The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Monday, 3 November 2014

This bizarre, glittering cloud just appeared in the sky over Australia

© Peter Fell/ABC News, Australia The ABC is reporting an incredible sight in the skies over east Victoria, in the Gippsland area. It looks like a UFO, but it's entirely natural.No, it's not chemtrails. Instead, it's a type of cloud called a Fallstreak Hole. You may recognize that it glimmers in a way that's similar to the contrails of jets. That's because a similar phenomenon causes it. That rainbow look is the result of water crystals in the clouds...

Meteor sighting reported over Japan

© Kyodo/YouTube A "brightly glistening object" moving across the sky was seen around 6 p.m. in Kyushu and the Chugoku region in western Japan, with witnesses reporting to local astronomical and weather observatories, prompting experts to suspect a meteor.Some 10 witnesses reported seeing the fireball to the Fukuoka district weather observatory in the city of Fukuoka. They described it as a bright, shining object moving from east to west and "a bright...

Meteor sightings across Virginia, Eastern U.S.

© WJLA file photoA meteor streaks across the night sky. Lanham, Maryland - A green fireball was spotted in several states, including Virginia, Monday night.WNEW received a call from a listener around 6:20 p.m. who said he saw what appeared to be a green and blue light larger than a shooting star cross the sky near I-66 W. He says it fell straight down and he was unsure at first if it was a plane that crashed.Soon after the call, people in other...

Florida police threaten arrest under new 'homeless hate law'

© Reuters/Max Whittaker Florida police handed out citations and threatened to arrest two priests and a 90-year-old veteran volunteer for feeding the homeless. A recently passed city ordinance makes sharing food a citable offense.Fort Lauderdale police removed at least three volunteers, as well as the Sunday lunch they were serving to several dozen homeless people, citing a controversial new ordinance that prohibits food sharing. Passed in October,...

Russia's 6th aid convoy ready for Donetsk and Luhansk

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Tuesday a new humanitarian aid convoy for Ukraine's embattled Donetsk and Luhansk regions was formed and ready for delivery."We have completed forming a regular convoy of trucks with humanitarian aid, and it will leave for Donetsk and Luhansk soon," Oleg Voronov, deputy chief of the ministry's national crisis management center, told TASS.More than 100 tonnes of humanitarian...

Psychopathic cop who brutally tortured innocent people into confessing, gets to keep retirement

© Unknown Chicago, IL - The Illinois supreme court just dealt an insulting blow to the tax-payers of Chicago after their ruling to give a monstrous ex-cop his $4,000 monthly pension.Former detective commander Jon Burge has already cost the tax-payers of Chicago over $100 million to settle claims stemming from brutality that included suffocation with plastic bags, electricity applied to genitals and guns forced into mouths during interrogations,...

Weather channel co-founder: 'Hello, everybody! There is no global warming!'

The idea that there is significant man-made global warming is "a whole lot of baloney," Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman insisted on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday morning."The government only gives money to scientists who will present their hypothesis," said Coleman, a meteorologist who helped found The Weather Channel 32 years ago. "They don't have any choice; if you are going to get the money, you have to present their position. Those are the ones the government pays for. That doesn't make it right, that only means it's bought and paid...

Sarah Palin wrote a bunch of stupid words about some moronic thing for some dumb reason again

© facebookSarah Palin Sarah Palin - the recurrent infection given to America by John McCain during his presidential campaign that crashed and burned like it was just another plane given to him by the Navy - is flaring up again.Haven't we suffered enough already for whatever it was that we did, particularly if we didn't mean to do it, whatever it was?Apparently not.Okay. Now what, Sarah?When we last heard from the matriarch of the Rock-em Sock'em...

Another corrupt reconstruction project in Afghanistan has cost US taxpayers millions

A corruption scandal which has cost US taxpayers millions has been exposed by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. A corruption scandal which has cost US taxpayers millions has been exposed by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR): after five years and $18.5 million spent on renovating Pol-i-Charkhi prison, the project remains incomplete. This is just the latest in a series of costly blunders...

Energy Wars: Saudi Arabia Cuts Oil Price to US

Crude oil came under renewed selling pressure on Monday after a move by Saudi Arabia to cut December selling prices to customers in the US rattled the market.Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, said in a statement on Monday that it would cut prices for all oil grades to customers in the US by between 45 to 50 cents.The US oil boom continues to have its impact.(via FT)UPDATECuriously, while cutting the oil price to the US, it raised prices...

Psychopath Joran van der Sloot reportedly stabbed in Peruvian prison, critically injured

© APJoran Van Der Sloot 2010 Joran van der Sloot, the 27-year-old Dutchman who is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway, has been stabbed and may be in critical condition, according to a Dutch website.In an interview with a Dutch news outlet, van der Sloot's lawyer, Máximo Altez, said the convicted killer was stabbed in the shoulder and waist by fellow prisoners.Van der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year sentence...

Prophet Mani: Ancient seal provides insights from antiquity

When a personal artifact of a religious leader is discovered nearly 1,700 years after its use, the object provides invaluable historical insights. Zsuzsanna Gulacsi, professor of Comparative Cultural Studies, has been studying an ancient crystal seal used by prophet Mani, to provide new interpretations and prepare the seal for further research.Mani, a Persian born in 216, established Manichaeism, a religion drawing from the era's dominant religions,...

