A man affected by the scorching heat on Sunday, 16 June 2024 is helped by a member of the Saudi security forces during the Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca. Photo: Fadel Senna / AFP / Getty Images

More than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die amid temperatures approaching 52°C (125.6°F) in Mecca

20 June 2024 (AFP) – The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, with more than half of the victims unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia. The new deaths reported on Thursday included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that […]

A Guadalupe Virgin statue lays among the rubble of the destroyed home of Juana Landeros, who rode out a deadly tornado with her husband and her 9-year-old son when it rolled through the previous night, Sunday, 26 May 2024, in Valley View, Texas. Powerful storms left a wide trail of destruction Sunday across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas after obliterating homes and destroying a truck stop where drivers took shelter during the latest deadly weather to strike the central U.S. Photo: Julio Cortez / AP Photo

23 are dead across the U.S. after weekend tornadoes, Texas battered again

By John Seewer 28 May 2024 (AP News) – Strong storms with damaging winds and hail pummeled north Texas on Tuesday morning as much of the U.S. recovered from severe weather, including tornadoes, that killed at least 23 people during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Widespread power outages were reported in the region, which includes […]

An aerial view shows the normally submerged colonial-era Dominican church in Quechula, Mexico, in June, 2023. The 16th-century construction emerged from reservoir waters amid a drought. Photo: Raul Vera / AFP / Getty Images

Drowned 16th-century church emerges from bottom of Mexico reservoir after drought – “What do I support my family with? Right now, I have nothing.”

By Aristos Georgiou 19 June 23 (Newsweek) – A 16th-century church has emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico amid a drought. The colonial-era Dominican church is located in Quechula in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The building had been almost entirely submerged since 1966 when a dam was built on a […]

An indigenous woman raises her hands in prayer asking for rain in the Lloko Lloko community, in Tihuanacu, Bolivia, on 23 November 2022. Photo: Claudia Morales / REUTERS

In South America’s Andes, farmers pray for rain to end drought – “The heat is very strong and burning, we can no longer bear it”

By Monica Machicao 25 November 2022 TIHUANACU, Bolivia (Reuters) – High in the mountains of the Bolivian Andes, farmer Alberto Quispe has one thing on his mind: rain. In the rural area of Tihuanacu, around 100 kilometers (62 miles) south-west of highland city La Paz, locals say there has been little rain this season during […]

Rows of crosses sit at the mass grave site at the Holy Cross Memorial Garden for victims of super Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, central Philippines on Sunday, 23 October 2022. About 40 percent of the population of Tacloban was relocated to safer areas after super Typhoon Haiyan wiped out most of the villages, killing thousands when it hit central Philippines in 2013. Photo: Aaron Favila / AP Photo

Climate migration: Filipino families flee amid typhoons – “The warming of the ocean fuels more powerful tropical storms, and rising sea levels increase the impacts”

By Michael Casey, Joeal Calupitan, and Aaron Favila 17 November 2022 TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) – After Typhoon Haiyan’s towering waves flattened scores of Philippines villages, Jeremy Garing spent days helping with recovery from the historic storm that left more than 7,300 people dead or missing and inflicted billions of dollars in damage. “I keep helping […]

Global human population, 1700-2022. On 15 November 2022, the world’s population was estimated to reach 8 billion people, having grown by 1 billion since 2010. This is a remarkable milestone given that the human population numbered under 1 billion for millennia until around 1800, and that it took more than 100 years to grow from 1 to 2 billion. By comparison, the increase of the world’s population over the last century has been quite rapid. Despite a gradual slowing in the pace of growth, the global population is projected to surpass 9 billion around 2037 and 10 billion around 2058. Graphic: UN DESA

Global human population hits 8 billion – “We are already overstretching what we have: the housing, roads, the hospitals, schools. Everything is overstretched.”

By Dan Ikpoyi and Chinedu Asadu 15 November 2022 LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – The world’s population will likely hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa. Among them is Nigeria, where resources are already stretched to the limit. More than […]

Aerial view of people arriving at a displacement camp in southern Somalia in late September 2022. Photo: Jerome Delay / AP Photo

Prolonged drought brings famine, death, and fear to Somalia – “We’d grieve, stop for a while, pray. We’d bury them beside the road.”

By Cara Anna 5 October 2022 DOLLOW, Somalia (AP) – A man in a donkey cart comes wheeling through the dust, carrying two small, silent boys. The sky is overcast. It could rain. It won’t. It hasn’t for a very long time. Mohamed Ahmed Diriye is 60 years old, and he’s completing the grimmest journey […]

Followers of Tennessee pastor and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Greg Locke burn books on 2 February 2022. The books included Millennial staples like Harry Potter and Twilight. Photo: Tyler Salinas / Nashville Scene

COVID-19 mortality in U.S. exceeds 900,000 as Covid deaths surge in low-vaccination states – Tennessee has lowest vaccination rate and highest book-burning rate

By Nigel Chiwaya 4 February 2022 (NBC News) – More than 900,000 people have died in the United States from Covid-19 as of Friday, according to NBC News’ tally, and data shows that states with low vaccination rates have had the biggest share of deaths over the past six weeks. The country has recorded 100,000 […]

Truck drivers bound for Metro Manila celebrate Christmas Eve 2021 under a makeshift tent along the national highway in Surigao City as the Lipata port remained closed due to heavy damage from Super Typhoon Rai (Odette). Photo: Erwin M. Mascariñas / Philippine Daily Inquirer

Death toll from Super Typhoon Rai passes 400 – People in wrecked city of Surigao see hope in New Year amid typhoon ruins

By Divina M. Suson and Erwin M. Mascariñas 2 January 2022 SURIGAO CITY, Surigao del Norte, Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer) – When asked about their fishing boats during a disaster damage assessment just days after Typhoon Odette (international name: Rai) struck on 16 December 2021, many fishermen in the city’s coastal villages replied, “zero visibility.” […]

“Insert Human Sacrifice” Copyright © 2021 James P. Galasyn. Historical image of Moloch is from the Mary Evans Picture Library.

Moloch: first of the new technogenic viruses

7 August 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus is widely understood to be the most recent virus to have jumped the species barrier to humans[1]. In this post, I propose the idea that COVID-19 is the first virus to jump the platform barrier also, from natural biology to human technology. COVID-19 exists now […]

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