger than the 3s we’ve been having so far," Jones told a news conference.

"I think the chance of having a magnitude 5…is probably greater than 50-50," she said.

The quake was very shallow, only 6.7 miles, amplifying its effect, and was felt in an area inhabited by 20 million people, the European quake agency EMSC said.

Witnesses reported detecting the quake throughout Los Angeles, as far north as Fresno, as far east as Las Vegas, Nevada, and south of the border in Mexico, where buildings were evacuated in the cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, according to Baja California Norte state officials.

The shaking expelled water from swimming pools throughout the region.

Chuck Schlie, who was visiting Los Angeles for the first time with his family from St. Louis, said he was lying in bed at his hotel room in nearby Anaheim when he felt rumbling.

This is my friends chandelier after the earthquake 🙃 #earthquake #ridgecrestearthquake pic.twitter.com/UqjHupfvLA

— Yunuen Valencia (@_yv0214) July 4, 2019

"I thought, wow, this is really weird. Am I going crazy?" Schlie said outside the historic TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. "If you’ve never experienced it, you think, ‘Am I out of my mind? Why am I feeling like this?’"

James Wilhorn, the manager of Howard’s Mini Mart in Ridgecrest, said his gas station was the only one open in the area because of damage to others and the Independence Day holiday, and there was a line of 20 cars waiting to fill their tanks.

"I mopped up over 20 gallons (76 liters) of wine that fell over in addition to the beer, soda and the cooler that fell over. We have several thousand dollars worth of damage," Mr Wilhorn said.

Some 5,851 customers were without power in Kern County, according to poweroutage.us.

Donald Trump’s practice of blocking Twitter users who criticse or mock him is unconstitutional, a US federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

Mr Trump, a prolific tweeter, has prohibited some members of the public from reading his posts after criticising the US president. 

They include Rebecca Buckwalter, who was blocked by Mr Trump after replying to one of his posts about winning the White House with the tweet: “To be fair you didn’t win the WH: Russia won it for you”.

The three-judge panel agreed with a lower court’s ruling last year that the president was using "viewpoint discrimination" in violation of the constitutional rights of people with opposing views.

The Second Circuit Appeals Court said that Mr Trump had effectively created a public forum for official White House business.

Very good numbers on the economy. Much potential for growth. Trade deals being negotiated or being set up for negotiation. We have been treated very unfairly (to put it mildly) by other countries for many years, but that is changing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2019

It comes after a group of Twitter users and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against the president, accusing him of improperly blocking comments from his political opponents.

The plaintiffs, which included a University of Maryland professor, a Texas police officer and a New York comic, said they were blocked from the @realDonaldTrump account after posting tweets critical of his policies.

Mr Trump’s legal team had argued that he is not acting in his official capacity when he blocks users, but the court disagreed.

"The president and multiple members of his administration have described his use of the account as official," the appeals court ruling said. 

"We conclude that the evidence of the official nature of the account is overwhelming. We also conclude that once the president has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with."

The Justice Department, which represented the president, has the option to appeal the decision to the US Supreme Court but has not yet commented on its next step.

Wednesday night’s incident in the Persian Gulf was, like much brinkmanship, entirely predictable.  

Mohsen Rezaei, a general in the Revolutionary Guard Corps and an advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, warned Iran might go after a British tanker after Royal Marines seized Iran’s Grace 1 supertanker near Gibraltar last week.   

The Revolutionary Guard Corps boats that sped towards BP’s British Heritage last night signalled Iran’s willingness to make good on the threat – the Islamic Republic being keen to prove it is no push over.

And when HMS Montrose intervened, they sensibly turned away – no one, after all, wants a real war.  

British officials will have heaved a sigh of relief. But Royal Navy…

To continue reading this article

Start a 30-day free trial for unlimited access to Premium articles

• Unlimited access to Premium articles 
• Subscriber-only events and experiences
• Cancel any time

Free for 30 days

then only £2 per week

Try Premium

Save 25% with an annual subscription

Just £75 per year

 

Click Here: nrl league jerseys

Save now

Register for free and access one Premium article per week

Register

Only subscribers have unlimited access to Premium articles.Register for free to continue reading this article
RegisterOr unlock all Premium articles.
Free for 30 days, then just £1 per week
Start trial
Save 40% when you pay annually.
View all subscription options  |
Already have an account? Login

France’s environment minister was forced to resign on Tuesday amid outrage over reports of lavish taxpayer-funded dinners, with wines costing up to £500 a bottle, as he was cutting spending as the speaker of parliament. 

