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China Rains Kill 55: More Storms In Forecast
China rains have killed 55. An alert has been issued as more storms are forecast. Authorities in Southern China have reported at least 55 dead and 14 missing due to torrential rainfall during the last week.
The heavy rain has caused flooding and dangerous mountain landslides. In addition to the heavy rain, the storms have been accompanied by hail and damaging winds.
As reported by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 10 different provinces, or municipalities, have been affected by the deadly storms. The province of Guangdong was the most heavily impacted, with 36 deaths and 10 people unaccounted for.
China rains killed 55 residents already, and more storms are on the way. The meteorological society of China has issued a blue alert warning for the next two days. Southern China is expected to experience more heavy rain that may include strong winds and hail.
As reported by Xinhuanet News, China has a weather alert system that is categorized by colors. The color blue is the lowest alert level. However, the storms are predicted to be quite strong. Guangdong and Guangxi provinces are expected to see nearly four inches of rain in a period of 24 hours.
China’s National Meteorological Center has urged residents of Southern China to be aware and cautious from now until Monday, when the storm system is expected to pass.
As reported by NASA.gov, heavy rains caused a similar situation in 2007. Heavy storms and intense periods of rain caused devastating landslides and flooding. Some Provinces experienced up to 20 inches of rain from June 4 to June 11, 2007.
In 2007, the China rains killed 71 and left 13 missing, within a period of one week.
Areas of Southern China are prone to devastating storms as heavy rains are likely to cause landslides, in the regions surrounded steep by mountains. Technology to predict landslides is available, but expensive. The provinces in the areas at highest risk are often poverty stricken, and lack the resources to purchase and maintain the necessary equipment.
As the China rains killed 55 people already, more rain is a frightening possibility. At this point, authorities can only assume that the predicted rain might cause another landslide.
Netanyahu takes aim at weapons ‘leakage’ in Syria
Source: Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect on Sunday of further Israeli strikes inside Syria, pledging to act to prevent advanced weapons from reachingHezbollah and other militant groups.
Although Israel has not publicly taken sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assadand rebels trying to topple him, Western and Israeli sources say it has launched air strikes in Syria to destroy weapons it believed were destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In public remarks at the weekly meeting of his cabinet, Netanyahu made no direct mention of those attacks, but made clear Israel was prepared to take action in the future and said it was “preparing for every scenario” in the Syrian conflict.
Israel had set a policy “to prevent, as much as possible, the leakage of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and terror elements”, he said.
“We will act to ensure the security interest of Israel’s citizens in the future as well,” Netanyahu added, describing his government’s actions as “responsible, determined and level-headed”.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied reports it attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near Damascus this month that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, which fought a war withIsrael in 2006 and is allied with Assad.
SUPERSONIC MISSILE
A Russian shipment of Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria was condemned by the United States on Friday, and Israel is also alarmed by the prospect of Moscow supplying S-300 advanced air defense missile systems to Damascus.
Netanyahu held talks in Russia on Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin on the Syrian crisis but gave no public indication whether Israel’s concerns over the Russian weaponry had been eased.
Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defence Ministry official, said on Saturday the S-300 and the Yakhont, weapons that could complicate any plans for foreign military intervention in Syria, would likely end up with Hezbollah and threaten both Israel and U.S. forces in the Gulf.
“Yakhont is a cruise missile that can hit targets at sea and strategic targets. (It is) a supersonic missile, (with) a range of 300 km, very sophisticated,” Gilad said on Israel’s Channel Two television on Saturday.
“The Russians sent it to Syria, beside the strategic defense system called the S-300. There are a number of versions, and they are sending them one of the good versions,” he said.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Friday Russia’s delivery of anti-ship missiles to Assad was “ill-timed and very unfortunate” and risked prolonging a war that has already killed more than 80,000 Syrians.
A spokesman for Putin, while not responding directly to assertions Russia had sent the anti-ship missiles, said Moscow would honor contracts to supply Syria, a long-time weapons customer.
Authorities: Hofstra student was killed by police
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A Hofstra University student being held in a headlock at gunpoint by an intruder was accidently shot and killed by a police officer who had responded to the home invasion at an off-campus home, police said Saturday.
Junior public relations major Andrea Rebello was shot once in the head early Friday morning by an officer who opened fire after the masked intruder pointed a gun at the officer while holding the 21-year-old student, Nassau County homicide squad Lt. John Azzatasaid.
