Thankfully it wasn't around you this time..lets hope it doesn't. Seems there have been a few lately in various places. Crazy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
No, just all over the place in general. Strange places too like Illinois.
Reno, Nevada had a large one yesterday I think and Mexico City of course, which is south of you.
You will be ok..we will come and get you if not
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
5.8 is very strong, thats like the first one we had over here and i was on the floor lol ,yeah baby come and get me . can you hear me CM?
...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
Originally posted by mike_2007: 5.8 is very strong, thats like the first one we had over here and i was on the floor lol ,yeah baby come and get me . can you hear me CM?
Mike, what makes Mexico City amplify the earthquake magnitude is that most of the city is on packed lake bed. This packed lake bed, which is not solid rock, can amplify an earthquake and causing much damage. In 1985, ehere Mexico City had its last major earthquake, showed civil engineers how to design buildings to absorb the shock. Interesting stuff.
The arrest should have been for the drugs. not auto related.
But then again... What would have been the excuse to do drug search.. It would have had to have been fabricated.
Again, the automobile exception under the 4th amendment applies here. All the officers need is probable cause under the reasonable person statue. Given the facts of the case, I believe the officers, and ultimately the police department, met this and thus did not need to search warrant to conduct a search of the vehicle. Remember, the 4th amendment states that property and persons should be protected from "unreasonable search and seizure." How the court defines unreasonable is, for a lack of a better term, complicated, with at least half dozen exceptions.
Residents return after tornadoes smash houses in Virginia
SUFFOLK, Va. - Weary residents and business owners returned to what was left of their homes and livelihoods Tuesday after three tornadoes smashed houses, piled cars on each other and injured more than 200 people.
One twister in this city outside Norfolk cut a zigzagging path 25 miles long through residential areas, obliterating some homes in sprays of splintered lumber while leaving others just a few feet away untouched.
Search teams with dogs found no sign of deaths or any additional injured victims, Suffolk City Fire Chief Mark Outlaw said.
"The only thing I can say is we were watched over and blessed," Outlaw said.
Most home and business owners were blocked from damaged areas until officials could assess the damage. It wasn't clear when they could return.
Brenda Williams, 43, returned Tuesday to the shopping center where she was buried beneath a collapsed ceiling in a manicure shop during the storm. She was pulled to safety by a stranger, she said.
"I'm not lucky, I'm blessed," said Williams, who had a 2-inch gash stitched above her left eyebrow and stitches on her right forearm. "I'm fine. I'm here. I'm in the land of the living."
She retrieved possessions from her car, which was flipped on its roof and destroyed in the parking lot.
Several roads were closed Tuesday morning, and traffic was backed up leading into downtown Suffolk, a city of approximately 80,000 outside Norfolk.
Of the 200 injured, only six were listed in critical condition and six were listed as serious.
Officials listed 125 Suffolk homes and 15 buildings as uninhabitable.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine declared a state of emergency, which frees up resources for those areas hit hardest. Kaine planned to visit some of the most damaged areas on Tuesday.
"It's kind of amazing there were not more significant injuries," Kaine said in an interview with WTOP Radio in Washington. He said he would ask President Bush for a disaster declaration.
Jennifer Haines and her two young girls hid in a cubbyhole in her house in Suffolk as the tornado hit about three blocks away.
"It sounded like someone shuffling a giant deck of cards or a herd of wild animals coming through. You could feel the house shaking and hear the wind coming in through the cracks in the windows," Haines said.
"It was so scary I felt like I was having a heart attack."
Keith Godwin and his wife and two kids took shelter in their bathroom after he looked out a window and saw one of the funnel clouds.
The Godwins' home is fine except for some debris, as are the rest of those on their side of the street. But houses across the street were badly damaged, including two completely wiped off their foundations and one that was tossed on top of another home.
"All that's left is a concrete slab," Godwin said.
Insulation, wiring and twisted metal hung from the front of a mall stripped bare of its facing. At another store, the sheet metal roofing was rolled up like a sardine can lid. Some of the cars and SUVs in the parking lot were on top of others.
"It's just a bunch of broken power poles, telephone lines and sad faces," said Richard Allbright, who works for a tree removal service in Driver and had been out for hours trying to clear the roads.
The National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes struck Suffolk, Brunswick County, about 60 miles west, and Colonial Heights, about 60 miles northwest. Meteorologist Bryan Jackson described Suffolk's as a "major tornado."
The Brunswick County tornado was estimated at 86 mph to 110 mph, and cut a 300-yard path, Jackson said. It struck first, at about 1 p.m., said Mike Rusnak, a weather service meteorologist in Wakefield.
The second struck Colonial Heights around 3:40 p.m., he said.
