Philippine censors said they were convinced the "cartoonish" map did not depict the nine-dash line.

American Airlines and JetBlue are trying to salvage parts of their partnership in the Northeast, even after a federal judge ruled they must break up the deal

Turkey on Tuesday arrested dozens of suspected Kurdish militants and their supporters after an attack on the government district in the capital...

With the tragedy and horror wreaked in Morocco last week, it's unsurprising that people’s focus hasn’t been on the skies. And yet, Friday’s devastating earthquake, has also sparked renewed interest in a mysterious aerial phenomenon. Footage shared to social media just moments before the 6.8-magnitude tremor struck the High Atlas mountains appears to show blinding lights flashing across the sky. Experts have suggested that the jaw-dropping sight is evidence of an enigmatic natural occurrence called “earthquake lights”. Reports of these bright flashes go back centuries. And yet, very little is known about them, to the point that scientists aren’t even sure they’re real. Indeed, some experts have concluded that there isn’t sufficient proof to support their existence, the United States Geological Survey notes. Nevertheless, “people have wondered about them forever," Karen Daniels, a physicist at North Carolina State University, told the New York Times. "It's one of those persistent mysteries that hang around and never quite get nailed." The issue with studying earthquake lights is that since earthquakes are impossible to predict, so are any preceding celestial pyrotechnics. Not knowing when or where they will occur means researchers can’t preemptively install the necessary equipment needed to detect them. Essentially, the only evidence we have comes from eyewitness accounts and, more recently, video recordings. And there is an abundance of the former, with a 2014 study noting that aerial luminous phenomena were reported in relation to 65 earthquakes which occurred in Europe and America over a period of 200 years. These descriptions of earthquake lights vary in their details, with some recalling on-and-of lightning-style flashes, and others minutes-long glows of different colours. “All of these have been reported by observers,” John Ebel, a seismologist at Boston Collegel told the NYT. “Which ones are actually true, and which ones are products of their imagination, we can’t really say.” One theory behind the formation of earthquake lights is that they are the result of friction between tectonic plates generating electricity. However, most experts are unconvinced by this hypothesis, including Dr Daniels. She told the NYT: “Rock on rock is not a situation where people have been able to generate large charge separation. And so it just doesn’t seem like a very good explanation for what people see.” Other scientists have suggested electrical arcing from power lines shaken by earthquakes could be responsible for the sky flares. But Dr Daniels acknowledged it’s still possible that there’s no link at all between the lights and tectonic events. “We’re comforted by things that we can understand, and we’re scared by things we don’t,” she pointed out. “I think that’s part of the reason we’re so fascinated by this phenomenon.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Harrowing stories of survival are spreading from those who fled Maui's voracious fires

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON Black holes, celestial objects known for their gluttony, usually eat stars unlucky enough to

Wild video footage captured an Iowa police officer clinging to the roof of a man’s car as he drove at speeds of up to 50 mph during a traffic stop that escalated into a full-blown car chase. Police in the town of Carroll stopped Dennis Guider, Jr, of Illinois, for a traffic violation, only to discover that he had an active warrant in Illinois for forgery. Body camera footage released last week in court showed Officer Patrick McCarty approaching the window of a red sedan during the 5 March stop. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it sounds like you’ve got a warrant out of Illinois,” he told Guider and a female passenger. The suspect then shoved the woman out of the driver’s seat and drove away slowly. Officer McCarty drew his gun and jumped on the hood of the vehicle while ordering Guider to slow down. He then accelerated with the officer still on the hood, leading officers on a chase in which he hit reported speeds of up to 50mph. During the chase, Officer McCarty fell off the roof of the car and broke a vertebra in his lower back. Guider was sentenced to up to five years in prison on Thursday for the felony of serious injury by vehicle, after pleading guilty and avoiding an eluding arrest charge. The Illinois man, who is Black, told an Iowa court he feared for his life and was afraid when the white police officer jumped on his car with a gun drawn. “I feared for my life after the officer pull(ed) out his gun and jump(ed) on the hood of my car,” he wrote in a February letter. The officer in the case admitted in a hearing last week that he hadn’t been trained to jump onto the hood of a moving vehicle. “Each situation is different,” Officer McCarty said. “It certainly didn’t play out the way I intended.” “Officer McCarty was polite and respectful when he approached the car, was treating everybody with dignity, and then you kick your girlfriend out of the car and you take off,” District Associate Judge Joseph McCarville said during sentencing, the Des Moines Register reported. Read More Harry and Meghan – latest news: Rishi Sunak gives abrasive response to ‘near catastrophic’ car case Chilling video shows New Mexico teen gunman’s shooting rampage: ‘Come kill me’ Grandma who lost finger in dog attack told by police that animal is ‘friendly’

Former PM Robert Fico, who opposes military support for Ukraine, is leading with most votes counted.

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 30, 2023--

A Republican official charged with overseeing elections in the state of Georgia, where Donald Trump tried and failed to change the results of his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, lamented on Sunday that the ex-president was able to make himself out as a “martyr” to his supporters as he continues to face deepening legal problems. Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer to Georgia’s secretary of state, watched his boss Brad Raffensperger survive a Trump-backed primary challenge in 2022 after Mr Raffensperger refused to go along with Mr Trump’s attempts to change the lawful election results. He has long said that the former president’s efforts after the 2020 election were inappropriate, including an early January 2021 phone call between Mr Raffensperger and the president during which Mr Trump asked the Georgia elections chief to “find” him 11,000 votes. That phone call and the effort by Mr Trump to change the results in Georgia are expected to result in a criminal indictment filed by Fulton County prosecutors within the next week or so; Fani Willis’s office is currently presenting evidence against the ex-president and his legal team to a grand jury. A “special purpose” grand jury – unique under Georgia law – had previously been called in the matter, but that body did not have the final authority to approve or reject criminal indictments. On Sunday, Mr Sterling spoke to ABC’s This Week about what he said was a troubling sign; that Republicans were flocking to Mr Trump as further consequences for his long-alleged criminal behaviour unfold. "This has been giving oxygen to his campaign," Mr Sterling said. "This is raising tons of money, and a lot of that money ... is being used to pay for his lawyers.” "He's making himself a martyr, and a lot of the American people are going behind him because they feel like some of these things are a little bit of a stretch," he said. Complicating the narrative regarding Mr Trump’s criminal indictments is the very first of the actions taken against him by prosecutors: The charging of Mr Trump more than 30 times by officials in Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office over the Stormy Daniels affair which is alleged to have played out as far back as 2016. Mr Trump is charged with falsifying business documents to hide hush payments to Ms Daniels, an issue which some have said is being prosecuted far too late and as a result detracting from the credibility of the unrelated investigations into both Mr Trump’s efforts to change the 2020 election results and the discovery of classified defence materials at his properties. Mr Trump remains the far-and-away leader of the 2024 GOP primary field, and has actively campaigned on the issue of his criminal charges, which he has portrayed as a weaponisation of the US justice system by Democrats. He continues to deny wrongdoing in all matters, including his embrace of conspiracies that led to thousands of his supporters attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Read More Trump steps up attacks on Fani Willis as Georgia probe links Trump team to voting system breach - latest Georgia prosecutors have text messages linking Trump team to voting system breach, report says Georgia grand jury to hear Trump election subversion case next week Ron DeSantis faces ‘pudding fingers’ chant and other protests during Iowa campaign stop

Australian authorities say dozens of residents have been evacuated and at least 10 homes have been destroyed by a wildfire that's burning out of control during heat wave spring conditions on the northern fringe of the west coast city of Perth

China’s central bank governor stressed tolerance for slowing growth in the short term as the world’s second-largest economy