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California has been doing a lot of shaking of late. In mid-June a sizable quake off its north coast triggered a tsunami warning, a false alarm, fortunately, while far to the south, earthquakes of lesser power knocked stuff off shelves and seriously rattled the composure of those who felt the ground sway beneath them. That's because the earthquakes that concern Californians most are those that haven't happened--at least, not yet--along the state's fault-fractured western edge...
...this point, Parkfield's seismic history seems suggestive. For more than a century, the area just south of the drill site produced magnitude-6 earthquakes on a roughly 22-year cycle--or so it seemed in the mid-1980s, when a USGS team threw a net of instruments over the area, hoping to catch the next iteration. The last quake occurred in 1966, so scientists figured the next would come around 1988. Instead, the 1966 quake was followed by a 38-year pause. Some speculate that another earthquake, which occurred on a nearby thrust fault in 1983, reset the seismic...
...graduate student at the University of Southern California in the mid-1980s, the CEO of China's third largest oil company remembers seeing Union 76 signs plastered all along America's Left Coast--emblems of California's car-crazed lifestyle. For Fu Chengyu, then a poor student from northern China, culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it. Try future shock. "Back then," he says, "China seemed like it was 100 years behind the United States...
...Victorian Act - the first such law passed in Australia, in mid-2001 - makes it an offense to incite "hatred," "serious contempt," or "severe ridicule" of a person or group because of their religious belief. The Catch the Fire case, its first test, has drawn keen interest around the world. At a time when extremists commit mass murder in Islam's name, many Muslims in the West are complaining that their beliefs are misrepresented and their communities unfairly targeted by anti-terrorism laws. The U.N. Human Rights Commission resolved in April to combat what it called "defamation campaigns against Islam...
Italian schoolchildren in uniform chanted in expectation of the Pope’s appearance, while tourists patiently bore the castigation of the mid-morning sun. But when the man in white finally appeared, upheaval came over the entire audience. As Benedict began weaving his way through the crowds in his unshielded Pope-mobile, everyone leapt atop his own chair, and shouts of “Papa!” filled the arena. I, too, craned my neck to see the face of Rome’s infallible pontiff...