Click Here: Cheap Golf Golf Clubs

Media claims that François de Rugy also spent public money on his wife’s gold-plated hairdryer and refurbishing his official residence in a magnificent 18th century mansion, also fuelled anger.

They came as Emmanuel Macron, the centrist president, is attempting to restore his authority after more than eight months of “yellow-vest” protests over income inequality.

Mr de Rugy resigned a day after Mr Macron declined to sack him, saying that he should be given an opportunity to defend himself against the allegations published by Mediapart, an investigative website.

“The attacks and the media lynching directed against me and my family have led me to take the necessary distance,” Mr de Rugy said. “I cannot fulfill my mission calmly and efficiently.”

Mr de Rugy, formerly number two in the government, denied any wrongdoing.

He said Mediapart’s reports that he and his wife, a journalist on a gossip magazine, had hosted lobster dinners for their friends were part of a smear campaign. He claimed that entertaining was part of his official duties and said he was suing the website for defamation.

Mediapart’s charges related largely to Mr de Rugy’s 15 months as speaker of the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, in 2017 and 2018.

In an echo of Britain’s MPs’ expenses scandal, the Left-leaning website said he spent €63,000 (nearly £57,000) of public money refurbishing his official residence, while renting a state-owned flat in his home town, Nantes, intended for people on low incomes, so that he could spend weekends with his children from his first marriage.

The Yellow Vest protests

Le Parisien newspaper then claimed that he spent more than £450 on a Dyson hairdryer coated with gold leaf. Another daily, Ouest-France, reported that he had hosted a dinner for energy industry lobbyists which he insisted on keeping out of public records.

Among the vintage wines he reportedly served to dinner guests was a £500 Mouton-Rothschild 2004 claret, produced to mark the centenary of the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France, whose label bears an endorsement by Prince Charles. 

A new report by the website on Tuesday alleged that Mr de Rugy, an environmental activist with an aristocratic background, illegally used his MP’s expense allowance to pay some of his membership fees to the political party Europe Ecology – The Greens.

A new video has surfaced of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the financier accused of sex trafficking underage women, chatting and laughing at a party in 1992 packed with cheerleaders. 

Mr Trump is seen greeting Epstein to the event at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and talking to him as they watch women dance in the footage uncovered by NBC News.

At one point Mr Trump appears to point at one woman and say “she’s hot” to Epstein, who moments later leans forward in laughter after another comment from his host. 

The video has emerged after the US president attempted to distance himself from Epstein in the wake of his charge for sex trafficking last week. 

Mr Trump said that he had not spoken to Epstein for 15 years. "I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him," the president said, but added: "I was not a fan."

Epstein, a billionaire hedge fund manager, pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to a state charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor – a deal which has proved controversial in recent months as focus has renewed on the case. 

Alex Acosta, Mr Trump’s labour secretary who had previously overseen the plea agreement while a federal prosecutor in Florida, stepped down last week amid outcry following Epstein’s arrest last week. 

The new indictment alleged that Epstein ran a “vast network” of underage girls for sex. He was accused of enticing minors to his Manhattan and Florida mansions between 2002 and 2005. 

Girls, some as young as 14, were paid hundreds of dollars for sex acts, according to the indictment, which alleged Epstein knew his victims were under the age of 18. Epstein has pleaded not guilty. 

The video, which came to light after NBC News discovered the footage in its archives, was filmed for an NBC talk show running at the time called ‘A Closer Look’. 

Mr Trump was a bachelor when the footage was taken, having recently divorced his first wife Ivana Trump. It was a year before he married his second with Marla Maples.

The video shows Mr Trump’s Florida resort full of cheerleaders from the American football teams the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, who can be seen dancing and drinking.

None of the women appear to be underage.  Mr Trump, wearing a black suit and pink tie, is seen dancing with some of the cheerleaders, joking at one point to the camera that the TV episode about him would get “great ratings”. 

