NASA Warns of New Solar Storm That Could Affect U.S. and Canada This Week

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Earth could travel through the path of particles released by a solar storm this week, according to experts who advise of the possible impact of such an event.

According to WPXI, NASA satellites Sunday night revealed what is called a solar mass ejection, through which material from the sun is blasted with great force out into space. That eruption continued until Monday morning.

Computer projections indicate the storm is on track to impact or narrowly miss Earth Thursday morning.

If the relatively weak flare does cross paths with our planet, the effects could be noticeable but are not expected to be substantial.

Solar storms can create fluctuations in power grids, though any effects from Thursday’s event are expected to be minor. Experts predict the same for any interference with satellite operations due to emission.

The flare can also result in an aurora visible in the skies above areas within 30 and 60 degrees north or south of the equator. Within the U.S., these lights are most likely to appear over the west coast.

Some migratory animals are affected by solar storms, with the impact most evident in northern locations, including Canada.

Flares are common occurrences on the sun, with particulate matter routinely ejected at millions of miles per hour. Of the more than 150 storms that break out in a given year, however, only a small fraction collide with Earth.

While we could experience such a collision Thursday, the event has been classified as a G1, or minor storm. One week last September provided an extended example of the types of storms the sun is capable of producing.

As Space.com reported at the time, a series of seven powerful flares were recorded in a seven-day period beginning Sept. 4. Each storm originated from the sun’s Active Region 2673 as that area rotated out of sight from Earth.

One forceful storm from that series did pass close to North and South America, prompting an advisory from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via its Space Weather Prediction Center. Among the possible effects of that storm, the agency wrote, were high-frequency radio blackouts and low-frequency communication issues lasting for about an hour on the sunlit side of the planet.

“While a fast event, the CME was off the Sun-Earth line and is not expected to produce notable geoeffective impacts,” the SWPC wrote.

Three of the major flares recorded that week were classified as the most severe X storms, including one on Sept. 6 that registered as the strongest in 12 years.

Thursday’s event could be a more direct impact than any of those, but its relatively low force should keep any negative effects to a minimum, according to WHIO meteorologist Brett Collar.

“Don’t think that this storm will be historic by any means but certainly something to keep an eye on over coming days,” he said. (For more from the author of “NASA Warns of New Solar Storm That Could Affect U.S. and Canada This Week” please click HERE)

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U.S. Jet Obliterates Russian Tank in ‘Self-Defense’ in Syria

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A U.S. fighter jet operating in Syria destroyed a Russian-built tank over the weekend in an act that officials described as self-defense.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson first reported the destruction of the tank, noting that the tanks’ three-man crew were all killed in the strike inside. What makes this incident noteworthy is the fact that it is unclear who was operating the tank, whether it was the Syrian government, forces loyal to the Syrian government, or members of the Russian military . . .

The tank was reportedly destroyed after “pro-regime forces” launched an attack on U.S. special forces last week, which prompted the U.S. to respond “with a furious barrage of air and artillery strikes and reported killing 100 pro-government troops, but sources told Bloomberg on Saturday that as many as 200 or 300 Russian mercenaries were killed in the attack.” (Read more from “U.S. Jet Obliterates Russian Tank in ‘Self-Defense’ in Syria” HERE)

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The Origin of Valentine’s Day Is Not What You Think

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. . .During the first three centuries of Christianity, there were 10 major persecutions in which the government threw Christians to the lions, boiled them alive, had their tongues cut out, and worse. Christian writings, scriptures and historical records were destroyed.

Because so many records were destroyed, details of Saint Valentine’s life are scant. What little is know was passed down and finally printed in the year 1260 in “Legenda Sanctorum” by Jacobus de Voragine, and in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.

Saint Valentine was either a priest in Rome or a bishop in Terni, central Italy. He risked the Emperor’s wrath by standing up for traditional marriage, secretly marrying soldiers to their young brides. When Emperor Claudius demanded that Christians deny their consciences and worship pagan idols, Saint Valentine refused. Saint Valentine was arrested, dragged before the Prefect of Rome, and condemned him to die.

