An Eventful Few Days

It seemed that no sooner than I arrived at my parents' house this past Wednesday that the news arrived that President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt had been ousted by his country's military.  The Egyptian constitution has been suspended and the head of constitutional court, Adli Mansour, has been appointed interim president.  Morsi is now under house arrest.  President Obama has called for a review of U.S. aid to Egypt since American law forbids aid to countries in which a democratically elected leader is ousted in a coup.  Egypt's people are divided between supporters of Morsi and supporters of his ouster, stirring fears of civil war.  In reaction to Morsi's ouster, Egyptian stocks surged and oil prices had a slight decline.

I drove through light rain on the way down to Virginia on Wednesday.  The rain became heavier during the last 20 miles or so of my trip.  The heavy rain continued during the evening and most of the following might.  On Thursday, July 4th, I saw water spouting through a hole in a manhole cover down the street, and slightly downhill, from my parents' house.  Friday morning, it was still coming up.

Now that I'm back home in Maryland, I find out that an airplane come Seoul, Korea has crash-landed at the San Francisco Airport.  Some facts and video of the crash may be found here.  More on the story may be read here, here and here.

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Train Derails Near Baltimore

This afternoon, a CSX freight train derailed in the Rosedale area of Baltimore County after striking a truck.  The derailment caused a loud explosion, closed down U.S. highway 40, and damaged several buildings near the tracks.  A total of 15 railcars were derailed.  The only casualty has been the driver of the truck, who was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma center.  Rosedale is east of the city of Baltimore, about a mile from the city line.

Read more at the Baltimore Sun, WJLA, WBAL, CBS Baltimore and ABC News.

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Boston Bomber Buried

The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon, has been buried in a small Muslim cemetery named Al-Barzakh, in Doswell, Virginia.  The burial was coordinated by Martha Mullen, a member of a local Methodist church, with some help from Tsarnaev's uncle Ruslan Tsarni.  The cemetery is run by a group called Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia.  Doswell is located about 15 miles north of Richmond, the state capitol.

Read more at Boston(dot)com and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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Argentine Cardinal Elected Pope

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires has been chosen by his fellow Cardinals to become Pope, and has taken the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.  He is the first Pope born in the Americas, the first Jesuit Pope, and the third consecutive Pope to be born outside of Italy.  Even so, he has strong connections to Italy, being the son of immigrants from the area around Turin.  He was chosen on the third ballot, one fewer than his immediate predecessor, the now-retired Pope Benedict XVI.

Earlier during the day, the Sistine Chapel's chimney, through which white or black smoke is emitted, white smoke indicating a decisive ballot, was visited by a seagull.  This resulted in the creation of several Twitter accounts.

Read more about Pope Francis at NBC News, CBS News, the Guardian, Reuters, Politico and Yahoo News.

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Locusts Swarm Egypt

In what looks like a reenactment of one of the ten plagues in the Biblical Book of Exodus, an estimated 30 million locusts have descended upon Egypt, and have caused Israel to issue an alert.  Locust swarms are common in that region during this time of year, but this swarm is unusually large.

Read more at CBS News, Time, the Atlantic Wire, the Mail Online, ABC News and Haaretz, which reports that "several thousand" locusts have gone into the Negev, the southern desert region of Israel.  From the Atlantic Wire comes this video.  At around the 1:00 mark, you can hear the noise from the locusts.

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Pope Benedict To Resign

Pope Benedict XVI, the earthly leader of the Catholic Church (its "visible head", according to Catholic doctrine) and sovereign of Vatican City, has announced that he will resign from his office, effective on the last day of this month.  He will become the first Pope to step down willingly since Celestine V did so 1294, and the first to resign under any circumstance since Gregory XII stepped aside in 1415, to end an internal dispute within the church.  When he took the office, Benedict became the first German Pope in about 900 years.  In his announcement, he cited his "advanced age" as a reason for being unable to "adequately fulfill" his ministry.

Read more at CNN, the Washington Post, Fox News, BBC News and Yahoo News.

UPDATE:  The Daily Mail reports lightning striking St. Peter's Basilica a few hours after the Pope's announcement.

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Massacre In Newtown, Connecticut

This morning, a man named Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother at her home, and then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where she was a teacher, and murdered 26 more victims, 20 of them children, before killing himself.  He was armed with two pistols and an assault rifle, and was carrying an ID that belonged to his brother.  The brother, Ryan Lanza, is not a suspect, but Adam Lanza's girlfriend and another friend are unaccounted for.

The New York Post has several articles about this horrible event:
At least 27 people, including 20 children, shot dead at elementary school.
The sounds of the Newtown school tragedy.
A history of mass shootings.
The rampage took only minutes.

Also reporting on the Newtown school shootings are the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC News, MassLive and CBS News.  The Blaze notes how some media outlets misreported some facts about the massacre, including naming Ryan Lanza as the shooter.

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CIA Director Petraeus Resigns

CIA Director David Petraeus, who as an Army General had helped to implement the "surge" strategy in Iraq, has resigned his position, citing an extramarital affair.  Acting Director Michael Morell will run the CIA, presumably until the next official Director is installed.  Petraeus had become the Director of the CIA in September 2011, after leading U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and later serving in the U.S. Central Command.

Read more at MSN News, the New York Times, NBC News, Wired, USA Today and Fox News.

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A Few News Items

A few items in the news as the east coast starts recovering from Sandy, and the nation prepares for the upcoming election:

From the New York Post, residents of Staten Island say that they've been forgotten by the post-Sandy relief efforts.

