Record rainfall for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska

© Jamie Mitchell
Rain in Fort Smith, Arkansas

    

Several cities have already seen one of their wettest moths on record. And the month isn't over. And there's more rain in the forecast

Fort Smith, Arkansas - With 18.33 inches of rain through 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, Fort Smith broke the previous record of 15.02 inches in June 1945, making it the wettest month on record

Oklahoma City - On Saturday, the city broke its June 1989 record of 14.66 inches to become the wettest month in Oklahoma City history.

Wichita Falls, Texas - May 2015 became the wettest month on record early Friday afternoon when the city's month-to-date total reached 13.33 inches. That broke the record for May - and for any month on the calendar - both set in May 1982 with 13.22 inches.

Corpus Christi, Texas - Rainfall in May 2015 was 13.41 inches through 3:00 a.m. May 26, well beyond the previous May record of 10.44 inches set in 1941.

According to weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen, May 2015 now exceeds Corpus's total rainfall for the entire drought-parched year of 2011, which was only 12.06 inches.

Lubbock, Texas - The 8.41 inches of rain that had fallen through May 25 already makes it Lubbock's second-wettest May on record.

Amarillo, Texas - The 9.26 inches of rain that had fallen through May 25 makes it the second-wettest May on record. The all-time record is 9.81 inches set in May 1951.

Lincoln, Nebraska - The 10.68 inches of rain that had fallen through 2:00 a.m. May 26, ranks as the Nebraska capital's second-wettest May. A mere downpour would be enough to surpass the current wettest May record of 10.72 inches set in 1903.

Colorado Springs, Colorado - 7.40 inches of rain at Colorado Springs Municipal Airport through May 25 ranks as the second-wettest May on record.

Pueblo, Colorado - 4.87 inches of rain through May 25 makes it the second wettest May on record.

Tulsa, Oklahoma - The city's May total to 11.95 inches as of 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, makes it the second-wettest May on record.

Wichita, Kansas - As of 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, the city's month-to-date total was 11.12 inches, making it the third-wettest May on record.

More rain is possible through this week which will add to the record rainfall totals, says weather.com

See entire comprehensive rainfall totals

Thanks to Laurel for this link

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Federal program allows killing of 500,000 protected migratory birds a year

© Mike Baird/ Wikimedia Commons
Double-crested Cormorant in breeding plumage in Morro Bay, CA

    

Being a bird of "conservation concern" or even the oldest bird species on the continent is not enough to avoid being slaughtered under a little-known federal program that authorizes the killing of half a million birds a year.

The Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal looked into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's "depredation permit" program, which allows businesses, farmers and others to kill members of more than 300 species of migratory birds each year. The body count during a recent three-year period totaled 1.6 million birds, or just over 500,000 a year.

Two-thirds of all the birds killed were brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, common grackles and Canada geese. The rest of those killed included upland sandpipers, barn owls, wood ducks, lesser yellowlegs, snowy owls, roseate spoonbills, curlew sandpipers, red-throated loons, great blue herons, white and brown pelicans, cedar waxwings, robins, belted kingfishers, mourning doves, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, turkey vultures, mallard ducks and sandhill cranes, North America's oldest bird species

Some of the birds "are struggling to cope with habitat loss, climate change and other threats and are classified by the government as 'birds of conservation concern,'" according to Reveal's Rachael Bale and Tom Knudson. "These include upland sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs, roseate spoonbills and red-throated loons, who, because of declining populations, could be on their way to the endangered species list."

Birds are killed under the program to protect farm fields, vineyards, air traffic, golf courses, pistachio orchards, landfills, fish farms, zoos, aquariums and other locations, according to the investigation.

Most recently, a federal judge in Portland, Ore., denied a motion to try to stop the killing of more than 10,000 double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River estuary. The Army Corps of Engineers justified the bird-kill, saying the cormorants eat millions of juvenile salmonids each year, thus endangering the annual salmon run.

Bob Sallinger, conservation director with Audubon Society of Portland, said the agencies' own calculations have shown the planned killing could drive the western populations of double-crested cormorants below sustainable levels.

"We are very disappointed in the court's decision," Sallinger said in a statement May 8, according to the Chinook Observer. "For the 3,489 cormorants that are scheduled to be shot and 9,368 active nests the Corps plans to oil, destroy or starve, the losses will absolutely be irreversible."

