Science and Technology

[Fox News] Is the East Coast on the brink of a major earthquake — and are we prepared?

The earthquake that struck the East Coast earlier this month was felt by an estimated 42 million people and luckily caused little damage, but what are the chances of a bigger, more powerful quake striking the area? And if it does, what could it look like — and are we prepared?

The April 5 phenomenon was a 4.8 magnitude earthquake centered near Whitehouse Station in New Jersey, which is about 40 miles west of New York City.

Shaking was felt from Washington D.C. to Maine, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and it followed a much smaller, 1.7 magnitude earthquake in New York City on Jan. 2. 

Earthquakes are rare along the East Coast, with the most powerful one in the last 100 years hitting in August 2011, clocking 5.8 on the Richter scale. It was centered in Virginia and felt from Washington, D.C. to Boston.

4.8 MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKE STRIKES NEW JERSEY, SHAKING BUILDINGS IN SURROUNDING STATES

Before that, an earthquake in South Carolina in 1886 is understood to have measured between 6.6 and 7.3 on the Richter scale. There is no definitive measurement of that quake since the Richter scale has only been around since the mid-1930s, but the tectonic shift still killed 60 people.

Professor John Ebel, a seismologist in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College, tells Fox News Digital that when quakes start breaking 5.0 on the Richter scale, damage begins to occur. 

For instance, the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria last year measured 7.8 and resulted in the death of nearly 62,000 people as tens of thousands of buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged.

California’s Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, meanwhile, measured 6.9 and caused 69 deaths, and the 1994 Northridge earthquake in the Golden State clocked 6.7, killing 57 people. Thousands more were injured. 

“As you go above magnitude five, the shaking becomes stronger and the area over which the strong shaking is experienced becomes wider,” Ebel says. “So if you get a magnitude six, the shaking is ten times stronger than a magnitude five. So had this month’s earthquake been a 5.8, rather than a 4.8, then we would be looking at damage to unreinforced structures in the greater New York City area.”

“Now I have to qualify this and say that in the past few decades, New York City has had an earthquake provision in its building code while New Jersey, New York and Connecticut have all adopted some version of earthquake provisions in their building codes,” Ebel explained. “So modern buildings that are put up today will actually do quite well, even in strong earthquake shaking… If you have a magnitude 6 or even a magnitude seven.”

In terms of the Tri-state area, Ebel says that the region has had smaller earthquakes, but it’s been spared anything that’s been significantly damaging.

An 1884 quake in Brooklyn did cause limited damage and injuries. Seismologists estimated it would have measured in the region of 5.0 and 5.2, while a quake jolted Massachusetts in 1775 in the region of 6.0 and 6.3.

WHAT TO DO DURING AN EARTHQUAKE AND HOW TO PREPARE

“In 1884 there were things knocked from shelves, some cracks in walls that were reported, particularly plaster walls, which crack very easily if a building is shaken,” Ebel said. “There were some brick walls that had some cracks and people panicked because of the very strong shaking.”

A magnitude five earthquake hits the tri-state area once every 120 years, says Ebel, who penned the book “New England Earthquakes: The Surprising History of Seismic Activity in the Northeast.”

“The question is, can we have something bigger? And in my opinion, yes we can,” he said. “We can’t predict earthquakes, and we don’t know when the next one is going to occur, but we do have a low, not insignificant probability of a damaging earthquake at some point.”

Ebel said that the April 5 earthquake has left seismologists baffled since it didn’t occur on the Ramapo Fault zone, highlighting just how hard it is to predict the phenomenon from occurring. The Ramapo Fault zone is a series of small fault lines that runs through New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Spanning more than 185 miles, it was formed about 200 million years ago.

“Right now it’s a seismological mystery,” Ebel said. “We have some earthquakes in our region where we don’t have faults mapped. But that’s even true in California. Not every earthquake occurs on a known or mapped fault in California, so there are still a lot of seismologists have to learn about the exact relationship between old faults and modern earthquakes.”

Ebel noted that buildings aren’t the only thing to consider when earthquakes strike. In the California quakes, overpasses crumbled while the electrical grid can go down too, causing electrical surges and fires.  

Toxic chemicals were knocked off of the shelves of a chemistry building in 1989 and the building had to be evacuated, Ebel said. 

“And you think about hospitals and some industrial facilities having that situation,” he explained. “So you have these things that are not catastrophic necessarily, but are going to be a real problem.”

And an earthquake doesn’t necessarily have to rattle land in order to cause destruction.

A jolt out at sea could trigger a dangerous tsunami, like the one on the edge of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in Canada in 1929. It was felt as far away as New York City.

Waves as high as 23 feet crashed on the shore, according to the International Tsunami Information Center, with up to 28 people losing their lives. 

“A tsunami is not necessarily a very high probability event, but it’s one that we have to think about also,” Ebel says in relation to the East Coast.

The Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 was triggered by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

Ebel says a tsunami similar to 1929 could cause a storm surge along the lines of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, where 43 people died in New York City. 

“The threat of an earthquake is not as great as in California, but it’s something that we have to take into account and have emergency plans for and have building codes for,” Ebel says. “Our state and local emergency management agencies in all the northeastern states do earthquake planning — what we call tabletop exercises — where they pretend an earthquake occurs.”

“So those kinds of preparations are made on a regular basis,” he concludes. “Building codes are constantly being reevaluated and approved, not just for earthquakes, but for fires and chemical spills and all kinds of things. So we’re getting more prepared all the time.”

Read More 

Science and Technology

[Fox News] Get a handle on your time: Google Calendar tips and tricks

Before we get into it, I’ll acknowledge what you may be thinking: Using Calendar means handing over even more info to Google.

Win an iPhone 15 worth $799! I’m giving it to one person who tries my free daily tech newsletter. Sign up here while you’re thinking about it.

SEE WHAT THE HOME YOU GREW UP IN LOOKS LIKE NOW AND OTHER MAPS TRICKS

Sure, but here’s my take: For the sake of convenience, most of us choose a Big Tech company or two that we’re OK sharing a lot with. If you use Gmail and Google Maps, adding Calendar to the mix won’t make much difference in terms of privacy.

Here are some ideas to get the most out of it

Spoiler: A lot more than just meetings and dentist appointments. And yes, you can definitely use you preferred calendar app for all these things too, if Google isn’t your thing.

Let’s get to the tricks

FIX AUTOCORRECT IF IT’S DRIVING YOU DUCKING CRAZY

A little know-how goes a long way in getting more out of your everyday software.

Know when people are free: I use this daily at work. Put your cursor in the box labeled Search for people under the Meet with heading. Everybody in your organization should be searchable here, so no more setting meetings no one can attend. You can also create a new meeting, add guests and click Find a time under the date to see the attendees’ availability side by side!

WATCH OUT FOR THE NEW ‘GHOST HACKERS’

Automatically share meeting minutes: In your meeting details, click Create meeting notes under the event description to generate a Google Doc that automatically gets shared with attendees. It includes a built-in outline with the meeting date, attendees, notes and action items. Pro tip: Attach additional notes, docs, slides or whatever else to the meeting so no one’s looking around for them later!

Never miss a beat: When setting an appointment, simply click Add Notification. Choose how long before the event you’d like to be reminded. Boom! Whether it’s 10 minutes or a day in advance, Google Calendar’s got your back. No more oops moments.

You know I have more amazing tips up my sleeve. Get more Google Cal secrets.

Get tech-smarter on your schedule

Award-winning host Kim Komando is your secret weapon for navigating tech.

Copyright 2024, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved. 

Read More 

Business

[Fox Business] Tesla, Google, Oracle top week, along with Biden tax hikes and campus protests

-Anti-Israel protests escalate across campuses nationwide; Patriots owner Robert Kraft pulls donations to one 

-1Q GDP hits the skids as inflation ticks higher, creating a new headache for the Fed 

-President Biden signals plans to raise taxes by eliminating cuts already on the books

-Trump makes a pit stop at construction site heading to NYC trial 

-Tesla walks a tightrope in latest quarterly results 

-Google delivers investors a double surprise. Stock soars 

-Oracle’s moving its headquarters … again 

-Retailer Express is shuttering stores 

CAMPUS CHAOS: Columbia, Harvard and New York University were among the many colleges across the nation raracked by anti-Israel protesting, some forced to cancel classes, telling students to stay home. Billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, is taking a big stand…continue reading here.  The crisis has put many university leaders under the microscope, especially those earning millions…continue reading here.

VIDEO: Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on anti-semitism rise. 

ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS RAGE ON CAMPUS: LATEST UPDATES: 

HOT & COLD: U.S. economic growth slowed, taking many on Wall Street…continue reading here… At the same time, inflation saw another nudge higher…continue reading here. There will be plenty for the Federal Reserve to hash out at next week’s meeting. 

VIDEO: Former Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George talks inflation.

WINNING WEEK: U.S. stocks notched weekly gains amid mixed earnings and economic data…more on the markets.

LIVE PRICES FOR CRYPTOCURRENCIES: HERE

BIDEN TAX HIKES: President Biden said he won’t keep Trump’s tax cuts after they expire, and while he’s at it he may even add a few more hikes…continue reading here.

VIDEO: Larry Kudlow talks taxes under Biden and Trump. 

HARDHATS: Former President Trump visited a top construction site in New York City and was welcomed with open arms…continue reading here.

VIDEO: Union members talk 2024 election after Trump’s visit.

TESLA’S UPDATE: CEO Elon Musk talked about making more affordable cars in the company’s quarterly update, and investors took the news in stride…continue reading here.  

