Underwater Surveillance Detects Submersible Explosion

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 25th that the sound of the explosion of the Titanic tourist submersible that went missing in the deep North Atlantic Ocean is highly likely to be a top-secret underwater surveillance system built by the US during the Cold War.

These systems, which were developed during the Cold War amid fears that Soviet submarines might launch nuclear weapons from the sea, are re-emphasizing their importance today as the conflict with China escalates. According to the WSJ, during World War II, the United States developed a long-range sonar system to detect German submarines and U-boats in the Atlantic Ocean.

Since then, the United States has begun efforts to build an acoustic surveillance system (SOSUS), such as attaching hydrophones to the seabed to detect Soviet nuclear submarines in the early Cold War era. Although SOSUS first became known by its name after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the location and capabilities of the subsea listeners remain top secret.

This system is said to have captured the sound presumably caused by an implosion (a phenomenon in which a structure rapidly collapses inward due to external pressure and is destroyed) after diving to see the wreckage of the passenger ship Titanic on the 18th. Capturing the sound at the time helped authorities narrow down the search for the missing sub, the WSJ reported.

This is not the first time that SOSUS has been used to locate wreckage of wrecked vessels. The sinking of the USS Thresher, a nuclear-powered submarine in which all 129 people died during a test flight in 1963, is one such case. However, whether SOSUS was used is expected to be officially confirmed only after the secrecy is lifted in the distant future.

Meanwhile, while US and Canadian authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the Titan accident, the US Navy said it plans not to use large-scale lifting equipment. The ‘Flyaway deep sea salvage system’ can lift a Titan-sized hull, but the US Navy’s position is that it can only be used when there are large pieces of debris that require the equipment to be mobilized.

Heat Wave Warning for Dallas, Texas

The National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Centre said on the 15th that record-high temperatures across south-central Texas are expected to continue.

Temperatures in Austin, Texas, San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville are predicted to continue to exceed 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) this weekend. In addition, temperatures in northern Texas, including Dallas and Fort Worth, are forecast to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A heat wave warning has been issued for southern Texas and a heat advisory has been issued for northern Texas.

In addition, the Storm Prediction Centre (SPC) warned that there is a high probability of tornadoes or large hail in northern Texas. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, from 1899 to last year, Dallas and Fort Worth first recorded 100 degrees Fahrenheit on average on July 1st.

In the relatively recent period, from 1991 to 2020, an average of 1.6 days with temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit were counted in June. The average number of days above 100 degrees Fahrenheit over that period was 7.4 in July, 9.7 in August and 1.4 in September. In contrast, this year, the heat wave hit from mid-June earlier than usual.

If the high temperature of close to 40 degrees Celsius continues until August, it not only increases the risk of heat-related illnesses, but also affects the power supply and demand in the region. However, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages 90% of the Texas power grid, predicted that electricity demand would increase due to hot weather for the time being, but the supply is still sufficient, so there is no concern about an emergency.

In addition, higher temperatures and humidity make the low pressure stronger, increasing the risk of tornadoes in the Texas interior. “Hot and humid conditions will make the storm more intense,” the National Weather Service observed.

The City of LA Has Lots for Homeless Shelters

Opposition of residents is not easy It has been estimated that there are 126 city-owned sites in Los Angeles where homeless shelters or permanent residences can be set up.

The LA city government is promoting the preparation of homeless temporary shelters or permanent housing facilities on land owned by the city government to solve the homeless problem. A related committee has already been formed at the community level to make a list of vacant sites or buildings owned by the LA government and publish this list online.

In her first year in office, Mayor Karen Bass pledged to make the city’s site fit for 1,000 beds for the homeless, and the committee said the city could build a shelter for 1,000 homeless beds in the next six months if the site is used. However, Mayor Karen Bass said the mayor’s office is reviewing the site owned by the city government to build a homeless shelter separate from the committee.

So far, a government site that can accommodate 500 homeless beds has been identified, which is being promoted as part of Governor Newsom’s recently launched Small Homes Project for the Homeless, and if approved, it will be completed by next July, a year later. expected to be built. The mayor is in discussions with local council members to see how residents react to the homeless housing being built on city-owned land.

