Category Archive

Scenes of destruction greeted rescue workers across Indonesia’s resort islands of Lombok and Bali, after an earthquake of 6.9 to 7.0 magnitude killed at least 98 people and prompted an exodus of fleeing tourists rattled by the second powerful quake in only a week. Their National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said it expected the death toll to rise once the rubble of more … Read More

Police announced at a Monday morning news conference that 66 people were shot, 12 of them fatally, between Friday evening to Sunday evening in the city of Chicago. And in what the police called “an unacceptably violent weekend,” in three hours on Sunday, records show, 30 people were shot and two killed in 10 incidents. In all, over the weekend, there … Read More

News reports say that U.S. Pastor Andrew Brunson has been released from prison in Turkey. The U.S. pastor detained in Turkey for almost two years is to leave prison and move to house arrest until his next trial, a court has ruled. Pastor Brunson, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Turkey and imprisoned in October 2016 when falsely accused of aiding … Read More

Israel said it shot down a Syrian warplane and killed the pilot as it crossed into the Golan Heights, and Damascus said the jet was fired on as it took part in sorties against Syrian rebels. The incident added new fuel to increasing tensions over the Golan, a strategic plateau between the two old enemies and where Israel has been … Read More

The USGS reports the current eruption at the Kilauea Volcano is Hawaii is unprecedented in scope and size in the past 200 years, per the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory deputy scientist-in-charge Steve Brantley. “What we are observing now is unprecedented in the past 200 years in terms of size and scale” Brantley said. “This is also the largest sequence of collapse events that … Read More

Expanding cracks and fissures at Grand Teton National Park atop the Yellowstone Super Volcano have prompted officials to close certain areas to tourists. Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point are now closed to tourists due to safety hazards and park rangers are initiating a risk assessment, according to a statement from the National Park Service. Although it’s unclear how the cracks appeared, it … Read More

Israel has now passed a basic law declaring itself as the nation-state of the Jewish people. In essence, the law enshrines the Jewish people’s exclusive right to self-determination in Israel, a move that was hailed by supporters as “historic.” This law is one of more than a dozen basic laws that are difficult to overturn and that, together, serve as the country’s Constitution. (By … Read More

Israel’s Defense Ministry has called a major summit of emergency services and local municipalities to review the country’s readiness for dealing with a possible major earthquake wreaking havoc. The Defense Ministry called the major summit to review the country’s readiness for dealing with a possible major earthquake following a series of earthquakes in the north and center of the country over … Read More

The rivers of  Iraq and Syria, above all the Euphrates, are drying up with the Middle East becoming even more arid. Dams built on the river in Turkey and Syria since the 1970s have reduced the flow of water that flows down into Iraq by as much as half and the situation is about to get worse. This summer Turkey started … Read More

Iran has said that if the U.S. pressures countries to stop Iranian oil exports, then they will not allow any oil shipment to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Since the US pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Washington has been pushing allies to cut … Read More