While awaiting execution, his jailer, Asterius, asked Saint Valentine to pray for his blind daughter. When she miraculously regained her sight, the jailer converted and was baptized, along with many others. Right before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote a note to the jailer’s daughter, signing it, “from your Valentine.”

Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs and stones, and when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate on Feb. 14, 269 A.D. (Read more from “The Origin of Valentine’s Day Is Not What You Think” HERE)

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Olympic Oops: Katie Couric Has Now Insulted the Dutch

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By The Daily Wire. NBC believes it’s doing a bang-up job hosting the Olympic Winter Games television broadcast, but in less than two days of coverage, its anchors have already insulted at least two countries.

First, an NBC “Asia correspondent” suggested that Korea was grateful for the presence of Japan’s Olympic delegation, after all Japan had given them (it turns out, the Japanese took more than 200,000 Korean women hostage before World War II to work as “comfort women” for Japanese men). Now, Katie Couric has managed to insult The Netherlands with her quaint, anachronistic (and kind of racist) explanation of the Dutch commute.

While watching the Dutch national team — mostly speed skaters — enter the arena opening night, Couric quipped happily, “‘why are they so good,’ you may be asking yourselves? Because skating is an important mode of transportation in a city like Amsterdam.”

“As you all know, it has lots of canals that can freeze in the winter. So for as long as those canals have existed, the Dutch have skated on them to get from place to place, to race each other and also to have fun,” she continued. (Read more from “Olympic Oops: Katie Couric Has Now Insulted the Dutch” HERE)

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Dutch Mock Katie Couric’s Comments About Speedskating

By USA Today. Katie Couric might want to visit Amsterdam sometime.

The broadcaster is drawing criticism on social media after her unusual reasoning for the Netherlands’ success in speedskating over the years. Couric, who co-anchored NBC’s coverage of Friday’s Olympic opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, said that the Dutch rely on skating as a form of transportation in their capital city, which sits at sea level.

(Read more from “Dutch Mock Katie Couric’s Comments About Speedskating” HERE)

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Lions Reportedly Devour Suspected Poacher in South Africa

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South African police are trying to identify a suspected poacher who was reportedly killed and partially devoured by lions in a private game reserve near the Kruger National Park.

The man’s mauled remains, including his head, were reportedly found today alongside a hunting rifle and ammunition.

“The process of identifying the deceased has already commenced and it might be made possible by the fact that his head is amongst the remains that were found at the scene,” South African Police Service spokesman Lt. Col. Moatshe Ngoepe told the country’s News24.

Ngoepe added: “We are now waiting for a person from the family but we are also utilizing our investigative resources to see if we can successfully identify the deceased.”

Ngoepe told Agence France-Presse news agency: “It seems the victim was poaching in the game park when he was attacked and killed by lions. They ate his body, nearly all of it, and just left his head and some remains.” (Read more from “Lions Reportedly Devour Suspected Poacher in South Africa” HERE)

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Starbucks Director, Kissinger Confidante Praises Japan’s Brutal Occupation of Korea, Forced to Apologize

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By Reuters. Former journalist Joshua Cooper Ramo, working as an analyst for NBC, said on-air during the Pyeongchang Games opening ceremony that all Koreans recognized that Japan had served as an important example in South Korea’s own economic transformation.

Koreans around the world criticized his remarks on social media and a petition soon circulated online. Japan, which colonized the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, has left a deep legacy of mistrust and ill-feeling in South Korea.

Ramo, who has written books on China and is a director of Starbucks Corp and FedEx Corp, said as athletes paraded into the Games stadium that “every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation”. . .