For example, we are considering building homeless housing on a city-owned site that used to be an elementary school in the West Valley, and we found that residents of the surrounding single-family housing blocks are against the homeless housing. There are many residents who oppose the establishment of homeless housing facilities in a situation where the necessary services for the homeless are not fully equipped, saying that it can damage the community.

A city-owned parking lot located in Remert Park, Los Angeles District 10, which includes Koreatown, is also on the list for use as a homeless shelter. He expressed his position that he could not support the construction of homeless residential facilities in the region.

Large Oil Tank Fire in Philadelphia Collapses Highway Deck

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the morning of the 11th, a large oil tanker passing under the highway caught fire and the top plate of the highway collapsed in the aftermath, the American media reported.

According to media reports such as the Associated Press and NBC, a fire broke out in a large tanker passing under the I-95 Interstate in northern Philadelphia at 6:22 am on the same day, and the flames soared to the top of the highway and emitted huge black smoke.

Traffic in the area was completely restricted, causing major congestion.

“The northbound lane on I-95 has collapsed, and the southbound lane is also at risk,” said Philadelphia Fire Department Chief Derek Bowmer at a news conference.

Authorities have launched an investigation to see how the accident occurred.

Biden Slams Attack on American Values

President Joe Biden held a ceremony at the White House on LGBTQ Human Rights Month on the 10th and criticized the reality that legislation targeting LGBTQ+, centered on conservatives, is flooding.

According to the Associated Press and Reuters, President Biden said at the event that day, “Families trying to protect their children from dangerous anti-LGBT laws across the country faced the painful decision of moving to another state. We must act.” said.

“We need to stand up to the hundreds of callous and negative bills that target trans children and criminalize doctors and nurses,” he said. “These bills and laws attack our most basic values and freedoms as Americans.” Emphasized.

President Biden urged the US Congress to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, and national origin, to amend the ‘Equality Act’ to regulate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as well.

Many of the attendees at the commemorative ceremony held on the South Lawn, the southern lawn of the White House, responded to President Biden’s speech by shouting “four more years” and declaring his re-election challenge.

Hundreds of LGBTQ and human rights activists, including victims of hate crimes such as the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016, attended the ceremony, which is the largest LGBTQ Rights Month event held at the White House.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first LGBTQ minister to come out publicly, also attended the ceremony.

Recently, in the United States, there are increasing cases of pushing legislation hostile to LGBTQ people, especially in areas where Republicans control state governments and state legislatures.

Florida, where Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is governor, is at the forefront of this movement, restricting sex reassignment treatment for minors and banning sexual identity and gender education in public schools, Reuters reported.

On the other hand, since taking office in 2021, President Biden has taken the opposite stance, such as scrapping the policy of the former Donald Trump administration, which banned transgender people from serving in the military, and signing the Marriage Respect Act, which virtually recognizes same-sex marriage.

Gallup, a US polling agency, recently announced that in a survey of 10,000 American adults last year, 7.2% of them identified themselves as LGBTQ, more than double the rate of 10 years ago (3.5%).

New York Stock Market Highest in 10 Months

The New York stock market recovered to its highest level in 10 months thanks to the passage of the House of Representatives to raise the federal debt ceiling. The Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index closed at 4,221.02, up 41.19 points (0.99%), and the Nasdaq index, which is centred on technology stocks, jumped 165.70 points (1.28%) at 13,100.98.

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes hit their highest levels since August last year based on closing prices. The agreement to raise the debt ceiling between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Republican) was passed in the House plenary session the night before with 314 votes in favour and 117 against, which served as a great boon to the market.

Although the Senate threshold remains, investors appear to have been relieved that the possibility of avoiding an unprecedented default (default) situation has increased. As the debt ceiling problem, which has been weighing down the market in recent weeks, has entered the phase of being resolved, there are observations that investors will now focus their attention on the US Federal Reserve System (Fed) again.

Given that inflation and overheating of the labour market in the US are not calming down as quickly as expected, if the Fed maintains its monetary tightening policy for a longer period than originally expected, there is a possibility that it will be negative for the stock market.

With investors focusing all their attention on the May jobs index to be released by the US Department of Labour on the 2nd, private employment in May, which came out a day earlier, increased by 278,000 from the previous month, exceeding the market forecast (170,000) by more than 100,000. This is expected to add weight to the impressionism of hawks (preferring monetary tightening). Nonetheless, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (Fed), Patrick Harker, made public remarks on two days in a row, saying, “It is better to take a break from raising interest rates in June.”

