News Burst 4 May 2020
- A new breed of ‘killer bee’ has arrived – this time from Asia (Japan, to be exact). The Asian Giant Hornet – the Murder Hornet’s government name – is much larger and significantly more aggressive than its North American cousins. Queens can grow to be more than 2 inches wide. And the soldiers posses powerful venomous stingers. Only a handful of the bees have been officially cited in North America over the last year. But several reports of beehives being ‘plundered’ suggest swarms of the hornets might be active in the US.
- Globally, the cost of living has fallen by an average of 4% over the last year, with much of the movement up and down the ranking being driven by currency fluctuations. The locations with the highest cost of living are largely split between Europe and Asia. For the second time in the report’s 30-year history, three cities are tied as the top spot—Singapore, Hong Kong, and Osaka. Osaka is a newcomer to the top spot, climbing four places over the last year to join cost of living heavyweight champions, Singapore and Hong Kong. As Japan’s third-largest city, Osaka is a major financial hub and a breeding ground for emerging startups, with relatively low real estate costs compared to Singapore and Hong Kong. Three European cities (Paris, Zurich, and Geneva) sit atop the most expensive city rankings, compared to seven cities only 10 years ago. Similarly, 31 of the 37 European cities have seen a decrease in cost of living overall—largely as a result of the Euro or local currencies losing value relative to the U.S. dollar. Finally, the top 10 is rounded out with two cities from the United States (New York, Los Angeles) and one from Israel (Tel Aviv).
- -He’s dead.
-He’s alive but vegetative.
-Chinese doctors are needed.
-He’s alive at his villa, or on a boat, or a train.
POTUS yesterday: “I understand what is going on, I cannot just talk about him right now.”
If the real Kim died, China might try to replace him with a [Kim].
- The international air traffic may recover in the middle of summer, official spokesperson of the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot Yulia Spivakova said on Sunday. “It is difficult to indicate the exact timing of flights so far but when looking at the best case forecasts, then the international traffic may start recovering in the middle of summer,” she said.
- An Asiatic lion sneaked into a school building while trying to make a kill in an adjoining livestock enclosure in Paswala village of Una taluka in Gir Somnath district. It was later rescued, forest officers said on Sunday. Officers of wildlife division said that a fully grown male lion attempted to prey on a buffalo calf kept in an enclosure adjoining the village primary school in Paswala late Wednesday. When the livestock owner raised an alarm, the carnivore escaped.
- Due to coronavirus, shops across Kerala have been shut for over a month now. However, there was an unexpected visitor at a jewellery shop in Payyanur in Kerala’s northern Kannur district Sunday. The owner, Sajith, had opened his shop Sunday for the first time since the lockdown was imposed. Among some old things in his shop, he discovered a reticulated python curled up and about 20 eggs that it had laid. Sajith screamed and called the state forest department, who came and rescued the snake and eggs. It will remain in their protection until the eggs hatch. The snake is 3 metres in length and weighs 24 kg.
- The State of Illinois has released 146 sex offenders statewide, including 3 considered “sexually dangerous persons” convicted in Winnebago and Ogle counties. 4,000 inmates released from prisons, including 64 convicted of murder. A list released by the state shows each inmate who had their sentence commuted by Gov. JB Prtizker or were released early by the Illinois Department of Corrections. Winnebago County State’s Attorney Marilyn Hite-Ross said that some inmates are being let out so quickly that she doesn’t have proper time to inform victims, as is required by the Rights of Crime Victim’s Act and the Illinois Constitution.
- The message of John McAfee. Between evil laughs and dark chucklings, the tech guru, tax fugitive, and general wild man shared his suspect views on the “state of the world” during COVID-19 last night at Virtual Blockchain Week. “We are living in a paradigm the world has never seen before,” the 74-year-old crypto advocate and antivirus-software pioneer said, speaking from God knows where. (He’s kept his whereabouts a secret since fleeing Belize in 2012 after suspicions grew that he killed his neighbor.). “One-third of the planet is in lockdown,” he said, adding that most of those people are sitting at home, watching TV, and not doing much of anything, while the US government “pulls money out of thin air.” The situation is not sustainable, he argued. He was especially disturbed by a recent $2 trillion stimulus package in the US, which appears to be backed by nothing other than the good graces of the US government. “You can’t pull money out of the air and expect everything to be okay. Money is based on something called industry, production, service. We haven’t increased any of that,” he said, with a deep, unsettling chuckle. He predicted the money-printing will lead to a collapse of the US dollar.
- Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor revealed the conglomerate has offloaded the entirety of its stocks in the US airline industry, waving goodbye to shares in United, American, Southwest and Delta Airlines, during the firm’s annual shareholder meeting Saturday. In the same meeting, Buffett urged investors to hold onto stocks in businesses they like and to ‘never bet against America’ despite the mounting concerns over the long-term impact the virus is wreaking on the economy.
- Earth is approaching a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. If forecasters are correct, the shower will peak on May 5th and 6th, producing one of the best meteor showers of the year. The question is, will anyone actually see it? The 2020 eta Aquarid meteor shower has a problem: The Supermoon. Intense glare from one of the biggest full Moons of the year will reduce the number of visible meteors from the usual 40 per hour to no more than 10 or 15 per hour.
Sun Activity
Sunspot number: 0
Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 2 days
2020 total: 90 days (74%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
Strongest EQ in Europe M4.9 Crete, Greece
Strongest EQ in North America M3.4 California
Strongest EQ on the Planet 5.7 Peru
Deepest EQ M4.6 545 km Fiji News Burst 4 May 2020
Rose Rambles... 