Ramo, who was also an on-air contributor for NBC during the Beijing Olympics, is co-CEO of Kissinger Associates, an advisory firm of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. (Read more from “Starbucks Director, Kissinger Confidante Praises Japan’s Brutal Occupation of Korea, Forced to Apologize” HERE)

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NBC Forced to Apologize After Katie Couric, Colleagues Insult Entire Nation of South Korea

By The Daily Wire. NBC, the only network on which Americans can watch the Olympics, has been forced to issue an apology to the entire nation of South Korea after its anchors, Mike Tirico and Katie Couric, and its Asian correspondent, Joshua Cooper Ramo, accidentally insulted the Korean people during their Opening Ceremonies broadcast.

The trio was discussing visiting Olympic dignitaries, when they settled on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to Yahoo News.

“In the booth with Mike Tirico and Katie Couric, NBC Asian correspondent Joshua Cooper Ramo said that ‘every Korean’ respected Japan for their recent achievements as a nation, insinuating that South Korea had forgotten about the 35 brutal years of Japanese rule that ended after World War II,” Yahoo reported . . .

On Saturday, NBC issued a comprehensive apology.

During our coverage of the Parade of Nations on Friday we said it was notable that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the trip to Korea for the Olympics, “representing Japan, a country which occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945 but every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation.” We understand the Korean people were insulted by these comments and we apologize.

(Read more from “Nbc Forced to Apologize After Katie Couric, Colleagues Insult Entire Nation of South Korea” HERE)

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NBC Commentators #Fail at the Olympics

By The Washington Post. Friday’s Opening Ceremonies for the Winter Olympics in South Korea were, by most accounts, spectacular. NBC’s coverage of the spectacle, on the other hand, was considered hit and miss. Occasionally disastrous.

It wasn’t so much the hosts, Katie Couric and Mike Tirico, who annoyed critics, but rather the network’s analyst, Joshua Cooper Ramo. . .

But Ramo’s big misstep came when he noticed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan in the crowd and offered what he knew about the country’s history with Korea.

Japan was “a country which occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945,” Ramo said, correctly (though he did not mention that historians say the Japanese army forced tens of thousands of Koreans into sex slavery.)

“But,” Ramo continued, “every Korean will tell you that Japan as a cultural and technological and economic example has been so important to their own transformation.” (Read more from “NBC Commentators #Fail at the Olympics” HERE)

Editor’s note: This is a South Korean news clip but has Ramo’s comments in English at about :40

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Experimental Drug Promises to Kill the Flu Virus in Single Day

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2018 has been a devastating year for the flu. So far, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 63 pediatric deaths. And it’s not even the middle of February yet.

But now a Japanese drugmaker claims that it has developed a pill that can kill the virus within a day, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A late-stage trial on Japanese and American flu patients found that for the people who took the Shionogi & Co. compound, the median time taken to wipe out the virus was 24 hours. That is much quicker than any other flu drug on the market, including Roche AG’s Tamiflu, which the trial showed took three times longer to achieve the same result. Quickly killing the virus could reduce its contagious effects, Shionogi said.

Also, Shionogi’s experimental drug requires only a single dose, while patients need to take two doses of Tamiflu a day, for five days.

Both Shionogi’s compound and Tamiflu take roughly the same amount of time to entirely contain flu symptoms, but Shionogi says its compound provides immediate relief faster.

(Read more from “Experimental Drug Promises to Kill the Flu Virus in Single Day” HERE)

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Jesus Statue Decapitated in Church Sword Attack

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Indonesian police shot and wounded a man wielding a one-meter-long sword who attacked a Catholic Church service Sunday, seriously injuring four, including a priest, and decapitating a statue of Jesus.

Police in the world’s most populous Muslim nation in the world say they are stumped about a motive.

About 100 people were attending the service in the town of Sleman in Yogyakarta province on Java island when a man barged in wielding the sword began attacking terror-stricken faithful, seemingly indiscriminately . . .

A few minutes after the service started, a congregation member ran into the church with a bleeding head chased by a young man holding a sharp weapon, said worshipper Andhi Cahyo.