The tornado believed to have caused damage over a 25-mile path from Suffolk to Norfolk touched down repeatedly between 4:30 and 5 p.m., Rusnak said.
At least 200 were injured in Suffolk and 18 others were injured in Colonial Heights, south of Richmond, said Bob Spieldenner of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.
Sentara hospital spokesman Dale Gauding said about 70 people were treated there, "lots of cuts and bruises" and arm and leg injuries. Three were admitted in fair condition.
Property damage also was reported in Brunswick County, one of several places where the weather service had issued a tornado warning. State Police Sgt. Michelle Cotten said a twister destroyed two homes. Trees and power lines were down, and some flooding was reported.
___
Associated Press writers Dena Potter and Larry O'Dell contributed to this report from Richmond.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
NEW YORK (May 1) - In her 15 years, Jingle Luis has never walked on the bottoms of her feet.
Born in the Philippines, Jingle Luis, 15, has feet that are so clubbed that they twist upside down and backward. She's come to the United States to have corrective surgery. Here, Luis walks Wednesday with crutches in the Children's Hospital of New York's Montefiore Medical Center
Born in the Philippines with feet so clubbed they twist backward and upside down, she uses crutches to hobble on what should be the tops of her feet.
"I can accept it," Jingle said Wednesday in a voice so soft it was barely audible.
But if all goes well, Jingle won't have to accept the condition much longer. She and her mother have journeyed from the Philippines to Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx for surgery Thursday and follow-up treatment that will consist of slowly rotating her feet until she can walk normally.
Her case is more severe than those usually seen by doctors in industrialized countries.
"Generally speaking, with modern technology, it doesn't get to this point," said Dr. Terry Amaral, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who will perform the surgery at Children's Hospital at Montefiore.
Clubfoot is a relatively common deformity, occurring in about one in 1,000 births. Children are usually treated in infancy with casts or braces that gradually bring the feet into correct alignment. The condition becomes harder to treat if it is not corrected early on.
Amaral said Jingle's case was complicated by the fact that her clubfoot was associated with spina bifida, a birth defect that involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord or its coverings.
He said doctors who saw Jingle as a baby thought that her spina bifida would shorten her life span and prevent her from walking, so they did not treat the clubfoot.
England is set to become the most crowded country in Europe as its population grows by a third over the next 50 years, according to official projections.
There are currently some 50 million people in England, but by 2056 this could hit 68 million - 1,349 for every square mile.
The population density now is about 1,010. In London, the figure could rise from 12,377 to 13,910 over the next two decades.
The Tories, who obtained the data from the Office for National Statistics, demanded restrictions on migration levels.
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "This demonstrates the real pressure public services are being put under as a result of Labour's immigration policy."
London aside, the biggest population rises will be in the East and South West of England, up 16% by 2029, while the North East is expected to remain static.
Scotland's level will remain the same at 171 per square mile; Wales will have 15% more residents by 2056 and Northern Ireland will have a fifth more.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
A girl drinks water from a container as her homeless family eat donated food in the outskirts of Yangon on May 7.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar may exceed 100,000, the senior U.S. diplomat in the military-ruled country said Wednesday.
"The information we are receiving indicates over 100,000 deaths," the U.S. Charge D'Affaires in Yangon, Shari Villarosa, said on a conference call.
The U.S. figure is almost five times more than the 22,000 the Myanmar government has estimated.
The U.S. estimate is based on data from an international non-governmental organization, Villarosa said without naming the group. She called the situation in Myanmar "more and more horrendous."
"I think most of the damage was caused by these 12-foot storm surges," she said.
Villarosa also said about 95 percent of the buildings in the delta region were destroyed when Cyclone Nargis battered the area late Friday into Saturday.
Based on the same data, 70,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy Delta, which has a population of nearly six million people, Villarosa said. The official Myanmar government figure for the missing is 41,000.
Villarosa said: "I can only assume that the longer the delay, the more victims that are created."
Little aid has reached the area since Nargis hit, and on Wednesday crowds of hungry survivors stormed reopened shops in the devastated Irrawaddy delta.
The United Nations urged the military junta to grant visas to international relief workers amid estimates of one million homeless.
A United Nations official said nearly 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km) of the hard-hit delta are still underwater. See amateur video of the cyclone's crashing ashore »
Charity workers have gathered at Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, with vehicles, emergency food supplies and medicine, waiting for their visa requests to be approved.
"We need this to move much faster," said John Holmes, UN humanitarian chief, after reading a statement from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
There were earlier reports of "civil unrest" in the worst-hit areas where people are scrambling for limited food supplies, a U.N. spokesman told CNN.
In the flood-soaked Irrawaddy delta townships, U.N. assessment teams observed "large crowds gathering around shops -- the few that were open -- literally fighting over the chance to buy what food was available," World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said Wednesday from his office in Bangkok.