Mr Trump is then seen welcoming three new guests to the party including Epstein. Later the pair are seen chatting and smiling as women dance in front of them. 

The footage complicates the US president’s attempts to downplay his ties to Epstein in light of the new scandal. 

In 2002, Mr Trump gave glowing remarks about Epstein to the New York magazine, calling him a “terrific guy” and saying they had known each other for 15 years. 

“He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Mr Trump was quoted saying. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Mr Trump has since said the pair had a "falling out".  Mr Trump is not the only occupant of the White House to have his links to Epstein put in the spotlight.

Former US president Bill Clinton has had to defend his past appearances with Epstein. 

After the new charges Mr Clinton issued a statement saying he had taken four trips on the billionaire’s private plane, and made “one brief visit” to Epstein’s home in New York in 2002. 

Senior politicians of various stripes are calling for Bonn to be abolished as Germany’s second city to stop the environmental damage caused by frequent travelling between the two seats of power.

The calls come amid a growing debate on the ethics of short haul flights with the Green party promoting ambitious plans to end domestic aviation by 2035.

Civil servants and ministers are estimated to fly between Bonn and Berlin 230,000 times a year due to an agreement ratified in the mid-1990s that cemented a permanent presence for all government ministries in the former west German capital. 

Six of the 14 ministries still have their head office in the leafy city on the Rhine which lies 500km southwest of Berlin. 

Momentum for a move was kicked off by the Left Party, whose parliamentary leader, Dietmar Bartsch, said “we support moving government to Berlin for financial, environmental and social reasons”.

Eckhardt Rehberg, spokesman for the Christian Democrats, cautiously backed the proposal, telling broadcaster MDR that “the 30th anniversary of unification on October 3, 2020, would be a good occasion to start such an initiative.”

Bundestag budget committee chair Johannes Kahrs of the Social Democrats claimed that a majority of the committee were in favour of “accelerating” such a move.

“We don’t just have a problem with the number of flights, we also have a problem with bad government,” Kahrs said. “Whoever wants to govern properly needs to have their employees next to them.”

In the wider debate on aviation’s impact on the climate, the Green party revealed plans on Tuesday to make domestic flights “obsolete” by 2035.

The party plan to move travellers from the air onto the rails by introducing the EU’s first tax on jet fuel while also investing huge sums in the rail network, a policy paper seen by the Süddeutsche Zeitung states.

“It’s unacceptable that aviation – the most climate-damaging mode of transport – is still subsidised with billions, while environmentally friendly railways are chronically under-financed,” Daniela Wagner, an MP for the party that has been surging in polling, told the newspaper.

Via an annual investment of €3 billion in high-speed rail the environmentalists claim they could cut domestic travel times to “a maximum of four hours.”

Click Here: cheap nsw blues jersey

Eurostar trains broke down, tigers in zoos were fed chicken ice cubes, and France warned that Notre-Dame was at the risk of collapse on Wednesday, as Europe sweltered under a record-breaking heatwave.

For the second time in a month, a high pressure system drew scorching air from the Sahara desert, breaking heat records for Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, while France risked doing the same.

In the Netherlands, the temperature reached 39.1C, breaking the previous record of 38.6C set in August 1944, while in Belgium, the mercury struck 38.9C, beating the previous high of 36.6C from June 1947 in records dating back to 1833.

In Germany the temperature soared to 40.5C in western Geilenkirchenthe, surpassing the previous record of 40.3 (104.5)

In Paris, the chief architect of historical monuments warned that the intense heat risked bringing down Notre-Dame cathedral, which was ravaged by a fire in April.

“What I fear is that the joints or the masonry, as they dry, lose their cohesion… and all of a sudden, the vault gives way,” said Philippe Villeneuve, explaining that the cathedral’s stone walls were still saturated with water from firemens’ hoses.

Specialists are working to stabilise the cathedral’s structure before reconstruction work begins. At Pairi Daiza zoo in western Belgium, keepers fed chickens inside giant ice cubes to tigers and iced watermelons to their bears.

Paris is facing its hottest day on Thursday with the French capital’s 70-year-plus record of 40.4C forecast to fall. 

