25-8 News Network

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Largest Christmas tornado outbreak in U.S. history!!


he most impressive U.S. December snowstorm in two years is powering across the eastern third of the country today, bringing blizzard conditions to Indiana and Ohio and severe thunderstorms to eastern North Carolina. The 28 preliminary tornadoes that touched down yesterday will likely put December 25, 2012 in first place for largest Christmas tornado outbreak in U.S. history. Fortunately, the tornadoes are not being blamed for any deaths, though strong thunderstorm winds have killed two people due to falling trees. Dozens of people have been injured due to the severe weather--25 in Mississippi alone. The parent storm has dumped more than 8 inches of snow in six states--Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. According to the latest NWS Storm Summary, the greatest snowfall so far has been at Morrilton, Arkansas, where 13.5" has fallen. Tornado watches are posted today in Eastern North Carolina, where NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has indicated a "Slight Risk" of severe weather exists. This is one level of alert below the "Moderate Risk" of severe weather that existed on Christmas Day for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. As of 2 pm EST on December 26, no tornadoes had been reported for the day, though several tornado warnings had been issued for North Carolina.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Yesterday's Light Bulb' Solar Storm Erupts from Active Sun



An enormous sun eruption, shaped like a giant glowing light bulb, was captured by a veteran spacecraft that closely monitors our nearest star. NASA scientists dubbed the sun storm a solar "Eureka! moment."

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which is a joint mission by NASA and the European Space Agency, snapped the new photos of the bulbous, light bulb-shaped coronal mass ejection as it erupted from the sun's surface on Aug. 20.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are massive clouds of plasma and charged particles that are unleashed into space during strong solar storms. When powerful CMEs are aimed directly at Earth, they can cause geomagnetic and solar radiation storms, which have the potential to disrupt power grids and communications infrastructure on the ground. These solar eruptions can also knock out satellites in space.


The light bulb-shaped CME seen by the SOHO spacecraft has a bright core, surrounded by a very thin, wispy outer edge. It's not uncommon for CMEs to have a rounded shape, but according to NASA officials, it has been years since one took on the appearance of a light bulb.

In the new image, the white circle at the center represents the solar disk, and the photo includes the inner solar corona region up to a staggering 5.25 million miles (8.4 million kilometers) away from the sun, NASA officials said.

SOHO captured photos of the fun-shaped CME on Aug. 20, when a series of eruptions were unleashed from the sun. The spacecraft used its Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) C2 instrument to make the observations.

This instrument is capable of snapping images of the outer layer of the sun, known as the corona, by blocking out the sun's light and creating an artificial eclipse within the instrument, NASA officials explained.

SOHO was launched into space in December 1995, and uses 12 different science instruments to stare at the sun. The spacecraft is located roughly 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away, near a region called the Lagrange Point 1 between Earth and the sun, where gravitational forces combine to create a relatively stable environment.
SPACE.com

"Breaking News" Strong 7.9 quake hits Costa Rica, tsunami warning issued



SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - A strong 7.9 earthquake rocked Costa Rica on Wednesday, rattling buildings and cutting power in some areas of the capital of San Jose, a Reuters correspondent and the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The quake hit close to Samara, a coastal area on the Pacific some 151 kms (94 miles) from the capital city. A Caribbean-wide tsunami watch is in effect, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

(Reporting By Isabella Cota and Liz Diaz; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Obama administration rejects Marcus Mosiah Garvey pardon.

The Barack Obama administration has flatly rejected a request for a presidential pardon for Jamaica's first national hero, the Right Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Garvey was imprisoned for mail fraud totalling US$25 in June 1923, and after spending two years and nine months in an Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, was deported from New Orleans, Louisiana to Jamaica on a ship. Florida-based Jamaican-born attorney Donovan Parker has been writing to president Obama every week since January requesting a posthumous pardon for Garvey, who many believe was set up by the J Edgar Hoover-led Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), fearful of his widening popularity among downtrodden US blacks. The Sunday Observer has acquired a copy of one letter sent by Parker to the US President, and the first ever reply from the White House on the matter . "Marcus Mosiah Garvey is also a National Hero of Jamaica, West Indies and a leading forebear of the African American civil rights experience," wrote Parker. "It is full time that this extraordinary human being of humble beginnings and strong moral character be pardoned by the pen of an American president. It would be fitting if both you, Mr President, and the first lady visit Jamaica for the purposes of signing the executive order pardoning Marcus Mosiah Garvey." In a tersely worded reply to Parker's request, White House Pardon Attorney, Ronald Rodgers said such a move would be a waste of time and resources since Garvey had been dead for ages. "It is the general policy of the Department of Justice that requests for posthumous pardons for federal offences not be processed for adjudication. The policy is grounded in the belief that the time of the officials involved in the clemency process is better spent on pardon and commutation requests of living persons. "Many posthumous pardon requests would likely be based on a claim of manifest injustice, and given that decades have passed since the event and the historical record would have to be scoured to objectively and comprehensively investigate such applications, it is the Department's position that the limited resources which are available to process requests for Presidential clemency -- now being submitted in record numbers -- are best dedicated to requests submitted by persons who can truly benefit from a grant of the request," Rodgers replied on behalf of Obama, who is the first black president in the history of the United States. Parker expressed his utter disappointment at the latest development and called on US ambassador to Jamaica Pamela Bridgewater, to add her voice to the call for Garvey to be officially pardoned. "She should advise Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to strongly recommend an posthumous presidential pardon for the Right Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey in the name of human decency and justice. There is no reason why the US government shouldn't do this and Obama shouldn't sign it," Parker said. The Jamaican-born attorney also pointed out that the original transcripts of Garvey's trial cannot be found. "They don't have it. Somebody took it. I was told this by the Jamaican Consul General in Miami, Sandra Grant-Griffiths, who informed me via a letter," he said. He doubted whether President Obama had actually seen the request. "I believe there has been no co-ordinated effort to get this issue in front of the president. I think if President Obama reads it, he will sign it," Parker said. Six years after being deported to his homeland, Garvey was also imprisoned in Jamaica for contempt of court and Culture Minister Olivia 'Babsy' Grange had, earlier this year, signalled her intention to do all within her powers to clear Garvey's name at home and abroad. Grange is reportedly assembling a team of Garveyites and legal minds to deal with this task. Efforts to contact Grange yesterday were unsuccessful, but director of communications in the ministry of youth, culture and sports, Oliver Watt, said the news of the presidential rejection was a hard pill to swallow. "We will be pursuing all the other options available to us. We definitely think his name should be cleared at home and overseas," Watt said. Head of the Marcus Garvey-founded People's Political Party, Miguel Lorne, was also livid as well as disappointed by the rejection of Parker's request. "The language used in the reply is most disdainful. It makes you wonder if Obama actually read the request. Obama must know about Garvey, who is the forerunner of the civil rights movement. It is most disappointing," Lorne told the Sunday Observer. Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga asked the US President, the late Ronald Reagan to grant a full pardon to Marcus Garvey on the 1923 charge of mail fraud. A resolution was brought to the US House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice from as far back as 1987, but the issue seemed to have been pushed on the back burner. Marcus Garvey died in London on June 10, 1940, reportedly after succumbing to the effect of two strokes attributed to his reading a false obituary of himself in a Chicago newspaper which stated, in part, that he died broke, alone and unpopular. His remains were interred at the Kensal Green Cemetery in London. In 1964, his remains were exhumed and re-interred at the National Heroes Park in Kingston and he was named Jamaica's first national hero. Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/No-pardon-for-Garvey_9489036#ixzz20G5gLULi