There were also also reports of price gouging in urban areas around Yangon, Myanmar's largest city and former capital.
"There were long lines of people trying to buy what food was available, even at those higher prices," Risley said.
The delta, Myanmar's rice-growing heartland, has been devastated by Cyclone Nargis, threatening long-term food shortages for survivors, experts said.
"We can't delay on this -- this is a huge disaster and the longer (Myanmar) waits the worse it's going to become," International Rescue Committee spokesman Gregory Beck said.
The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that five states hit hardest by Saturday's cyclone produce 65 percent of the country's rice, The Associated Press reported.
"There is likely going to be incredible shortages in the next 18 to 24 months," Sean Turnell, an economist specializing in Myanmar at Australia's Macquarie University told AP.
Holmes said 24 countries had pledged financial support, with a total of $30 million expected in aid.
The WFP, which has started feeding the estimated one million homeless, said there were immediate concerns about salvaging harvested rice in the flooded Irrawaddy delta. An iReporter documents the destruction »
The cyclone battered the country with winds of 240kph (150mph) and 3.5 meter (11.48 feet) storm water surges.
Damage was also extensive in the country's largest city, Yangon. Much of the former capital is without power and littered with debris and fallen trees. See photos of the destruction »
CNN's Dan Rivers, the first Western journalist into the devastated town of Bogalay, said Wednesday that it was difficult to find the words to describe the level of destruction. Watch Rivers' report from Bogalay »
"Ninety percent of the houses have been flattened... the help that these people are getting seems to be pretty much nonexistent from what we've seen."
He saw members of Myanmar's army clearing roads, but handing out little food or medicine.
"There has been scant help, really. I think we saw one or two Red Cross vehicles in the entire time we were driving," Rivers said of his travels over a 12-hour period. Learn more about Myanmar »
Hundreds of World Vision staff are already in Myanmar with limited supplies, according to Bangkok spokesman James East.
Tons of supplies have been readied in Dubai and can be brought in quickly once clearance is given.
"Even when aid comes in, it's going to be a logistical nightmare to get it out to the remote delta region," East said.
However, Yangon is almost back to normal, World Vision health adviser Dr. Kyi Minn said. Roads have been cleared of debris, and electricity and potable water are available.
The Myanmar Red Cross has been handing out relief supplies, such as clean drinking water, plastic sheeting, clothing, insecticide-treated bed nets to help prevent malaria, and kitchen items, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
The United States has pledged $3.25 million and offered to send Navy ships to the region to help relief efforts -- if Myanmar's government agrees.
The U.S. military has flown six cargo helicopters onto a Thai airbase, as Washington awaits permission to go into the south Asian country, two senior military officials told CNN's Barbara Starr.
Other countries and world bodies including Britain, Japan, the European Union, China, India, Thailand, Australia, Canada and Bangladesh have also pitched in.
Based on a satellite map made available by the U.N., the storm's damage was concentrated over about a 30,000-square-kilometer area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines, home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57 million people.
EW YORK (May 12) - A New York City man is suing JetBlue Airways Corp. for more than $2 million because he says a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet for more than three hours on a flight from California.
Gokhan Mutlu, of Manhattan's Inwood section, says in court papers the pilot told him to "go 'hang out' in the bathroom" about 90 minutes into the San Diego to New York flight because the flight attendant complained that the "jump seat" she was assigned was uncomfortable, the lawsuit said.
Mutlu was traveling on a "buddy pass," a standby travel voucher that JetBlue employees give to friends, from New York to San Diego on Feb. 16, and returned to New York on Feb. 23, the lawsuit said.
Initially, Mutlu was told a flight attendant had taken the last seat on the plane, but then he was advised she would sit in the employee "jump seat," meaning he could have the last seat, the lawsuit said.
The pilot told him 1 1/2 hours into the five-hour flight that he would have to relinquish the seat to the flight attendant, court papers say. But the pilot said that Mutlu could not sit in the jump seat because only JetBlue employees were permitted to sit there, the lawsuit said.
When Mutlu expressed reluctance to go sit in the bathroom, the pilot, who was not named in the lawsuit, told him that "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board," the lawsuit said.
The aircraft hit turbulence and passengers were directed to return to their seats, but "the plaintiff had no seat to return to, sitting on a toilet stool with no seat belts," court papers say.
Some time later, a male flight attendant knocked on the restroom door and told Mutlu he could return to his original seat, court papers say.
Mutlu's lawsuit, filed Friday in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, says JetBlue negligently endangered him by not providing him with a seat with a safety belt or harness, in violation of federal law.
A JetBlue spokesman declined comment on the lawsuit Monday.