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Outsourced: These U.S. Companies Pay H1B Workers The Biggest Salaries

U.S. companies pay thousands of dollars to bring in foreign workers through high-skilled H1B visas, but what are these workers worth once they arrive on U.S. soil? Turns out, there’s a pretty wide range: LinkedIn pays  its newly minted H1B workers an average of about $140,000, while Apple ($134,000) and eBay ($122,000) are right up there too. But some of the companies that sponsor the most H1B workers typically don’t cross into the six figures  — like IBM, at about $87,000, and Accenture at $76,000

As Vocativ reported last month, foreign workers who specialize in engineering and computer programing are in high demand. In 2011, it took 301 days for requests for H1B visas to exceed the supply—this year it took less than a week. H1B visa applications have doubled in the last two years. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in April that 233,000 foreigners had applied for H1B visas, which allow non-immigrants to live and work in the U.S. for three years before receiving a chance at renewal of up to three more years. Since only 85,000 H1B visas are granted (with 20,000 of those reserved for people with advanced U.S. degrees), the USCIS chose recipients through a computer lottery.

These companies, drawn from the 100 that sponsor the most H1B visas, pay the highest salaries, according to public database MyVisaJobs.

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Magnitude 3.0 earthquake recorded in North Wales

© British Geological Survey
A seismograph shows the magnitude 3.0 earthquake that struck Anglesey

    

British Geological Survey records earthquake off Anglesey in North Wales just days after 4.2 magnitude quake hits Kent

An earthquake measuring magnitude 3.0 on the Richter scale has hit Anglesey in North Wales.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said it was recorded at 4.41pm on Tuesday and struck off the coast about four miles (6km) below the surface.

North Wales Police said it received calls about the earthquake, which was recorded close to Caernarfon Airport in Gwynedd, but there are no reports of damage.

It follows a 4.2 magnitude earthquake that was recorded in Kent on Friday, becoming Britain's biggest in seven years.

© Google Maps
Location of the earthquake off North Wales

    

The latest quake was felt across Gwynedd and Anglesey, with witnesses reporting having felt the earth shake amid a "rumbling noise" that lasted for around three seconds.

Others said they heard a noise that sounded like an explosion.

@BritGeoSurvey In Dwyran Anglesey. No shake loud noise like explosion. Felt low internal resonance. Lasted couple secs at most.

— Sue Hall (@CadairViewLodge) May 26, 2015

@CollabroGlobal I believe we have just had an earth tremor about 30 seconds ago, boy did I jump. Here in Anglesey.

— Norman Jones (@homeman) May 26, 2015

On average, around 200 earthquakes a year are thought to hit the UK - with magnitude 3.0 to 3.9 occurring around three times every 12 months.

Experts at the BGS urged people who felt the earthquake to get in touch in order to establish the exact location and strength of the tremor.

After last week's Kent earthquake, locals reported books being shaken from shelves and described the earthquake as feeling like a vehicle had been driven into their property amid tremors that lasted around 10 seconds.

Kent Police was inundated with hundreds of calls about the earthquake, which seismologists recorded one-and-a-half miles off the East Kent coast, near Ramsgate, at 2.52am.

Reports of the tremors flooded in as it became Britain's biggest earthquake since a 5.2 magnitude tremor struck in Market Rasen in Lincolnshire on February 27, 2008.

More than 800 "felt reports" were received by the British Geological Survey (BGS), mainly from residents in Ramsgate, Margate and elsewhere across Kent.

But the BGS said reports of the earthquake were also received from as far afield as Norwich, North Walsham and Cromer in East Anglia. One man said he believed he felt the tremors across the Channel in Normandy.

One resident told how they thought their hotel door was being kicked in, another described their house creaking, while a third said the tremor sounded like a "heavy object rolling over the roof of the house".

The BGS warned there "could be more tremors" following the Kent quake, which it described as "quite significant".

However, a spokesman said: "Not all earthquakes have aftershocks.

Most of the energy could have been released in this one earthquake and the next one might not be for another three, four, five or 10 years. We can't predict."

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Is 'San Andreas' a cryptic warning about what is going to happen in America's future?

© endoftheamericandream.com
Movie Poster.

