BREAKING NEWS: Earthquake rocks entire East Coast, aftershocks likely

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A 5.9 magnitude earthquake centered northwest of Richmond, Va., shook Charleston on Tuesday afternoon.
The movement was also felt in much of Washington, D.C., and as far north as Rhode Island, New York City and Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where President Barack Obama is vacationing.
In West Virginia's capital, hundreds of workers left the state Capitol building and employees at other downtown office buildings were asked to leave temporarily.
"The whole building shook," said Jennifer Bundy, a spokeswoman for the state Supreme Court. "You could feel two different shakes. Everybody just kind of came out on their own."
Hugh Bevins, district chief of the U.S. Geological Survey's Water Science Center, said it felt as if his office on Dunbar Street in Charleston was swaying. Bevins, who lived in Nevada for a number of years, knew immediately it was an earthquake.
"It was kind of exciting," he said. "It was a pretty good sized earthquake if we felt it here, too."

Bevins said he had spoken with colleagues at the USGS office in Richmond, Va., who said their building shook violently. They were concerned the roof would collapse.

He said he'd never felt anything like Tuesday's incident in his 12 years in West Virginia, but another co-worker recalled a similar incident some 40 years ago.

Bevins said he has been hearing from friends and relatives who felt it, and others who didn't. Bevins' wife did not feel the quake and neither did his friend in Elkview.

"River valleys tend to shake a lot more," he said. "The saturated ground tends to shake more and kind of amplifies the waves that come through."

Several buildings in the Kanawha Valley were temporarily evacuated including those at West Virginia State University in Institute and downtown office towers in Charleston. The Kanawha County Courthouse and Judicial Annex were evacuated along with Charleston City Hall.

Kanawha Metro 911 received hundreds of calls in the minutes following the quake from residents reporting what they felt. Emergency officials weren't aware of any injuries or property damage related to the event, according to a statement issued by Metro Communications.

Dispatchers advised residents to leave their buildings if they felt the structures were insecure.

John Gurlach, air traffic controller at the Morgantown Municipal Airport was in a 40-foot-tall tower when the earth trembled.

"There were two of us looking at each other saying, 'What's that?'" he said, even as a commuter plane was landing. "It was noticeably shaking. It felt like a B-52 unloading."

Earthquake map shows epicenter in central Virginia

The U.S. Geological Survey has posted this map of the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that hit central Virginia just before 2 p.m. today, sending tremors up and down the East Coast.
The yellow glow represents the area where potential damage is deemed "light" and perceived shaking is "moderate."
The quake’s frequency hit the geology of the region just right, like a tuning fork, and reverberated outward, said Alexander Gates, the chairman of earth and environmental sciences at Rutgers-Newark, and an earthquake expert. But there’s no likely danger for aftershocks of the Virginia quake, which will be significantly more minor, he said.
“That was pretty good, huh? I was impressed,” Gates said. “You don’t get earthquakes like that so often on the East Coast.”
Though small earthquakes occur in New Jersey all the time, earthquake experts said today's shaking was highly unusual.

"It's probably the largest one people have felt in New Jersey in decades," said Martha Withjack, professor of geological sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

The Virginia-centered earthquake was felt all along the East Coast because of the nature of the area's rocks, Withjack said. Unlike the West Coast, where the underlying rocks are broken from frequent quakes, the older rocks beneath New Jersey are long and solid. That means the shaking in Virginia was easily transferred to New Jersey.

"The energy all the way from Virginia got transferred to us," Withjack said.

The magnitude of the earthquake was a 5.9, according to the USGS.

The USGS is also expected to release official intensity numbers, which use a different scale to document how intensely the shaking was at various points along the East Coast. The intensity scale goes from 1 to 12, with 12 being the highest. It is likely New Jersey was at a 3, which is considered the low end of the scale with no damage, Withjack said.

"California wouldn't even blink about this," Withjack said.

According to the scale, an intensity of 3 is described as: "Felt quite noticeably by people indoors, especially on the upper floors of buildings. Many do not recognize it as an earthquake. Standing motor cars may rock slightly. Vibration similar to the passing of a truck. Duration estimated."