"It’s too much for us," said Sven Schenk, 29, a logistics worker from Germany who was visiting Paris. "We’re not looking forward to tomorrow! But we haven’t changed our plans."

One Eurostar train broke down in Belgium due to a power failure, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded in 40C heat with no air conditioning.  

Eurostar said travellers were stuck for three hours before they were rescued by another train, and issued an apology.

In Spain, a wildfire in the northern province of Zaragoza was almost under control, but there was a risk of further outbreaks, especially in eastern parts, where the temperature was set to rise as high as 41C.

Italian authorities issued fire alerts for the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, where temperatures were expected to climb above 40C. They also put 13 cities on their highest "red" weather alert,  warning of a possible health threat for everyone – not just the frail and infirm.

In Portugal, the largest fire so far this year, which raged over the weekend, was put out by more than 1,000 firefighters on Tuesday, but the country remained on high alert.

Dutch media said hundreds of pigs died when a ventilator failed at Middelharnis.

This summer’s second heatwave has amplified concerns in Europe that human activity is heating the planet at a dangerous rate.

The June 26-28 blast of heat in France was 4C hotter than an equally rare June heatwave would have been in 1900, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) team said this month.

One study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said the deadly, weeks-long heatwave across northern Europe in 2018 would have been statistically impossible without climate change.

Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has highlighted the problem of global warming through school strikes, warned MPs at France’s parliament of dire consequences if "business as usual" continues until 2030.

Want the best of The Telegraph direct to your email and WhatsApp? Sign up to our free twice-daily Front Page newsletter and new audio briefings.

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenage climate activist who prompted a global movement, will embark on a two-week journey from the UK to the US on a high-tech racing yacht next month in order to attend a UN climate summit without resorting to plane travel. 

The 16-year-old, whose campaign inspired tens of thousands of students in Europe to skip classes to protest for faster action against climate change, refuses to travel by air because of the high greenhouse gas emissions it produces. 

She has spent months looking for a way to travel to the September summit without using planes or cruise ships.

Finally, on Monday, she tweeted: “Good news!… I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II.” 

She will leaving the UK in mid-August on the high-speed yacht, which was built to race around the globe.

The yacht is owned by property developer Gerhard Senft and sponsored by the Yacht Club de Monaco, which said it was “honoured" to sail Miss Thunberg "emission-free over the Atlantic”. 

The boat is fitted with solar panels and underwater turbines to generate zero-carbon electricity on-board.  

Miss Thunberg will be accompanied on the journey by a filmmaker; her father Svante and Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson of Monaco’s late Prince Rainier III and American actress Grace Kelly.

The average return flight from Heathrow airport to New York’s JFK produces around 1.82 tonnes of CO2 per passenger, according to some carbon calculators.

But Miss Thunberg says her Atlantic voyage is not about her "saying that people should stop flying… I’m just saying it needs to be easier to be climate neutral."

Since making headlines with her school strikes in 2018, Miss Thunberg has met with the business and political leaders of several countries and even Pope Francis, who encouraged her to continue campaigning. 

The teenager plans to take a year off from school to keep raising awareness of climate change and pressuring world leaders to step up efforts to curb global warming. 

Aside from attending the UN Climate Action Summit hosted by Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, on September 23, Miss Thunberg plans to take part in several climate protests in New York. 

She then intends to travel by train and bus to the annual UN climate conference in December, held this year in Chile, with stops in Canada, Mexico and other countries along the way.

"This past year, my life has turned upside down," she told the Associated Press. "Every day is an adventure, basically. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and say ‘Is this really real? Has this actually been happening?’ Because it has all happened so fast and it’s hard to keep up with everything.

"In a way, I am more optimistic [about climate change], because people are slowly waking up and people are becoming more aware of the situation," she said. "But also … one year has passed and still almost nothing has happened."

Good news!
I’ll be joining the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, COP25 in Santiago and other events along the way.
I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II. We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to NYC in mid August.#UniteBehindTheScience pic.twitter.com/9OH6mOEDce

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) July 29, 2019

Miss Thunberg said she is unsure how her message will be received in the US, where President Donald Trump has already pulled America out of  the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord and rolled back environmental regulations.