    

Hollywood has a long history of inserting political messages, social commentaries, subliminal effects and even cryptic warnings about the future into big budget films. So is someone attempting to use to tell us something? For many years, doomsayers have been warning that the "Big One" is going to come along and rip the coastline of California to shreds. Up until this moment, it hasn't happened, but without a doubt we have moved into a time of increased geological activity all over the globe. As you read this article, 42 volcanoes around the planet are currently erupting. That means that the number of volcanoes erupting right now is greater than the 20th century's average for an entire year. In addition, we have been witnessing a great deal of very unusual earthquake activity lately. Just in the United States, we have seen unusual earthquakes hit Michigan, Texas, Mississippi, California, Idaho And Washington within the last month or so. Could it be possible that our planet has entered a period of heightened seismic activity? And could it also be possible that someone behind is aware of this and is trying to warn us about what is coming in our future?

Of course just about everyone in the scientific community acknowledges that the "Big One" is eventually coming to California. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey recently came out and said that the probability of a megaquake along the west coast is greater than they had previously been projecting...

A recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the inevitability of just such a quake, which is predicted to hit within the next couple of decades.

"The new likelihoods are due to the inclusion of possible multi-fault ruptures, where earthquakes are no longer confined to separate, individual faults, but can occasionally rupture multiple faults simultaneously," lead author of the study and USGS scientist, Ned Field says. "This is a significant advancement in terms of representing a broader range of earthquakes throughout California's complex fault system."

And it is undeniable that California has been hit by an unusual number of earthquakes recently. Could this be a sign that our portion of the "Ring of Fire" is heating up? Just over the past few days, there have been significant earthquakes at dormant volcanoes all over the state of California and in Nevada. I don't know about you, but to me all of this shaking is reason for concern.

If the state of California does get hit by a major earthquake in the near future, the damage that would be caused would be immense. Among those trying to raise awareness about this is Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti...

"I hope this movie can be a gut check and a visceral reminder to people of the danger from quakes," Garcetti said before the screening. "But then that people will also do a head check about how they can really be prepared...to react by looking at some good research and using their heads about the dangers we really face."

Garcetti has recently introduced a series of proposals called "Resilience by Design" to try to make sure the city's buildings, telecommunications system and water supply are able to withstand a large earthquake. Emphasizing the challenges Los Angeles faces, the mayor noted how mobile phone service largely went down after the 1994 Northridge quake. And he said the water supply could also be challenged in the next big shaker, considering that the San Andreas Fault (depicted as causing the giant temblor in the Warner Bros.' film) crosses the California Aqueduct in 20 places.

But not everyone appreciates this new film. One of the features of that has been heavily criticized as being "unrealistic" is the giant tsunami that engulfs San Francisco. According to the it is not possible for the San Andreas fault to even cause a tsunami...

And, unlike the film, the San Andreas can't spawn tsunamis.

Most tsunamis are triggered by underwater quakes, but they can also be caused by landslides, volcanoes and even meteor impacts.

So why is a giant tsunami in the film?

Is it just there to make a summer disaster movie a little bit more spectacular, or is there something more to it?

In the United States today, 39 percent of all Americans live in counties that directly border a shoreline, and there have been many that have been warning about the immense devastation that will happen when a giant tsunami hits either the east coast or the west coast.

Could it be possible that the tsunami was in the film because someone believes that a giant tsunami is in our future?

Very few filmmakers make movies purely for entertainment. Most of them want to "say something" through their films.

So what is saying to us?

Whatever your opinion on that is, what is undeniable is that the Ring of Fire has been extremely active lately. In fact, just this week Costa Rica was hit by a cluster of 23 earthquakes near a volcano not too far from the capital...

In a span of eight hours on Monday night and into early Tuesday, experts from the University of Costa Rica and the National University registered at least 23 temblors with epicenters located north of the province of Cartago, some 22 kilometers northeast of the Costa Rican capital.

Ronny Quintero, a seismologist at UNA's Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI) reported that the temblors originated on local faults west of Irazú Volcano's main crater. Experts said they are not directly related to the volcano's activity.

And all over the planet, volcanoes that have long been dormant are suddenly springing to life.

For instance, a volcano in the Galapagos Islands has spectacularly erupted after being dormant for 33 years...

After almost 33 years of inactivity, Wolf Volcano, the highest in the Galapagos Islands and home to the only population of pink iguanas in the world, began to erupt early Monday, the Galapagos National Park reported. "The volcano is not located near a populated area," the Park said. "There is no risk for the human population." The Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, some 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. Pink iguanas share the habitat with yellow iguanas and giant tortoises, located on the northwest flank. The lava flow has southeasterly direction, so the park expects the animals won't be affected.