The 'plasmoelectric effect': New mechanism discovered to convert light into electricity

© Credits: Amolf/TremaniArtist's impression of the plasmoelectric effect. An ultrasensitive needle measures the voltage that arises if a laser illuminates a metal nanocircuit consisting of a square matrix of miniscule holes in a thin gold film. Researchers from FOM Institute AMOLF and the California Institute of Technology have discovered a new method for the generation of electrical potentials using light. With the help of minutely sculpted metal...

Ultracold disappearing act: 'Matter waves' move through one another but never share space

© Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice UniversityPhysicists (from left) De Luo, Jason Nguyen and Randy Hulet observed a strange disappearing act during collisions between forms of Bose Einstein condensates called solitons. In some cases, the colliding clumps of matter appear to keep their distance even as they pass through each other. A disappearing act was the last thing Rice University physicist Randy Hulet expected to see in his ultracold atomic experiments,...

FLASHBACK: So wrong: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past

© Leon Neal/AFP/Getty ImagesAccording to our computer models, this wasn't supposed to happen: Snow falls on decorations in Oxford Street as shoppers do last-minute Christmas shopping in Central London Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly...

Hurricane Vance moves toward Mexico's Pacific coast

© The Weather Channel Hurricane Vance continues to strengthen over the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 500 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. It became a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale Sunday evening with winds of 105 mph.Vance earlier became a Category 1 hurricane Sunday morning, making it the 14th hurricane of 2014 within the Eastern Pacific basin. (Genevieve, which started in the Eastern Pacific, became a hurricane...

First Afghan fanged deer seen in more than 60 years

© Julie Larsen Maher / WCSThe unusual fangs of a musk deer are used by males during the breeding season. A recent World Conservation Society study found a population of Kashmir musk deer living in Afghanistan. This photo shows a Siberian musk deer -- one of seven similar species found in Asia. A fanged creature not seen in Afghanistan for more than 60 years has been spotted by a research team in the northeast part of the country.The Kashmir musk...

How unconditional love helps kids with setbacks

© David Pereiras/Shutterstock Teens who spend some time thinking about situations in which their peers thought well of them, no matter what they did, may have an easier time coping with setbacks, new findings show.Adolescents in the study who wrote an essay about a time when they felt "unconditional regard" from their peers had fewer negative feelings about themselves after getting a bad report card than kids who wrote about a time when they felt...

10-year-old Florida girl is paralyzed with rare brain infection four days after receiving flu shot

© FacebookParalyzed: Marysue is almost completely nonverbal and can hardly move, remaining mainly in her bed or wheelchair A 10-year-old girl in Florida has been paralyzed for almost a year with a rare inflammation of the brain and her family is blaming a flu vaccine.According to Carla Grivna, her daughter Marysue was living a perfectly healthy and happy life until last year.'She (used to) love school, she was running, playing, singing in the church...

Study reveals startling decline in European bird populations

© Tomas Belka, birdphoto.euAround 90 percent of these losses were from the 36 most common and widespread species, including house sparrows, skylarks, grey partridges and starlings. Bird populations across Europe have experienced sharp declines over the past 30 years, with the majority of losses from the most common species, say the University of Exeter, the RSPB and the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) in a new study. However,...

China unveils "laser to shoot down low-flying drones"

© Phys.orgA remote controlled drone China has developed a highly accurate laser weapon system that can shoot down light drones at low altitude, state media reported.The machine has a two-kilometre range and can bring down "various small aircraft" within five seconds of locating its target, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a statement by the China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), one of the developers.Xinhua showed pictures of large...

Canada: Decoding Harper's terror game. Beneath the masks and diversions

© unknown Stephen Harper is the most deeply reviled Prime Minister in Canada's history. On the world stage, he is the servant of Big Oil boiling oil out of tar-sands to destroy major river systems and pollute the planet with dirty oil, while his attack dog John Baird leads the warmongering and bullying of nations like Iran and Syria targeted by the US-Israeli axis.He is the most despotic and toxic first minister in the life of our country. His administration...

Man robs 4 Subways in 4 days because "Jared Diet" didn't work

© Hueytown PoliceZachary Torrance A man who robbed four Subway restaurants in four days with a gun claims he did it because he was mad the "Jared Diet" didn't work for him.Zachary Torrance, 18, was arrested Friday by Hueytown police after someone saw surveillance videos on the Hueytown Police Department's Facebook page and recognized Torrance from having witnessed him purchase a gun holster at a Walmart. Police say he was even wearing the same clothing...

Ukraine's 'battalion' leader: We're ready to invade the Russian Federation, conduct bomb attacks inside Russia

© UnknownYuri Bereza, a Ukrainian lawmaker and leader of volunteer battalion Dnepr-1 A Ukrainian lawmaker, who is also the leader of a volunteer battalion, says brigades like his are ready to "intrude" into Russia to carry out attacks on Russian territory.Yuri Bereza, the leader of the Dnepr-1 battalion, made the remarks during a televised interview with a Ukrainian broadcaster."Today, we are ready not just to defend [Ukraine], but to invade the...
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