There is a chance this earthquake was a precursor to a larger quake that will happen within a few days. But the chances are very small.
"It's not likely," Withjack said.

Earthquake rocks East Coast

By Carolyn Pesce and Gary Strauss, USA TODAY

Updated 4m ago

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A powerful earthquake rocked the Mid-Atlantic region Tuesday afternoon, hitting areas from North Carolina to as far north as Ottawa, Canada.
The earthquake, which hit at about 1:51 p.m. ET, measured 5.8 and lasted up to 45 seconds, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It shook office buildings and homes and rattled residents. The USGS warned of aftershocks.

Its epicenter was reported about 4 miles southwest of Mineral, Va., near Richmond, Va., and about 80 miles south of Washington, D.C.

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VIDEO: Live coverage from WUSA in Washington
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PHOTOS: Earthquake rocks East Coast

Witnesses reported a low rumble that grew to distinct and sustained shaking, rattling windows and fraying nerves.

"It scared the heck out of me. I'm still shaking," said Joan Morris, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

No injuries were reported. Federal officials say two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., were automatically taken offline by safety systems around the time of the earthquake.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint say their networks were congested as the quake sent people scrambling for the phones. Twitter lit up with personal earthquake reports up and down the East Coast.

One Twitter user, @allisonkilkenny, a blogger and contributing reporter for The Nation, wrote: "Weirdest moment: Seeing the people I'm following in DC tweet 'earthquake' seconds before I felt it here in NYC."

Sonia Spence, a data transcriber for the U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services in Manhattan, said she had just returned to her desk on the fourth floor of 26 Federal Plaza when the building began to sway.

"I thought, 'What could be shaking the building like this?' My first thought was a terrorist," she said.

Spence, a legally blind Bronx resident, said she dropped her purse which contained her cellphone, hurrying downstairs and outside.

The earthquake was one of the largest ever recorded in the Washington, D.C., area. The depth of the quake was only 0.6 miles which partly explains the widely felt shaking.

On "the East Coast you have this old, hard, cold crust that does a lovely job of transmitting the waves … the energy. … This large of an eathquake could definitely have been felt hundreds of miles away," said Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the USGS. "Central Virginia does get its share of minor earthquakes, but an earthquake of this size on the East Coast is certainly very unusual," says seismologist Karen Fischer of Brown University.

Virginia is not on an active earthquake fault and is roughly in the middle of the North American continental crustal plate, she says. But it has residual fault scars left over from 200 million to 300 million years ago, when it was an earthquake zone, at the time when the Atlantic Ocean rifted apart from Europe. An earthquake that registered 3.9 hit in 2003, followed by a 4.5 that same year.

"We are just seeing pressure build up and release on those scars," Fischer says. "There is a lot of debate on exactly what is going on down there and exactly how quakes this big happen in this kind of crustal zone."

Fischer says the shallow depth of the Virginia quake is only a first estimate and will likely be revised.

"One lesson of this quake is that building codes will likely need to be revisited on the East Coast," Fischer says. "Because we are not as conscious of earthquakes here as the West Coast, and we will have to see about structural damage to buildings, although I have not heard any damage reports so far."

David Oppenheimer, a seismologist for the USGS at the Earthquake Science Center in Meno Park, Calif., said Tuesday's temblor was not expected. Oppenheimer said the quake is a big concern because the infrastructure in the region is not build to handle the shaking.

"This is the kind of thing that we worry about, infrequent large earthquakes in highly population areas with an old inventory of brick buildings, structures built before there were earthquake codes," he said. "You put this earthquake under a more urban area you would have had perhaps loss of life and more damage."

Tomas Rockwell, professor of geology at San Diego State University, said people in the region should be prepared for numerous aftershocks that could last for months.

"Earthquakes of this size typically have aftershock sequences," he said. The largest aftershock is typically one magnitude point below the main shock. So an aftershock will likely be in the high 4s or a magnitude 5, and then there will be a bunch of 4s and 3s and 2s, he said.

Tuesday's quake had officials in the region scrambling to evacuate office buildings, monuments and airports.