Many investors pay attention to the fact that Fed officials with strong voices, such as director Philip Jefferson, who was nominated as the next vice chairman, and President Harker, who has voting rights at this year’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), are taking the lead in advocating a freeze.

4 in 10 LA Homeowners Face Rising Interest Rates

A survey found that more than 40% of homeowners in the L.A. area have become so-called “house poor,” suffering the economic burden of spending nearly half of their income on housing and housing-related expenses. Analysts say that the sharp increase in housing-related costs caused soaring mortgage interest rates and prolonged inflation drove homeowners into the house poor.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 30th of last month, citing a report released by the US Chamber of Commerce. House poor refer to households that have high housing asset values but are facing economic difficulties because they cannot afford living expenses due to insufficient cash assets.

Homeowners are considered ‘House Poor’ if they must spend more than 30% of their income on their mortgage or house-related expenses.

A report by the US Chamber of Commerce found that more than 40 percent of homeowners in the Los Angeles area are house poor, making it the second-highest number of house poor homeowners out of the nation’s 170 densely populated cities surveyed.

In Los Angeles, the median annual income of homeowners is $122,032, and they spend $2,972 per month on housing-related expenses, and $35,664 on housing-related expenses over the year. More than 40% of homeowners in Los Angeles spend half their income on house expenses and mortgage payments. Housing-related expenses include mortgage payments, rent, property taxes, and utility bills.

The number of houses pours in nearly half of the Los Angeles area showed a 4-percentage point decrease from 2015 to 2019, before the pandemic, but it began to rise after the corona pandemic, and it was analysed that the rise has recently become steeper.

In contrast, 27 percent of homeowners across the country are house poor, about half that of the Los Angeles area. In 2015, the number of homeowners in the House Poor was 29.4%, and in 2019 it was down to 26.5%. During the pandemic, it rebounded as it turned upward again. The sharp rise in mortgage interest rates has been a factor in the increase in homeowners who have become house poor.

Even at the beginning of last year, the mortgage interest rate stayed in the 3% range, but exceeded the 7% range, peaking after 2002. Long-standing inflation is also contributing to the production of house pours. The consumer price index (COI) recorded 9.1% in June of last year and has been declining for 10 consecutive months, but it is still at a high level.

It is pointed out that real wages are reduced due to long-term inflation, and housing costs are acting as an economic burden along with rising debt. The question is the future direction of the federal benchmark interest rate. It was expected that the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, would freeze its benchmark interest rate as the CPI fell sharply to 4.9% in April.

However, with personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rising 4.4% year-on-year in April, and the prospect that the Fed may raise interest rates further, it is still too early to predict whether mortgage rates will decline, most experts say.

Silicon Valley’s Biggest Fraud

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 28th that inmates are showing great interest in their new ‘cellmate’ ahead of the imprisonment of Elizabeth Holmes (39), the founder of bio-venture Theranos, who committed the biggest scam in Silicon Valley history.

Former CEO Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison in the first trial in November last year but was not immediately imprisoned for reasons such as her pregnancy. She was also called ‘Woman Jobs’ because she liked to wear a black turtleneck shirt reminiscent of Apple founder Steve Jobs. She will begin her sentence on the 30th at Brian Federal Prison Camp (FPC) in northwest Houston, Texas.

With 655 female prisoners imprisoned, Brian FPC is a minimum-security facility that primarily houses white-collar offenders, low-level drug offenders and illegal immigrants. A book about the rise and fall of Theranos appeared in the camp’s library earlier this year, “Bad Blood,” a former prisoner released in March told the WSJ. The WSJ interviewed people who were or are currently incarcerated at the camp and said the book raises expectations for Holmes ahead of her incarceration.

“Some people have a ‘I want to be friends with him’ attitude,” said Tasha Wade, who is currently in prison. there is,” he said. Prison guards usually show special interest when celebrities are imprisoned. One prison guard is said to have said in a conversation with her colleagues that she was ‘looking forward to ordering Holmes to clean the pot’. New inmates must work in the kitchen for the first 90 days. Kitchen work, paid 12 cents an hour, is considered the hardest job at the prison.