Miss Thunberg did not rule out meeting with Mr Trump, but appeared doubtful such an encounter would happen because it would be "just a waste of time."

"As it looks now, I don’t think so, because I have nothing to say to him," she said. "He obviously doesn’t listen to the science and the scientists. So why should I, a child with no proper education, be able to convince him?"

Click Here: West Coast Eagles Guernsey

North Korea fired  two short-range ballistic missiles early on Wednesday, just days after it launched two other missiles intended to pressure South Korea and the United States to stop upcoming military drills.

The latest launches were from the Hodo peninsula on North Korea’s east coast, the same area from where last week’s were conducted, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. It said it was monitoring in case of additional launches.

The JCS in Seoul said later the North had fired ballistic missiles that flew about 155 miles. South Korean news agency Yonhap said they appeared to be a different type to previous launches.

Colonel Lee Peters, a spokesman for US military forces in South Korea, said: "We are aware of reports of a missile launch from North Korea and we will continue to monitor the situation."

He did not comment when asked whether the joint South Korea-US drills, scheduled to begin next month, would continue.

On July 25 North Korea tested two new missiles, describing the launch as a "solemn warning" against what it described as "South Korean warmongers".

North Korean missile ranges

Harry Kazianis, of Washington’s Centre for the National Interest think tank, said the latest launches were a clear attempt by North Korea to put pressure on Washington.

Click Here: st kilda saints guernsey 2019

"For now, it seems any working-level talks between America and North Korea are on hold until the fall, as the Kim regime won’t immediately spring back to diplomacy after this round of tests," he told Reuters.

That firing of the two projectiles was the first missile test since Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, met President Donald Trump on June 30, and agreed to revive denuclearisation talks.

The short-range missiles were fired into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, from Wonsan on North Korea’s east coast.

Mr Kim said his country was forced to develop weapons to "eliminate potential and direct threats".

He said the test involved a new tactical guided weapons system.

Mr Trump last week was at pains to downplay the significance of the July 25 missiles, saying: “They are short-range missiles, and many people have those missiles."

He added that the recent launches involve “very standard missiles.”

Asked on Friday whether he was concerned, Mr Trump – who is still keen to secure a deal with North Korea – replied: “Nope. Not at all.”

Yet the North’s behaviour remains deeply troubling for many nations.

In April, North Korea claimed to have “tested a powerful warhead” in the first public weapons test for the regime since Mr Trump and Mr Kim met for a historic summit in Singapore last year.

The two leaders held a second round of talks in Vietnam in February of this year, but negotiations collapsed after Mr Trump reportedly handed Mr Kim a note demanding he turn over the North’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel.

 

A Canadian woman owes her life to the heavy rock group, Metallica, whose 1991 hit Don’t Tread on Me scared off a hostile cougar.

 Dee Gallant encountered the wild cat during an evening stroll on Vancouver Island with her eight-year-old husky retriever, Murphy.

 "I thought I’d just take Murphy for a Iittle hike like we usually do," she told Canada Global News.

"It was an evening so it started to get a bit dusky. We got a little ways up and I saw something watching me.

 "I looked off to my right, and there he was, just standing there, staring at me.

 "At first, I wasn’t intimidated," she added. "I thought, ‘Wow. This is really cool. Look at that cougar.’

 "Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute, that’s a cougar.’"

 Perhaps rather unwisely, she initially decided to try to film the animal as it approached, before appreciating the danger she – and Murphy – faced.

The chances of escaping a cougar, which can run at 50 mph, are pretty slim.

Ms Gallant hoped to intimidate the beast by waving her arms and shouting, but to no avail as the cougar continued heading towards her.

Then inspiration struck. 

She scoured through her iPhone’s music library and played the heavy rock classic – which was once named as one of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs – at full blast.

 "I thought it was perfect because it gives him the message that I want to send, and it’s a really intimidating-sounding song.

Click Here: gold coast suns 2019 guernsey

 "I immediately put it on and I held it up high in the air," she continued. "As soon as he heard the first note, he bolted. He was just gone."

 On average six attacks by cougars, also known as mountain lions or catamounts, are reported in North America a year – of which only one is fatal.