The control towers at John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty airports were evacuated by the Federal Aviation Administration as a precaution, an FAA spokesman said. Flights out of both airports were canceled.

The State Department building in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington evacuated, public affairs specialist Urenia Young said in an e-mail. "We are out of the building," she wrote.

Halley Pack, a 24-year-old paralegal, was putting on her sneakers in the basement-level gym of her office building in downtown Washington when the shaking started. She said she didn't realize that it was an earthquake at first.

"I've never been in an earthquake before," she said, standing in her exercise clothes outside her office building at 2:20 p.m. "I thought something was wrong with me, like I had a headache." Pack said she even jumped on the elliptical trainer for a few minutes before officials announced that the building was being evacuated.

Outside, dozens of office workers milled about comparing notes and trying to reach friends and family on their mobile phones. The quake knocked out traffic lights, snarling traffic as fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, sirens blaring, snaked through the confusion.

Pack's colleague Caitlin Shea, 22, said she was at her desk when the earthquake struck. "The filing cabinets started shaking. I thought they would topple on us."

She was nervous about re-entering the 12-story building where they work. "I'm afraid of aftershocks," she said.

In North Carolina, the tremors sent light bulbs shaking in their fixtures and brought people out into the street looking for a potential cause. Karen Schaefer was stopped at a traffic light in northern Raleigh when her 1995 Honda Accord began shaking.

"It felt like when you are sitting on a suspension bridge and you feel it swaying," she said. "But I knew I wasn't on a suspension bridge. I was, like, 'Is this an earthquake?' and I said, 'No, this is Raleigh, N.C.'"

In the Oak Run/Ivy Ridge area near New Castle, Del., Mary Lou Byrd and Buzz Hamilton were standing outside after the quake rumbled.

"I was just standing in my house, and it started shaking," Byrd said. "I wasn't sure it was an earthquake until I saw all of the neighbors standing in the street talking to each other."

"I thought someone was barreling up the road with a trash truck, but the whole house shook, and we heard dishes rattling," said Shaun Gallagher of the Forest Brook Glen development near Newport, Del.

"It felt and sounded like a big gust of wind came through. I looked outside and the trees weren't even moving," said Jean Carsten, 59, who was at home in Bayville, N.J., when she felt the tremors. "My husband said, 'That was an earthquake.'"

Dan Thompson, director of communications at Fork Union Military Academy, a military-style boarding school in the village of Fork Union, Va., said the shaking was "pretty significant, but there was no damage or injuries. Just a few books knocked off the shelves."

About 200 were on campus either as members of the football or soccer teams, or as part of the 60 cadet officers here for training. "We want all our parents to know everyone is safe, and there's no danger at this point," Thompson said.

"No need for any of that. Everything's in good shape," he said, then offering a quip about another natural event, Hurricane Irene, bearing down on the East Coast: "We're already looking forward to the hurricane."

Feds vow to 'peel onion' on bias claims against sheriff's deputies

An official with the U.S. Department of Justice vowed Friday morning “to peel the onion to its core” on allegations that Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies in the Antelope Valley have harassed minority residents of government-subsidized housing.

Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez said investigators would parse sheriff’s records and arrest data to determine if deputies were “used” to help drive out black and Latino residents of the historically white high desert.

Perez said one investigation focus would be determining if minorities accounted for a disproportionate share of misdemeanor and obstruction arrests. Arrests solely related to obstruction charges are often perceived as potential indicators of racial bias.

A county monitor last year issued a report showing 64% of obstruction-related arrests in Lancaster involved blacks, despite the fact that only 42% of all arrests involved blacks.

“While the rates of felony arrests are similar to elsewhere in the county, the two cities appear to have unusually high rates of misdemeanor arrests, and particularly high rates of arrests of African Americans,” Perez said.

Other investigation focuses would be allegations of racially motivated stops and searches; and identifying subsidized housing residents during routine traffic stops.
Perez also said federal investigators will be determining if deputies, who often accompany housing inspectors, have conducted essentially warrantless searches when checking whether residents who receive government assistance are in compliance with the terms of the program.

The inquiries are part of a federal civil rights probe, known as a pattern-and-practice investigation, officially announced Friday into the sheriff’s Palmdale and Lancaster stations.