You can also work as a telemarketer at a call centre operated by the U.S. Department of Corrections (BOP), but inmates who were brought in for fraud using telecommunications and the Internet like Holmes are excluded from this job. Even while in prison, Holmes can see his 22-month-old son and newborn daughter every weekend.

According to BOP regulations, children under the age of 10 can sit on the lap of an inmate parent, and female inmates are allowed to breastfeed. However, when the children pass away after a brief visit, the female inmates shed tears and feel sad, the inmates said. Holmes, who dropped out to start a business while attending Stanford University as a sophomore, could earn a two-year college degree in prison. Violent incidents between inmates and prison guards are said to be rare in this correctional facility. Most fights end in small skirmishes, such as slapping cheeks or grabbing hair, and there have been no reports of prison guards abusing prisoners.

However, there are reports of sexual violence between inmates in 2020. Holmes once rose to fame as a Silicon Valley star by claiming to have developed a device that could diagnose diseases with just a few drops of blood taken from his finger. However, his diagnostic skills were eventually found to be fictitious, and he was found guilty by a California jury in January of last year on charges of fraud and conspiracy.

LA Man Jailed for 33 Years Acquitted After Re-investigation

A man falsely accused and served 33 years in prison in California has been acquitted and released after a belated re-investigation. According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on the 27th, Daniel Saldana (55), who was convicted of attempted murder in 1990 and imprisoned for 33 years in state prison, was recently acquitted.

Saldana was indicted along with two other suspects for shooting six high school students in October 1989 when they were mistaken for gang members while driving. Two victims were injured by gunshot wounds. Saldana was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court and imprisoned.

Later, in August 2017, when he was serving more than 20 years in prison, one of the co-defendants in the case testified at the parole hearing that “Saldana did not participate in the shooting and was not at the scene at the time.”

However, this information was not conveyed to Saldana’s lawyers, etc., and the judicial authorities did not take any action. Then, the case took a new turn when the California Parole Board, composed of new members, submitted a statement six years ago to the District Attorney’s Office only in February of this year.

The District Attorney’s Office, together with the police, launched a re-investigation, and because of the investigation, it was determined that Saldana was not guilty. Saldana said at a press conference on the 25th, “I am 100% innocent, and I have been saying that from the beginning.

” He was also thrilled that he “did not lose hope” and “knew that a day like this would come someday” even though he had been imprisoned for a long time.

“I want to apologize once again to Mr. Saldana and his family for this failure,” Gascon District Attorney said. We hope that our apology will bring some comfort to Saldana.”

Beware of Medicare Card Number Theft

During the pandemic, they are often tested for COVID-19 several times and receive bills related to it. Most are free, but in some cases, you may have to pay for the test, or it may be covered by insurance or Medicare even if you don’t pay for it yourself. If you don’t have money to pay like this, you won’t be able to know if you are charged for services, you haven’t received because you don’t check specific expenses.

For this reason, fraudulent cases of fraudulent billing by stealing other people’s insurance or Medicare card numbers are frequently occurring.

Ann Conlin, of Ellicott City, Maryland, reported to local media last month that she noticed something strange on her Medicare bill. The bill states that he was paid $120 for a COVID-19 test at a clinic in Texas, but he said he had “never been to Texas and hadn’t had a COVID-19 test recently.” Mr. Conlin said, “I receive services from various medical institutions every month, so it is not easy to check the details, and if there is no co-payment, I just ignore it.”

According to data released by the U.S. Department of Justice in April, COVID-19-related scams involving theft of Medicare card numbers cost more than $490 million. Fraudsters who easily obtained someone else’s Medicare card number through hacking or voice phishing continue to charge false fees to save huge amounts of tax. Scammers presume that they can steal Medicare card numbers and use them at will without risk of being caught, targeting older people who are not good at checking complicated medical bills and paperwork.

For this reason, seniors should take good care of their Medicare card numbers, which can be used for identity theft, just like social security numbers. In modern society, personal information is a tradable asset. Be suspicious if someone asks for your Medicare card number, as social security numbers and Medicare card numbers are traded on the black market.

Department stores, shops, restaurants, etc. offer senior discount services and ask for a credit card number or lure them with free medical equipment or prizes. There are also cases where you give out your Medicare card number to a close acquaintance and end up at a loss. It’s also worth remembering that government authorities, such as Social Security and Medicare, won’t ask for personal information over the phone or email.