In the Wall Street Journal, Michael Tanner opines that for disaster relief, bigger government isn't necessarily the answer.

From Fox News, the states hit hard by Sandy have vowed to be ready for the election.

From HLNTV, Sandy has caused gas shortages in New York and New Jersey, but prices have increased only by about a cent per gallon.

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Sandy And Its Aftermath

Hurricane Sandy, now continuing to move northward after losing its "tropical" designation, has left a "trail of devastation" along the east coast, especially in New Jersey, where the eye made landfall, and in New York City, which experienced an exceptionally high storm surge and its resulting floods.  Much of Atlantic City, NJ   has also been underwater.  Power outages continue in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

In my part of Maryland, which is well to the west of the Atlantic coast and also to the west of the Chesapeake Bay, we got off easy.  We had strong winds and rain, but from what I can see, the damage was limited mainly to tree branches.  Power flickered a few times Monday evening, but never went off completely.  I'm grateful to be essentially unscathed, but this is tempered by the fact that many people to the north and east my location have been hit hard by this storm.

A few stories about Sandy and its aftermath:

From the Daily Caller, the president discusses some relief plans.

From USA Today, New York struggles with fires and floods.

From CNN, Sandy's trail of devastation, including 30 dead and millions without power.

The New Yorker reports on damage to the City's Upper West Side.

The Huffington Post has a running list of how to help the victims of Sandy.

From MSN News, the cleanup begins as millions remain without power.

The IEEE Spectrum reports on the shutdowns of nuclear power plants and oil refineries.

From Tulsa's Channel 8, photos of the damage in New York and New Jersey.

From the New York Post, many more photos of the damage, and a live blog with still more photos.

Some history from the New York Daily News, the east coast hurricane of 1938.

And finally, from Inga's Angle, a rainbow over New York.

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Links For A Rainy Day

Here in Maryland, Sandy is giving us some wind and rain, along with a case of cabin fever due to lots of things being closed down.  But fortunately, my cyber-connection to the outside world so far remains unscathed, thus allowing me to pass on some stories.

From the New York Post, updates about Hurricane Sandy.

From Fox News, Sandy is expected to bring a "life-threatening" storm surge.

From Yahoo News, here's one part of the federal government that will not shut down today - the Marines guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns.

From Twitchy, Sandy has produced an outbreak of fake photos (possibly including the one in the above story about the Marines, which was taken during an earlier storm).  If you have a picture you'd like to put on Twitter, please make sure it's real.

From the Huffington Post, photos (real, I hope) of the damage from Hurricane Sandy in Atlantic City, NJ.

From the Duffel Blog and the "Did I read that correctly?" department, in response to Hurricane Sandy, the Veteran's Affairs Department will close down their facilities "west of the Mississippi River".

From the Washington Post, the HMS Bounty, which has appeared in two films, has sunk off the coast of North Carolina.

From the Wall Street Journal, President Obama hints at appointing a Secretary of Business if he wins a second term.

From Life Site News, this past Saturday over 200 students from Christendom College in Virginia protested in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic not far from the White House.

From the Miami Herald, the 12-year-old daughter of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is back home after being hospitalized with a head injury suffered in a golf cart accident.

From Breitart's Big Journalism, the Obama campaign gets testy with reporters.

From the Daily Caller, a congressional report puts the blame for Fast and Furious on several senior Justice Department officials.

From France 24, car bombs strike Damascus, Syria.

To finish up, a bit of hurricane humor from StixBlog.

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Earthquake Strikes Maine

An earthquake occurred in Maine at 7:12 PM this evening, and was felt in the Boston area.  The epicenter was near Lake Arrowhead, west of Portland.  At 4.6 on the Richter scale, this quake was smaller than the one hitting Virginia during the summer of 2011, and probably would have been considered to be very minor if it had hit California.

Read the story at the Boston Herald, NBC News, USA Today and NESN.

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Hugo Chavez Re-Elected

While the exit polls mentioned in yesterday's post indicated that challenger Enrique Capriles had a small lead, the official results were quite different.  Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has carried 54% of the vote with 81% of the voting places reporting, and has been declared the winner.

Read more at BBC News, ABC News, Fox News and Bloomberg.

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Venezuela Holds Elections

As we Americans look forward to ours, a month away, Venezuela held their elections today, with incumbent president Hugo Chavez facing challenger Henrique Capriles.  Turnout has been high enough to force polling stations to stay open past the official 6:00 p.m. closing time.  The race is expected to be close.  As of this posting, the results have not been announced.

Read more at:
BBC News, the Guardian, Reuters, CNN, and the Washington Post.

UPDATE:  According to the Daily Caller, a Spanish news outlet reports that according to exit polls, Capriles is leading by about 51% to 48%.  However, the offical results have still not been announced.

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Isaac Hits Gulf Coast, LA and MS Start To Recover

Hurricane Isaac has weaken into a tropical depression and moved northward, allowing some residents of Louisiana and Mississippi to slowly move back toward their normal lives.  Others will be dealing with damage from coastal flooding, but the waters have receded, allowing roads to open and utility workers to restore services.  One situation that could have caused more damage was a potential breach of the earthen dam that holds back Lake Tangipahoa, along the river of the same name in Percy Quin State Park in Mississippi, but the Pike County Emergency Management Agency has made plans to create a spillway or a "controlled breach" to relieve pressure on the dam.  Residents along the Tangipahoa River downstream from the dam had previously been asked to evacuate.  Read the story at CNN, which includes pictures such as this one:

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