If a pattern of misconduct is found, U.S. officials could seek a court-ordered federal consent decree similar to the one the Los Angeles Police Department operated under after the Rampart corruption scandal.

It took nearly a decade for the LAPD to have federal oversight lifted.

Perez, however, was careful to note that the Rampart investigation was broader, focusing on a number of issues throughout the entire department, whereas this probe relates to only a small portion of the sheriff’s jurisdiction.

Sheriff Lee Baca joined Perez at the news conference, vowing to open up his department to federal investigators.

Perez told the media Baca was fully cooperative thus far. In his statements, Baca refused to endorse the notion city officials have presented that government-subsidized, or Section 8, housing areas are hubs for crime.

He did, however, say he was heartened that he knew of no civil rights-related complaints from citizens in the Antelope Valley. His spokesman later explained the stations had received such complaints, but they were “at a certain level that they don’t need his attention yet.”

A group of civil attorneys who recently sued the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster for subsidized-housing discrimination were pleased with the announcement of the federal probe of the sheriff's department.

“We welcome the Department of Justice’s efforts to safeguard fair housing in the Antelope Valley and ensure people can seek a better life for their families free from harassment and fear,” the lawyers said in a joint statement Friday.

Obama finds a way to ignite Comprehensive Immigration Reform

New York - August 19, 2011 - President Obama is on the move to provide protection to immigrants even if Congress does act on Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Just the other day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton issued two important memorandum on the use of prosecutorial discretion in immigration matters. Prosecutorial discretion applies to the agency’s authority to not enforce immigration laws against those individuals and groups that are in the process of deportation or removal proceedings. In other words a person not in deportation, at this time cannot make use of this memo.

The Morton Memo directs that ICE attorneys and employees to exercise prosecutorial discretion and desist from going after noncitizens with close family, educational, military, or other ties in the U.S. As an alternative, the memo orders them to apply their efforts for people who pose a threat to public safety or national security. What his means is that if you are illegal in the United States and have not committed a crime and have not yet been deported, you can take a deep breath because Immigration is not looking for you.

Even if someone calls the ICE hotline to tell them that a person is illegal in the United States, ICE will not go after them unless they are criminals or pose a threat to our safety.

What are the Factors for Prosecutorial Discretion

The memo lists the following 19 items for ICE to consider when applying Prosecutorial Discretion:

• the agency’s civil immigration enforcement priorities;
• the person’s length of presence in the United States, with particular consideration given to presence while in lawful status;
• the circumstances of the person’s arrival in the United States and the manner of his or her entry, particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child;
• the person’s pursuit of education in the United States, with particular consideration given to those who have graduated from a U.S. high school or have successfully pursued or are pursuing a college or advanced degrees at a legitimate institution of higher education in the United States;
• whether the person, or the person’s immediate relative, has served in the U.S. military, reserves, or national guard, with particular consideration given to those who served in combat;
• the person’s criminal history, including arrests, prior convictions, or outstanding arrest warrants;
• the person’s immigration history, including any prior removal, outstanding order of removal, prior denial of status, or evidence of fraud;
• whether the person poses a national security or public safety concern;
• the person’s ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships;
• the person’s ties to the home country and conditions in the country;
• the person’s age, with particular consideration given to minors and the elderly;
• whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent;
• whether the person is the primary caretaker of a person with a mental or physical disability, minor, or seriously ill relative;
• whether the person or the person’s spouse is pregnant or nursing;
• whether the person or the person’s spouse suffers from severe mental or physical illness;
• whether the person’s nationality renders removal unlikely;
• Whether the person is likely to be granted legal status or other relief from removal, including as a relative of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident;
• whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as an asylum seeker, or a victim of domestic violence, human trafficking, or other crime; and
• whether the person is currently cooperating or has cooperated with federal, state, or local law-enforcement authorities, such as ICE, the U.S Attorneys or Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, or National Labor Relations Board, among others.