Our planet is becoming increasingly unstable. I am fully convinced that we are going to see enormous natural disasters both inside the United States and all over the globe during the next few years. In fact, I am of the opinion that we will actually witness natural disasters that are so destructive that they will literally change the geography of nations.

So what do you think? Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below...

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Jawbone fossils reveal new human ancestor species scientists say

© Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Cleveland Museum of Natural History
The new species, combined ape-like and human-like traits.

    

Jaw and teeth fossils found in Ethiopia's Afar region in 2011 represent a previously unknown member of humankind's family tree that lived 3.3 to 3.5 million years ago alongside the famous human ancestor Lucy, scientists say.

The fossils shed new light on a key period in the human lineage's evolution before the emergence of our genus, , and provide the first evidence that two early human ancestor species lived at the same time and place prior to 3 million years ago.

The new species, combined ape-like and human-like traits as did Lucy's species, , but was sufficiently different to warrant recognition as a separate species, scientists said announcing the discovery on Wednesday.

Lucy's skeleton was unearthed in 1974 from the Hadar site, near Woranso-Mille, where the new fossil was found.

The species' cheekbone position and generally small tooth size likely made it look more like our genus than did Lucy's species, said Cleveland Museum of Natural History paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie, who led the study published in the journal .

© Erin DiMaggio
Infographic: A detailed map shows where the Ledi Heraru site is located in reference to other important fossil sites in Ethiopia.

    

The scientists found upper and lower jaws and teeth from at least three individuals, but no other remains.

They previously found a 3.4 million-year-old partial fossil foot and "cannot rule out" that it belongs to the new species, Mr Haile-Selassie said.

Compared to Lucy, the new species had a more robust lower jaw, cheekbones further forward on the upper jaw, molars with thicker enamel and relatively small upper and lower cheek teeth, said paleoanthropologist Stephanie Melillo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Department of Human Evolution in Germany.

One unanswered question is how Lucy's species and the managed to co-exist.

"They would have been rivals if they were exploiting the same resources or had similar foraging strategies," Mr Haile-Selassie said.

Dental differences suggest they had different diets, meaning they may not have competed for the same resources.

Another human relative, also lived relatively nearby in Kenya.

Our species, , appeared 200,000 years ago. The earliest known member of our genus lived 2.8 million years ago.

Scientists previously had argued there was only one human ancestor at any time between 4 and 3 million years ago, each giving rise to another new species.

"The story is becoming more complicated as more branches are added to the human phylogenetic tree," Ms Melillo said.

© Laura Dempsey, Cleveland Museum of Natural History
The scientists found upper and lower jaws and teeth from at least three individuals, but no other remains.

    

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Prepare yourselves, your homes, and your neighborhoods for the violence that is going to sweep America

    

The thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is beginning to disappear, and a new era of chaos and anarchy is coming to our cities. I don't know if you have noticed, but violence is increasing on the streets of America. Over Memorial Day weekend, 29 people were shot in Baltimore and 55 people were shot in Chicago. But of course the trend that I am talking about is much broader than that. According to the FBI, the number of police officers "feloniously killed" in the line of duty rose by an astounding 89 percent in 2014. We live at a time when Americans are becoming extremely angry and extremely frustrated, and this is only going to intensify as economic conditions worsen. But already we have seen some of this anger and frustration boil over into violence in Ferguson and in Baltimore. And you know what? The vast majority of Americans expect more of the same in the coming months. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey that was recently released, 96 percent of all Americans believe that there will be more civil unrest in America this summer. What we have seen up until now is just the warm up act. The main event is still to come.

If things are this bad already, how bad will they be when the next great economic crisis hits this nation and unemployment skyrockets and poverty is everywhere?

That is why I am encouraging people that currently live in the heart of our major cities to consider moving. Unfortunately, most Americans are completely dependent on the jobs that they currently have, so moving is not really a practical option for a lot of people.

For those that cannot move, you are just going to have to get prepared right where you are. That means making your home and your family as unattractive a target to potential criminals as you possibly can. The goal should be to avoid a violent confrontation if at all possible. So you will want multiple layers of security between you and those that would potentially harm you and your family. You want to try to deter the bad guys from ever coming on to your property in the first place, but if they do come, you need to be ready to deal with them.

At the moment, we are still in the midst of relatively stable economic times. But even in these relatively stable times, violence is escalating. Just consider what happened in Baltimore over the recent holiday weekend. A grand total of 29 people were shot...