In a tense confrontation with the officer, gunman Dalton Smith”menaces our police officer, points his gun at the police officer,”Azzata said. The officer opened fire, killing Smith and his hostage.
Azzata said the Nassau County police officer fired eight shots at Smith, who police described as having an “extensive” criminal background. Smith was hit seven times and died. Rebello was shot once in the head.
“He kept saying, ‘I’m going to kill her,’ and then he pointed the gun at the police officer,” Azzata said.
A loaded 9 mm handgun with a serial number scratched off was found at the scene, police said.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Dale said he had traveled to Rebello’s Tarrytown, N.Y., home to explain to Rebello’s parents what happened.
“I felt obligated as a police commissioner and as a parent to inform them as soon as all the forensic results were completed,” Dale said.
The veteran police officer, who was not identified, has about 12 years of experience on the Nassau County police force and previously spent several years as a New York City police officer, Dale said.
The officer is currently out on sick leave. He will be the focus of an internal police investigation once the criminal investigation is completed, which is standard police procedure in any officer-involved shooting, the commissioner said.
Earlier Saturday, police announced that Smith, 30, had been wanted on a parole violation related to a first-degree robbery conviction and had an arrest history dating back nearly 15 years.
The shooting came just days before the school’s commencement ceremonies, which are scheduled to take place Sunday.
A university spokeswoman said students will be handed white ribbons to wear in memory of Rebello. The shooting, which took place just steps from campus, has cast a pall over the university community as it geared up for commencement on Sunday.
“Today is the last day of finals and this should be a happy day on campus; but it’s not,” Hofstra freshman Scott Aharoni of Great Neck, said Friday as he passed through the area rife with yellow crime-scene tape. “It’s really sad.”
Rebello was in the two-story home with her twin sister Jessica, a third woman and a man when Smith, wearing a ski mask, walked into the house through an open front door, Azzata said. Smith demanded valuables and was told they were upstairs, Azzata said.
Smith, apparently unsatisfied with the valuables upstairs, asked if any of the four had a bank account and could withdraw money, Azzata said. The intruder then allowed the unidentified woman to leave and collect money from an ATM, telling her she had only eight minutes to come back with cash before he killed one of her friends, Azzata said.
The woman left for the bank and called 911, according to Azzata.
Minutes later, two police officers arrived at the home and found Rebello’s twin sister Jessica running out of the front door and the male guest hiding behind a couch on the first floor, Azzata said.
One of the officers entered the home and encountered Smith holding onto Rebello in a headlock, coming down the stairs, Azzata said. Smith pulled Rebello closer and started moving backward toward a rear door of the house, pointing the gun at her head before eventually threatening the officer, Azzata said.
Rebello’s family declined comment Saturday.
The Rev. Osvaldo Franklin, who gave Rebello and her sister Jessica their first communions, on Saturday night told The Associated Press their mother, Nella, couldn’t even speak to him earlier in the day.
“She was so devastated,” said Franklin. “She’s just crying. We have to pray for Andrea, to pray for Jessica because she needs help.”
Franklin said a funeral is scheduled for Wednesday at Teresa of Avila Church in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., and will be in Portuguese.
“The family’s a very good family, they have very good values,” he said. “I gave them first communion to Andrea and Jessica and they started to help me in the mass for many years. They are a very good, very devoted family.”
Israel warns against Russian arms supply to Syria
Source: Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Saturday that advanced weapons supplied by Russia to war-torn Syria could end up in the wrong hands and be used against the Jewish state.
A Russian shipment of Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria was condemned by the United States on Friday and Israel is also alarmed by the prospect of Russia supplying S-300 advanced air defense missile systems to Damascus.
While Israel has declined to take sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to topple him, Western and Israeli sources say it has launched air strikes inside Syria in a bid to destroy weapons it believes are destined for the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told Army Radio: “(Weapons) could reach others in Syria or Lebanon and be used against Israel.”
“These are not just any weapons, they are tie-breakers, and that’s why there is a responsibility with all world powers, certainly Russia, not to supply such arms,” Livni said, adding that Israel had the right to defend itself.
Israel has neither denied nor confirmed reports that it attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near Damascus this month that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, an Assad ally which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
Senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad said the S-300 and the Yakhont would likely end up with Hezbollah and threaten both Israel and U.S. forces in the Gulf.
“If Hezbollah and Iran are supporting Syria and propping the (Assad) regime up, then why shouldn’t it transfer those weapons to Hezbollah? You don’t even have to be an intelligence expert, it makes sense that they will,” Gilad told Channel Two television’s Meet the Press.