The Morton Memo on Prosecutorial Discretion also identifies groups of persons who deserves “particular care” when making prosecutorial decisions. Specifically, these individuals embrace:


• veterans and members of the U.S. armed forces;
• long-time lawful permanent residents;
• minors and elderly individuals;
• individuals present in the United States since childhood;
• pregnant or nursing women;
• victims of domestic violence, trafficking, or other serious crimes;
• individuals who suffer from a serious mental or physical disability; and
• individuals with serious health conditions.

Prosecutorial Discretion is Not a Green Card

First, any form of prosecutorial discretion is fragile at best, and does not grant legal status or benefit. Secondly, decisions about prosecutorial discretion are usually made on a case-by-case . If granted, the person’s case will receive a “deferred Action” (placed in a low priority) and will probably receive work authorization.

Conclusion

Achieving the goal of the memos will require a method by which prosecutorial discretion is considered in every case brought to ICE’s attention, even before a Notice to Appear (charging document in deportation) is issued. ICE attorneys and employees will have to be trained to follow these memos, and held responsible when they fail to act properly. Finally, ICE must invest resources in training its officers and attorneys to accept the concept of prosecutorial discretion and the critical nature of exercising it in each and every appropriate case.


A WARNING

Over the last few years many immigrants have left the United States after residing here for many years. Some left for economic or familial reasons. These people unfortunately will have great problems in re-entering the United States. Current laws state that if a person remained illegal for a period greater than one year (1) in the U.S.; he or she cannot obtain their permanent legal status (Green Card) until they have remained outside the U.S. for a period of 10 years.

Atlanta Falcons-Jacksonville Jaguars Open Thread

 

It’s time for the team’s second rumble in sunny Florida in as many weeks. This week, it’s the mighty Jaguars.

Don’t sweat it if the Falcons fall behind. It is just pre-season, of course, and this team is going to be plenty good once the season rolls around. What matters is that the Falcons play well and get a sense of which reserves are going to be worth keeping as they move forward. The first required round of cutdowns is just around the corner on August 30, after all.

Watch the reserves tonight to see how they hold up against capable Jaguars backups. Watch the starters to see if they can eviscerate the Jags' starters. Heck, watch the coaching staff as they enjoy a big bowl of vanilla scheming. It's gonna be fun!

So crack open a cold one and join me in the thread for a discussion of the game. Enjoy!

HP TouchPad Fire Sales Begin, $99 for 16GB

If you told me last week that I'd be buying an HP TouchPad this evening, I probably wouldn't have believed you. But in the wake of the company's stunning decision to pull the plug on support for webOS devices, including the TouchPad, the fire sales have started and I nabbed a 32GB version for $149.

Details about where and when the official sales begin are still a bit sketchy, but I followed these instructions to find a $149 32GB device on HP's Web site. The 16GB, which some were purchasing for $99 earlier in the night, are apparently out of stock on the company's Web site.

Various tech blogs around the Web are pointing to a PreCentral post that is currently down, but it appears that the discounts first went live in Canada at Best Buy, Future Shop, The Source, London Drugs, and Staples. Indeed, the Canadian Best Buy site lists the 16GB TouchPad for $99. Future Shop also has it listed, but says it's unavailable.

According to Daily Tech, however, PreCentral posted a memo that HP reportedly sent to its affiliates. "HP will be lowering the price of the TouchPad beginning Saturday 8/20/11. This is the lowest price ever for the TouchPad so please post it as soon as it goes live. 16GB TouchPad- $99; 32GB TouchPad - $149," the note reads.

No mention of when on Saturday the deals might start in the U.S., but Best Buy is apparently sitting on a huge supply of TouchPads, so they might have a few in stock. At this point, the U.S. versions of the Amazon and Best Buy Web sites list the old prices; $499 for 16GB or $599 for 32GB. If the hysteria from the tech press on Twitter this evening was any indication, people are going to snap these up quickly, so grab one while you can.

Why would you buy a TouchPad? The device has received largely positive reviews, with the main drawback being the lack of apps. That's not likely to improve with the TouchPad's demise, but if you just want a tablet for browsing the Web, it's not a bad deal.

Are you seeing the cheaper TouchPads showing up on any other sites? Did you buy one? Let us know in the comments.