VIDEO: Tesla is not a car company. Here’s what it is…

DIVIDEND CLUB: Google parent Alphabet became the latest tech-titan to initiate a dividend for investors after posting stellar quarterly results, sending the company above $2 trillion in market value…continue reading here. 

VIDEO: Rival Meta also reported earnings. Here are the top takeaways. 

MUSIC CITY MOVE: Oracle founder Larry Ellison spilled the beans this week, telling investors he’s moving his company’s headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee, from Austin, Texas. Here’s why…continue reading here.

RIP: Multi-brand fashion retailer Express is shuttering locations in 31 states, blaming market pressures and the economy. Here’s a list of the stores closing…continue reading here.

UP NEXT:

-Looking for more business and market-moving headlines? Find more from FOX Business here.

-Want live updates? Get the FOX Business app here.

-Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe to additional newsletters from Fox News and FOX Business here.

Read More 

Business

[Fox Business] LARRY KUDLOW: Biden will use every legal and political maneuver to block Trump from the White House

Who is the best candidate to defend American democracy? Well, it’s not Joe Biden. 

Biden and his lawfare allies have launched a legal campaign to tie up Donald Trump in court, actually out of court with gag orders, even putting him in the Supreme Court where his immunity plea is finally getting a fair hearing. 

The Alvin Bragg trial in New York is a farce. People can’t even decide what the charges are, and the charges change from day to day and week to week. Nondisclosure agreements are perfectly legal. Candidate Trump in 2016 was spending his own personal funds. 

TRUMP HUSH MONEY TRIAL: MEET THE JURORS WHO WILL HEAR BRAGG’S CASE AGAINST THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

Money didn’t even transfer until 2017, well after the election. The Jack Smith special may never come to pass because Trump may well win his immunity argument. And the Fani Willis Atlanta RICO election charges have completely been discredited, as she has. Then the classified documents trial in South Florida is going to go on for quite some time, if it ever comes to fruition at all.

But Biden, as the Democratic candidate, will use every legal and political maneuver to block his primary opponent, Mr. Donald Trump. Biden is misusing his office, and people see that more and more. 

Folks should have a read, by the way, of Kim Strassel’s excellent Wall Street Journal piece today, not only about the phony, two-tiered lawfare jihad against Trump, but also the point that without any congressional statutory mandate, the Biden administration is unilaterally invalidating 30 million non-compete contracts in business.

TRUMP THREATENED WITH JAIL IF HE MISSES HUSH MONEY TRIAL AS BIDEN CAMPAIGNS IN PENNSYLVANIA

Then the FCC wants to take over the internet again with a failed net neutrality rule. Then energy agencies have taken 13 million Alaskan acres out of use. Then the EPA wants to shut down coal, oil, natural gas and gasoline-powered automobiles. 

Joe Biden is the biggest regulator in the history of regulations. So far, roughly $1.5 trillion of cost. Donald Trump cut seven regs for every one that was promulgated. That’s a big difference, isn’t it?

Now, necessarily, all the Biden regs will be thrown out in court, according to the Supreme’s decision EPA vs. West Virginia, where EPA lost. 

Meanwhile, the economy is now moving to a stagflation phase with very high personal costs plaguing the middle class, while real hourly wages, which were $11.40 when Mr. Biden was inaugurated, have dropped down to only $11.11. That’s from recent numbers. I mean, for three-and-a-half years, working folks have lost money under Biden. 

All this, the trials, the rules, the regulations, the loss of real wages — all this is why polls show Trump in the lead, especially in the swing states. Why? Because ordinary working folks, the backbone of this country, are smart, not dumb. The Bidens think they’re dumb. The Bidens think they can fool people, but that’s why they don’t understand what’s gone wrong.

But for ordinary folks, hard-working, middle-class folks, they know what’s good for them, their self-interest and what’s good for the country. And by the way, that idea that people are smart, not dumb, is the basis of the success of free market capitalism. 

And then finally, you know what? Mr. Alvin Bragg here in New York. Guess what? Donald Trump is closing in on Joe Biden, even in this far-left, blue, blue state of New York. Just think of it, Mr. Bragg. 

Read More 

Business

[Fox Business] Sen. Warren challenger goes to bat for Coinbase, crypto industry in SEC lawsuit

Massachusetts Senate candidate John Deaton isn’t letting the busy campaign trail prevent him from fighting the Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of the crypto industry.

FOX Business was first to report that the crypto-enthusiast and lawyer, now turned political candidate, filed an amicus brief in the Southern District of New York on Friday in support of the U.S.’s largest crypto exchange Coinbase in its ongoing legal battle with the SEC.

Deaton says he’s intervening in the case on behalf of 4,701 Coinbase users, developers and crypto investors who want their voices heard in court.