In comments to Israel Radio on Friday, Gilad said: “If you ask the Russians if these weapons will be passed on to Hezbollah, they will say: ‘No, that is against Russian law.’ But it’s not certain that Russian law is something they will respect. So if Hezbollah can put its hands on them, it will.”
The two-year-old civil war in Syria between Assad’s forces and rebel fighters has killed at least 80,000 people and driven 1.5 million abroad.
IRS Targeted Billy Graham Ministry and Other Christian Groups
Source: Dave Bohon
New American
As the White House announced May 15 that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would resign in the wake of revelations that the tax agency had targeted conservative groups, news has surfaced that the tax-exempt status of prominent Christian organizations had also been targeted.
Fox News reported that while President Obama announced the resignation of Miller, what he conveniently left out was the fact that, according to an official close to Miller, the IRS head was “set to resign the position of acting commissioner as of early June.” The anonymous official told Fox that Miller was planning to leave the IRS entirely a “couple of months later, regardless of the current controversy.”
Fox reported that the convenient way in which Miller was being ousted was “not mentioned by the president as he announced Wednesday evening Miller was resigning. Obama spoke following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other top department officials in which they reviewed a highly critical inspector general’s report on the practice. The report concluded poor management allowed agents to improperly target Tea Party and other groups for more than 18 months, starting in 2010.”
In his statement Obama declared that “Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it.” The president claimed that his administration would enact “new safeguards to make sure that this kind of behavior cannot happen again.”
Even as the president was assuring the American people, more revelations were coming out about the extent of the targeting of organizations that could be broadly categorized as opposing the Obama agenda. Among the organizations the IRS investigated and audited were the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and the 180-year-old Baptist newspaper the Biblical Recorder, published by the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. The IRS reportedly also targeted the humanitarian relief group Samaritan’s Purse. Both it and the BGEA are run by Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelical preacher Billy Graham.
In the run-up to last year’s presidential election, the BGEA took out ads in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers encouraging Christians to vote in line with biblical values. Shortly after the ads were published, both the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse were notified that they were being audited by the IRS.
On May 14 Franklin Graham shot off a letter to President Obama concerning the targeting of the organizations he oversees, telling the president that he believes “someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical — indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’” Added Graham: “I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence — or justifiable.”
Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for the BGEA, told Fox News that it was the first time the ministry had been audited in its then 62-year history. “These certainly appear to be politically motivated since the ministry had run some newspaper ads — not mentioning any candidates — simply urging people to vote for candidates with biblical values,” DeMoss said.
The Baptist Biblical Recorder appears to have been targeted because of a now-famous interview it ran with with the Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy in which Cathy boldly spoke out in favor of traditional marriage and families. In the interview Cathy said that he and his fast-food chain were “guilty as charged” in their support “of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”
The comments enraged homosexual activists, who saw it as a direct challenge to their militant efforts to normalize homosexuality and same-sex “marriage.”
Shortly after the interview was published, the paper’s editor, Allan Blume, began getting phone calls from the IRS. He told Fox News that the calls definitely “raised some red flags and made me wonder why we were being targeted for an audit when we have been around since 1833 and have never been audited before. Putting it all together made me wonder.”
Blume said the timing of the investigation, right after the Cathy interview as well as the paper’s running of the BGEA ads, appeared to be more than just coincidence. “There seems to be a very anti-Christian bias that has flowed into a lot of government agencies,” he told Fox News, “oppression literally against Christian organizations and groups. It makes you wonder what’s going on.”
He added that while the paper was eventually given a clean bill by the IRS, the whole investigation represented “a lot of time and energy that we didn’t have. It took some of our staff literally several weeks of doing nothing but that [audit].”
Similarly, both the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse were cleared by the tax bureaucracy, but, as Franklin Graham pointedly explained to Obama, the cost was great to both organizations. “Unfortunately, while these audits not only wasted taxpayer money, they wasted money contributed by donors for ministry purposes,” wrote Graham, “as we had to spend precious resources servicing the IRS agents in our offices.”
Graham ended his letter by asking Obama to make things right. “Mr. President, the IRS has already publicly acknowledged it operated in a less than neutral and non-partisan way,” Graham wrote. “We also now know that the target of their improper actions was much wider than political or Tea Party organizations. Will you take some immediate action to reassure Americans we are not in a new chapter of American history — repressive government rule?”