I think Jet Blue just sat on this one.. so to speak
BEIJING — Tens of thousands of people across southwest China remained buried beneath rubble on Tuesday as rescue workers struggled to reach areas cut off by a massive earthquake that has left 12,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of others injured and homeless.
Earthquake in Sichuan ProvinceInteractive Map Earthquake in Sichuan Province Digging Through the DisasterPhotographs Digging Through the Disaster Powerful Earthquake Hits ChinaPhotographs Powerful Earthquake Hits China Back Story With Jim Yardley (mp3)
Video With Jim Yardley | Video Report: Thousands
Rescuers searched for earthquake victims amid the debris of a hospital in Dujiangyan on Monday night. More Photos » Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An elderly patient after being evacuated from a hospital in Chengdu in China's Sichuan province after the earthquake on Monday. More Photos >
The authorities said that more than 10,000 people were still unaccounted for in the city of Minzhu and another 2,300 were missing in the collapse of a school and two factories in the town of Shifang.
By early evening Tuesday, the official death toll stood at 11,921, according to state media, making it China’s biggest natural disaster in three decades. Officials said they thought the death toll could still climb dramatically higher.
As a steady rain fell throughout the day, emergency workers struggled to pull survivors and bodies from flattened buildings in the few towns accessible to heavy rescue machinery.
More than 1,300 soldiers and medics spent the day clambering over landslides and the remnants of a mountain highway to reach Wenchuan, a city of 100,000 and the epicenter of the quake. The quake struck on Monday afternoon with a preliminary magnitude of 7.9.
Most victims were in the rugged center of Sichuan Province, although scores of deaths have been reported in five adjacent provinces. Xinhua, the state news agency, said 37 tourists were killed when their bus was inundated by a rockslide, although it did not provide further details.
The authorities said 2,000 tourists were traveling through the region at the time of the quake, including 15 Britons and a group of 12 Americans on a panda-watching tour. A spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, which sponsored the trip to the Wolong Nature Reserve, said they had yet to hear from the Americans, although he added they were in a rural area and presumed to be safe.
The earthquake shook buildings as far south as Thailand and a second, smaller quake rattled office workers in Beijing, the capital.
The authorities have mobilized 50,000 soldiers to help with the rescue efforts, and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao flew to Sichuan hours after the earthquake struck to direct the disaster response.
News of the quake has dominated television coverage. The state-controlled media has been especially aggressive in its coverage, with reporters fanning out across the stricken region. Home video, cell phone images and commentary have been flowing uncensored onto Internet Web sites.
In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, thousands of residents, rattled by more than 300 tremors, camped out in the streets.
One aftershock on Tuesday afternoon registered a magnitude of 6.1. Most of the worst hit areas remained without cell phone service. Passenger rail service in Sichuan was suspended and 13 tankers on a freight line in Gansu Province were still burning on Tuesday night.
The quake destroyed 80 percent of structures in some of the towns and small cities near its epicenter, Chinese officials said. Its tremors were felt as far away as Vietnam and set off another, smaller quake in the outskirts of Beijing, 900 miles away.
The quake is China’s biggest natural disaster since another earthquake leveled the city of Tangshan in eastern China in 1976, leaving 240,000 people dead and posing a severe challenge to the governing Communist Party, which initially tried to cover up the catastrophe.
The quake was the latest in a series of events that have disrupted China’s planning for the Olympic Games in August, including widespread unrest among the country’s ethnic Tibetan population, which lives in large numbers in the same part of Sichuan Province where the earthquake struck.
China’s leaders often respond assertively to natural disasters, fearing a strong popular reaction if they bungle rescue efforts. But a complex relief operation on the scale that may be needed in Sichuan could strain Chinese resources even as the United Nations and many charitable groups are busy providing aid to Myanmar, hit by a huge cyclone this month.
Local leaders may also face intense scrutiny of their compliance with building codes. Since the Tangshan earthquake, China has required that new structures withstand major quakes. But the collapse of schools, hospitals and factories in several different areas around Sichuan may raise questions about how rigorously such codes have been enforced during China’s epic building boom.
The powerful initial quake struck at 2:28 p.m. local time, or 2:28 a.m. Eastern time, near Wenchuan County, according to China’s State Seismological Bureau. Most of the heavy damage appeared to be concentrated in nearby towns, which by Chinese standards are not heavily populated. Chengdu, the largest city in the area, with a population of about 10 million, is about 60 miles away and did not appear to have suffered major damage or heavy casualties.
In case anyone is wondering, my wife's family does not live in the area. This is sad, and lets all pray for the loved ones that are still missing are found alive.
very sad indeed, and this is good news that your wife's family was not involved. I dont know why I always thought your wife was from japan. My mistake.
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oh oh lol