People fled through another door as the attacker ran amok inside the church. He destroyed some books and a Virgin Mary statue with his sword, said Cahyo, and attacked 81-year-old German priest Edmund Prier who was standing at the altar. (Read more from “Jesus Statue Decapitated in Church Sword Attack” HERE)

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Obama Policy Helped Create the Top African Threat

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Barack Obama went to the United Nations Security Council to coordinate military intervention against Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, claiming the objective was to save the lives of peaceful, pro-democracy protesters, describes a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Foreign Affairs warned, however, that far from being the new foundation for democracy, Obama’s campaign “was an abject failure, judged even by its own standards.

Libya, the report said, “has devolved into a failed state” with “violent deaths.”

Newsweek asked whether the “role the Obama administration played in the North African country’s instability” could be blamed for the newly developing slave trade there . . .

The CRS, quoting a statement from U.S. Africa Command, explained the instability in Libya following Obama’s intervention “may be the most significant, near-term threat to U.S. and allies’ interests” in Africa. (Read more from “Obama Policy Helped Create the Top African Threat” HERE)

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Shipping Container Full of Body Parts of Americans Discovered on Chinese Cargo Ship

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Exporting companies are using Chinese ships, planes, and trucks to transport dead Americans across the world for research purposes, according to a Thursday report from Reuters.

A Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship departed South Carolina in July carrying 6,000 pounds of human remains valued at $67,204.

The container’s temperature was set at 5 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent the parts from spoiling. Relatives of the dead, meanwhile, did not realize their loved ones’ remains were being dismembered and sent to Europe and elsewhere, the report notes.

Body brokers like Oregon-based MedCure rely on lax regulations to export body parts of deceased individuals to Mexico, China, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, among several other countries.

“There are people who wouldn’t necessarily mind where the specimens were sent if they were fully informed,” Brandi Schmitt, who directs a body donation system at the University of California, told reporters about the trade, which is still shrouded in mystery. “But clearly there are plenty of donors that do mind and that don’t feel like they’re getting enough information.”

The FBI raided MedCure in November, which culminated in a federal investigation.

“MedCure is committed to meeting and exceeding the highest standards in the industry. It takes very seriously its obligation to not only deliver safe specimens securely, but to do it in a way that respects the donors,” said the company’s lawyer, Jeffrey Edelson, who declined to comment on the nature of the raid.

Families of the deceased were shocked to hear that their husbands, fathers, and daughters were shipped overseas.

Marie Gallegos, whose husband’s head was reportedly shipped to a dental school in Israel months after he died of a heart attack, told reporters that she “should have read the fine print” of the forms she signed allowing his parts to be donated for science and research.

“Had I known that my husband’s head was over there, I would have waited to have the ceremony,” she said. “If they really wanted my husband’s body for these purposes, they should have told me upfront and verbally.”

Regulators are also concerned the parts might be infected with HIV or some other highly infectious disease. There is a disconnect between what the industry and government believe is dangerous, Matthew Zahn, chairman of the public health committee for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told reporters.

“It’s a situation where we don’t have a huge amount of regulation or clarity as to what the risks are,” Zahn said. “It feels like one of those cracks in the system where a practice has developed, and the risk factors and oversight have not fully matured.”

Current regulations cover body parts intended for transplant, such as hearts and livers, which has allowed some unsavory elements of the industry to bubble to the top.

FBI investigators raided the warehouse of another so-called Body Broker last year and found a grisly discovery. Court papers reveal the building, owned and operated by businessman Arthur Rathburn, was littered with dead flies, dog bowls, and human remains frozen together in huge “chunks.”

Rathburn’s business, International Biological Inc (IBI), became a target after routine border stops that found he was ferrying human heads to Mexico on their way to forlorn parts of the globe, court records show.

The jury ultimately found Rathburn guilty of fraud for supplying his customers with body parts infected with HIV and hepatitis.

“The fraud scheme orchestrated by IBI shocked even the most experienced of our investigative team,” FBI special-agent-in-charge David Gelios told reporters. Donors were “victimized as IBI intentionally and recklessly marketed and transported contaminated human remains… Personal greed overcame decency,” he said in a statement after the verdict.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.