Colorado sheriffs sue the state over new gun control laws
Source: Greg Campbell
Daily Caller
A consortium of plaintiffs led by 54 of Colorado’s 62 elected county sheriffs filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state Friday in an effort to overturn two new gun control bills that are set to go into effect on July 1.
The plaintiffs have in their sights one law that effectively bans all firearm magazines, and one that requires a background check for every gun transfer when the gun will be in the possession of someone other than the owner for more than 72 hours.
“On one hand, I’m proud to be part of this historic case,” said Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, who spoke on behalf of 18 sheriffs who attended a press conference announcing the suit.
“But on the other hand, it saddens me that we have to be here at all,” he added. “It should never have gotten to this point in the first place.”
Alaska volcano shoots ash 15,000 feet into the air
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — One of Alaska’s most restless volcanoes shot an ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air Friday in an ongoing eruption that is visible for miles when the weather allows.
An air traffic controller in the region said small planes have flown around the plumes from Pavlof Volcano. Ash would have to rise tens of thousands of feet to threaten larger planes.
The eruption began Monday, and a photograph shows lava spraying out from the summit of the volcano, located 625 miles southwest of Anchorage. The Alaska Volcano Observatory said clouds of ash, steam and gas have occasionally reached the 20,000-foot level and have been visible from the nearby communities of Cold Bay and Sand Point.
Onsite seismic instruments have detected an increase in the force of tremors from the 8,262-foot volcano.
“It’s definitely kicking right along,” John Power, the U.S. Geological Survey scientist in charge at the observatory, said Friday.
A mining camp 50 miles northeast of the volcano reported a light ash fall Tuesday evening, according to the observatory.
Residents of Cold Bay, about 40 miles from Pavlof, are concerned the ash could damage their power generators, air traffic controller John Maxwell said Friday. But so far, the wind has blown the ash away from the area, he said.
“Everybody is thinking about it,” Maxwell said. “Not that anybody is afraid they’re going to be like Mount Vesuvius and turned into little mummies.”
Mike Tickle, manager of the local fuel terminal, said his wife woke him up Wednesday night to tell him she saw a splatter of lava spurting from Pavlof. He hustled to get his camera, but by the time he went to have a look, all that remained was a red glow.
“It’s been overcast since then,” he said.
Typically, Pavlof eruptions are gas-rich fountains of lava that can shoot up to a few thousand feet. But its ash clouds are usually less dense than the plumes of more explosive volcanoes that pose a greater hazard to aircraft, scientists say.
Pavlof is among the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc, with nearly 40 known eruptions, according to the observatory.
The volcano last erupted in 2007. During the 29-day eruption, Pavlof emitted mud flows and erupting lava, as well as ash clouds up to 18,000 feet high, according to Power.
In early May, Cleveland Volcano, on an uninhabited island in the Aleutian Islands, experienced a low-level eruption. Satellite imagery shows the volcano has continued to discharge steam, gas and heat in the past week. New analysis of earlier images showed a small lava flow going over the southeast rim of the summit crater, the observatory said.
There has been no new imagery in recent days because of overcast skies in the area, Power said.
No ash clouds have been detected in more than a week from Cleveland, which is not monitored with seismic instruments.
The volcano is a 5,675-foot peak on a remote island 940 miles southwest of Anchorage. Cleveland’s most recent significant eruption began in February 2001 and sent ash clouds up to 39,000 feet above sea level. It also produced a rocky lava flow and hot debris that reached the sea.
Mystery of Moon’s Magnetic Field Deepens
The moon generated a surprisingly intense magnetic field until at least 3.56 billion years ago, 160 million years longer than previously thought, a new study reports.
These findings could shed light not just on the magnetic field of the moon, which is now extremely weak, but on that of asteroids and other distant worlds, investigators added.
Earth’s magnetic field is created by its internal dynamo, which itself is generated by the planet’s churning molten metal core. Research increasingly suggests that the moon once had a dynamo as well, with evidence of magnetism found in lunar rocks returned by Apollo astronauts. [10 Surprising Moon Facts]
Models of the moon’s core suggest its dynamo should have lasted only until about 4.1 billion years ago. However, last year, scientists revealed that the moon possessed a magnetic field for much longer than previously thought, with a powerful dynamo in its core from 4.2 billion years ago to at least 3.72 billion years ago.