CRYPTO INDUSTRY FIGHTS BACK AGAINST GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN

“SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and his agency have demonstrated that they are not interested in protecting small investors and operate only to serve their political masters,” Deaton tells FOX Business. “The SEC has unlimited resources, paid for by the taxpayer, and Coinbase is a multibillion-dollar company with the best lawyers money can buy. The consumers deserve an advocate and a voice as well.”  

Coinbase and the SEC declined comment. 

The SEC sued Coinbase in June for allegedly violating securities laws by operating as an unregistered broker dealer offering unregistered securities in the form of crypto tokens on its platform. A Manhattan judge ruled in March that the SEC has enough grounds to move forward with the case. 

Coinbase has since filed a motion for a so-called interlocutory appeal, asking the judge to halt legal proceedings so that a higher court can resolve once and for all the biggest legal impasse dividing the SEC and the crypto industry: Does the Howey Test apply to crypto transactions?

The Howey Test is the result of a 1946 Supreme Court ruling and the litmus test the country’s highest court uses for determining whether a transaction qualifies as an investment contract and thus a security.

CRYPTO NO LONGER OUTSIDER AT FAMED MIAMI BEACH ETF CONFERENCE

The SEC argues that all cryptocurrencies except for Bitcoin are likely securities because of their resemblance to traditional securities like stocks and bonds where investors buy the product from an entity with the expectation of profits. 

The crypto industry says the SEC is engaging in a jurisdictional power grab, attempting to force digital assets into the existing framework of the nation’s securities laws, which did not factor in blockchain technology when they were established in the 1930’s. Many in the industry also believe most digital assets more closely resemble commodities and, therefore, belong under the purview of the SEC’s sister agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In his amicus brief, Deaton takes aim at what he says is the SEC’s inconsistent views on how tokens should be regulated. 

SEC lawyers in the Coinbase lawsuit argued that Bitcoin, the only asset the SEC believes is not a security, has earned that status because it doesn’t have an ecosystem, or “network” behind it.

Deaton argues that Bitcoin arguably has the largest and most established ecosystem, which is the reason that investors choose to put their money into it.

“Bitcoin is certainly distinguishable from other cryptocurrencies but claiming it is not a security, unlike other tokens, because it doesn’t have an ecosystem, is just plain dumb,” Deaton says. 

Deaton’s brief, which heavily criticizes the SEC’s “malevolent” approach to regulating crypto, supports Coinbase’s motion for appeal, arguing that the lack of clarity on how the Howey Test is applied to digital assets should be a matter ultimately decided by a higher court. 

“If the Howey test is going to be interpreted and used to include all transactions in perpetuity, an appellate court, possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, needs
to be the one who validates it,” he wrote. 

Deaton also cites statements from Republican SEC Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda as well as government officials like Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-New York) expressing concerns about the regulatory environment under Gensler. 

CRUZ, GOP SENATORS DOUBLE DOWN ON ANTI-CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCY LEGISLATION

“The underlying lack of clarity seems to be a strategic effort by the SEC to hinder the digital asset industry. If not rooted in maliciousness, they certainly, at least, do not seem to be advancing their mission of protecting investors,” Deaton says in the brief.

This is not the first time Deaton, who’s running as a Republican to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren, has taken on securities regulators to advocate on behalf of the $2 trillion crypto industry.

But he’s now doing it as a political candidate and has been able to use his bully pulpit to rally the crypto industry and its heavyweights to his campaign and raise significant sums of money. It helps that Warren is among the most anti-crypto lawmakers in Congress and an ally of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, also an industry critic. 

Deaton’s involvement in crypto firm Ripple’s three-year legal battle with the SEC earned him folk hero status among retail holders of the XRP token. He represented XRP investors as a so-called amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” and did the same on behalf of users of the LBC token in the SEC’s lawsuit against decentralized content sharing platform LBRY.

Deaton’s efforts in the Ripple case were widely regarded as part of the reason Manhattan District Judge Torres ruled, in what was seen as a watershed moment for the industry, that sales of the token XRP between retail investors on exchanges, did not meet the SEC’s classification of a securities transaction.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

If the ruling stands appeal, it would set a legal precedent that the SEC does not have oversight of the transactions between retail investors who engage in secondary market transactions using exchanges such as Coinbase to buy and sell crypto. 

It also sparked a fierce legal debate over what makes a digital asset a security, the central argument in most of the lawsuits the SEC has brought against the crypto industry.  

Three judges in the same Southern District of New York courthouse have opposing views on whether transactions involving digital assets satisfy the Howey Test, a point that Deaton cites in the brief and uses as an argument for why Coinbase should be granted the interlocutory appeal to solve the regulatory riddle of digital assets once and for all.

Interlocutory appeals are difficult to get granted, and it’s unclear whether Judge Failla, who is presiding over the Coinbase case, will side with Coinbase on this issue. 

Read More