Police say 29 people were shot, 9 of them killed over this weekend, adding to the record-breaking violence.

The shooting didn't stop on Monday night after a 9-year-old boy and another man were both injured by gun fire in the 2900 block of Arunah Avenue. Police say the child was shot in the leg and another man suffered a graze wound to the head.

Overall, this past month has been the deadliest month for Baltimore in 15 years.

Things are even worse in the city of Chicago. Over this past weekend, 55 people got shot...

Twelve people were killed and at least 43 — including a 4-year-old girl — were wounded in shootings across Chicago this Memorial Day weekend, police said.

The 4-year-old, identified by her family as Jacele Johnson, was shot about 8 p.m. Friday in the West Englewood neighborhood. She and her 17-year-old cousin Romare Wilson were inside an SUV in the 7000 block of South Justine when another vehicle pulled up and someone inside opened fire, according to their family and Chicago Police.

Early in April, I went on the record and specifically named Chicago and Baltimore as two of the cities where we would be seeing civil unrest. Since that time we have seen horrible rioting in Baltimore and the violence in Chicago continues to spiral out of control.

Other experts are issuing similar warnings. For example, consider what an assistant professor at New Jersey City University recently had to say...

Urban unrest expert Dr. Max Herman says that the United Statesis on the "cusp" of a wave of domestic disorder and that the country will see more race riots.

Herman, Assistant Professor of Sociology at New Jersey City University, told the New Republic's Joel Gillin that the economic downturn, in addition to incidents of police brutality, have provided fertile conditions for civil unrest.

He sees the re-emergence of a 60's-style "protest ideology" amongst black communities which will lead to more disorder.

"It's very clear from studying history that these things tend to run in cycles," said Herman, adding, "I think we are at the cusp of another cycle."

Author Chris Hedges is saying similar things. The following comes from a recent article about him in the National Post...

The United States is primed for a rebellion. So argues Chris Hedges in his new book, Wages of Rebellion, in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and polemicist examines revolts from 1700s to the ending of apartheid in South Africa, as well as the "sublime madness" that drives the people at the centre of such rebellions.

When asked by the National Post why he wrote his new book, this is what Hedges had to say...

I didn't write it as a warning or a prediction. I wrote it more as an assessment. I covered disintegrating societies like Yugoslavia.I know how they break down; I know what the warning signs are, so it's familiar. I don't think at this point there's much dispute. Even just the financial indicators in terms of wealth disparity and chronic unemployment. The fact that Congress has a nine-per-cent approval rating. Where I'm coming from, the book is an attempt to explain where we are in this particular historical period.

But it isn't just that we are entering a new cycle of unrest. Our "leaders" have made things much worse by the decisions that they have made. For instance, Barack Obama's decision to leave our southern border virtually unguarded has resulted in a massive flood of illegal immigrants coming into this country. As a result, violent gangs that have roots in Central America and South America have mushroomed in size. So now major cities far from the border such as Charlotte, North Carolina are being absolutely terrorized by these gangs...

Recent busts of murderous MS-13 gangsters put the lie to President Obama's sympathetic amnesty narrative of illegal immigrants as "workers who mow our lawns, make our beds (and) clean out bedpans."

Authorities Wednesday rounded up 37 MS-13 gang members in Charlotte, N.C., on racketeering conspiracy charges, along with charges of murder, attempted murder and firearms violations. All of them are illegal aliens from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Several are round-trippers — illegals who broke in once, committed crimes, got deported and broke back into the U.S. — proving that our border is porous and unsecured.

Charlotte police discovered the rat's nest of foreign gangsters after some of them started shooting up local nightclubs and bars.

In 2015, it isn't just our own citizens that we need to be concerned about. At this point, many of our biggest cities are absolutely packed to the gills with gangs made up primarily of illegal immigrants.

I discussed Chicago earlier. Did you know that it is estimated that approximately 150,000 gang members now live there?

When things start really breaking down in this country, those gangs are going to have a field day.

America is changing, and not for the better. And when violence starts sweeping this nation, don't count on the government to come in and rescue you. After watching what happened in Ferguson and in Baltimore, you should know better than that by now.

It is time for the American people to prepare their own homes and their own neighborhoods for the chaos and the violence that is coming.

For the moment, things are still relatively stable so we have a little bit of time to prepare, but it won't last for long.

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