Researchers have proposed two possibilities to explain why the moon’s dynamo lasted so long. One possible explanation is thatgiant cosmic impacts set the moon lurching enough to drive its dynamo. Another explanation has to do with how the moon’s core spins around a slightly different axis than its surrounding mantle layer, generating wobbles — known as precession — that could dramatically stir its core.
The cosmic-impact idea is supported by the fact that the moon experienced massive collisions until around 3.7 billion years ago, such as the one that created the 715-mile-wide (1,150 kilometers) Mare Imbrium, among other craters.
However, the dynamo generated by each impact would have lasted for a mere 10,000 years or so, scientists say. In contrast, if precession drove a lunar dynamo, the moon could have continuously possessed a magnetic field until as late as 1.8 billion years ago.
Now, a new analysis of the biggest lunar rock brought back to Earth by Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969 reveals the moon’s dynamo lasted about 160 million years longer than previously thought, well after the last of the largest crater-forming impacts hit the moon.
Scientists investigated a 5-gram (0.18 ounces) sample taken from a 3.56-billion-year-old volcanic moon rock from the Sea of Tranquility.
“When rocks solidify from a lava, they capture a record of the magnetic field in their environment,” said study lead author Clément Suavet, a geoscientist at MIT. “By studying rocks of different ages, we can reconstruct the history of lunar-surface magnetic fields.”
The analysis revealed the intensity of the lunar magnetic field was exceptionally strong 3.56 billion years ago, “almost identical to the field measured in a previous study of 3.7-billion-year-old rocks,” Suavet told SPACE.com. “This seems to indicate that the lunar magnetic field was remarkably stable.”
The ancient magnetic field of the moon was about as intense as Earth’s current surface magnetic field. This makes it about 1,000 times stronger than the moon’s present surface magnetic field, researchers said.
Learning more about how the moon’s dynamo originated and developed could yield insights into the dynamos of smaller objects, such as asteroids, and larger bodies, such as planets.
“The moon is like a giant laboratory where we can test our theories about how planets form and evolve,” Suavet said.
Many questions remain about the moon’s magnetic field, such as why it was so intense late into lunar history and how it disappeared over time.
“The question is, when and how did the dynamo decay?” Suavet said.
The scientists detailed their findings online May 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
South Korea: North Korea Fires 3 Short-Range Guided Missiles
The South Korean Defense Ministry said North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into waters off its east coast Saturday, raising concerns about the potential for more military provocation in the region.
Two KN-02 missiles were fired in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon, spokesman Min-seok Kim said.
Unlike the mid-range Musudan missiles which are believed to be capable of traveling more than 1,800 miles, within reach of Japan and South Korea, the missiles launched Saturday only have a range of 75 miles.
PHOTOS: An Inside Look at North Korea
Kyodo News, citing an unnamed Japanese official, said the missiles never reached Japanese waters.
North Korea routinely tests short-range missiles, but the launches Saturday came amid signs that diplomacy may finally be cooling tempers on the Korean Peninsula after weeks of warlike threats from Pyongyang.
RELATED: North Korea Demands Apology From the South for ‘Hostile Acts’
This past week, the State Department’s senior envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies traveled to Beijing, South Korea, and Japan, to discuss all aspects of the North Korea issue. That trip was preceded by a surprise visit to Pyongyang, by one of Japan’s most experienced diplomats on North Korea, Isao Iijima.
During his 4-day trip, Iijima, an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, met with senior officials, including North Korea’s No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam.
Abe has largely remained mum about the secret visit, aimed at restarting talks to bring home Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s, a key hurdle in normalizing bilateral ties.
RELATED: If North Korea Nukes Are Fired, Alaska’s Fort Greely Is Last Line of Defense
Tensions on the Korean peninsula escalated to its worst in decades earlier this year, after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February.
Angered by UN sanctions, and joint US-South Korean military drills, Pyongyang threatened nuclear strikes on Seoul and Washington, and unilaterally pulled out of the 60 year-old war armistice that ended the Korean War.
RELATED: North Korea Can Put A Nuke on a Missile, U.S. Intelligence Agency Believes
In April, North Korea suspended operations at the jointly run Kaesong Industrial Complex, pulling out 53,000 workers.
US officials said North Korea withdrew two of their Musudan missiles earlier this month, but Pyongyang renewed threats of a nuclear war last week, following the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
The ship was brought in to the southern port city of Busan for joint US-South Korea naval drills.
North Korea’s state TV called the move an “extremely reckless” provocation, saying “The risk of a nuclear war in the peninsula has risen further due to the madcap nuclear war practice by the US and the South’s enemy force.”
