Strongest earthquake in 20 years rattles southern California

A car drives past a crack in the road after a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in Ridgecrest, California, on July 4, 2019. S(AFP / FREDERIC J. BROWN)
Updated 05 July 2019
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Strongest earthquake in 20 years rattles southern California

  • The 6.4 magnitude quake struck at 10:33 a.m. in the Mojave Desert
  • Multiple injuries and two house fires were reported in the town of 28,000

LOS ANGELES: The strongest earthquake in 20 years shook a large swath of southern California and parts of Nevada on Thursday, rattling nerves on the July 4th holiday and causing injuries and damage in a town near the epicenter, followed by a swarm of ongoing aftershocks.
The 6.4 magnitude quake struck at 10:33 a.m. in the Mojave Desert, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, near the town of Ridgecrest, California.
Multiple injuries and two house fires were reported in the town of 28,000. Emergency crews were also dealing with small vegetation fires, gas leaks and reports of cracked roads, Kern County Fire Chief David Witt said.
He said 15 patients were evacuated from the Ridgecrest Regional Hospital as a precaution and out of concern for aftershocks.
Kern County District Supervisor Mick Gleason told CNN there were some structural issues with the hospital and some patients had to be moved from one ward to another and that others were taken to a neighboring building.
Gleason did not say what the structural issues were.
Ridgecrest Mayor Peggy Breeden said that utility workers were assessing broken gas lines and turning off gas where necessary.

The local senior center was holding a July 4th event when the quake hit and everyone made it out shaken up but without injuries, she said.
“Oh, my goodness, there’s another one (quake) right now,” Breeden said on live television as an aftershock struck.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Kern County. The declaration means that the state will help the county and municipalities in it with emergency aid and recovery efforts.
Ridgecrest Mayor Peggy Breeden praised Newsom for declaring the emergency. She also noted at a news conference that other nearby governments have offered to help the recovery effort.
President Donald Trump said he was fully briefed on the earthquake and that it “all seems to be very much under control!“
Police and fire officials said at a news conference Thursday afternoon that they have enough resources so far to meet needs in the wake of the earthquake. Ridgecrest Police Chief Jed McLaughlin said at a news conference that “we have plenty of resources.”
California Highway Patrol Lt. John Williams says officials have found cracks on several roads in the county, but overpasses and underpasses are in good shape.
A series of aftershocks included a 4.5 magnitude temblor, according to the United States Geological Survey.
“It almost gave me a heart attack,” said Cora Burke, a waitress at Midway Cafe in Ridgecrest, of the big jolt. “It’s just a rolling feeling inside the building, inside the cafe and all of a sudden everything started falling off the shelf, glasses, the refrigerator and everything in the small refrigerator fell over.”
Video posted online of a liquor store in Ridgecrest showed the aisles filled with broken wine and liquor bottles, knocked down boxes and other groceries strewn on the floor. Flames were seen shooting out of one home in the community.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the California Institute of Technology’s seismology lab, said the earthquake was the strongest since a 7.1 quake struck in the area on October 16, 1999.
“This has been an extremely quiet abnormal time,” Jones said. “This type of earthquake is much more normal ... The long term average is probably once every five or 10 years somewhere in Southern California.”
Jones said that the 6.4 quake centered near the town of Ridgecrest was preceded by a magnitude 4.2 temblor about a half hour earlier.
She said vigorous aftershocks were occurring and that she wouldn’t be surprised if a magnitude 5 quake hit but that they were striking in a remote area, sparsely populated area. “This is an isolated enough location that that’s going to greatly reduce the damage,” she said.
People from Las Vegas to the Pacific Coast reported feeling a rolling motion and took to social media to report it.
Local emergency agencies also took to social media to ask people to only call 911 for emergencies.
“We are very much aware of the significant earthquake that just occurred in Southern California. Please DO NOT call 9-1-1 unless there are injuries or other dangerous conditions. Don’t call for questions please,” the LAPD said in a statement published on Twitter.
There were no reports of serious damage or injuries in Los Angeles, the department said.
The quake was detected by California’s new ShakeAlert system and it provided 48 seconds of warning to the seismology lab well before the shaking arrived at Caltech in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena but it did not trigger a public warning through an app recently made available in Los Angeles County.
USGS seismologist Robert Graves said the ShakeAlert system worked properly.
Graves said it calculated an intensity level for the Los Angeles area that was below the threshold for a public alert. The limits are intended to avoid false alarms.
Ashleigh Chandler, a helicopter rescue EMT at Fort Irwin, California, said the quake happened as she was getting ready for a July 4th party.
“I was just in the living room getting everything ready, we start to feel the shaking, so then I look up and then the wine bottles start rattling and I thought, ‘They’re going to fall.’
“My stepson was in the house and my dog, so we just got everyone outside and then it ended. It was like 15, 20 seconds, maybe. It was pretty good shaking, so I’m out of breath.”
“Everyone’s OK.”


Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reacting

Updated 5 sec ago
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Many Americans are witnessing immigration arrests for the first time and reacting

SAN DIEGO: Adam Greenfield was home nursing a cold when his girlfriend raced in to tell him Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were pulling up in their trendy San Diego neighborhood.
The author and podcast producer grabbed his iPhone and bolted out the door barefoot, joining a handful of neighbors recording masked agents raiding a popular Italian restaurant nearby, as they yelled at the officers to leave. An hour later, the crowd had grown to nearly 75 people, with many in front of the agents’ vehicles.
“I couldn’t stay silent,” Greenfield said. “It was literally outside of my front door.”
More Americans are witnessing people being hauled off as they shop, exercise at the gym, dine out and otherwise go about their daily lives as President Donald Trump’s administration aggressively works to increase immigration arrests. As the raids touch the lives of people who aren’t immigrants themselves, many Americans who rarely, if ever, participated in civil disobedience are rushing out to record the actions on their phones and launch impromptu protests.
Arrests are being made outside gyms, busy restaurants

Greenfield said on the evening of the May 30 raid, the crowd included grandparents, retired military members, hippies, and restaurant patrons arriving for date night. Authorities threw flash bangs to force the crowd back and then drove off with four detained workers, he said.
“To do this, at 5 o’clock, right at the dinner rush, right on a busy intersection with multiple restaurants, they were trying to make a statement,” Greenfield said. “But I don’t know if their intended point is getting across the way they want it to. I think it is sparking more backlash.”
Previously, many arrests happened late at night or in the pre-dawn hours by agents waiting outside people’s homes as they left for work or outside their work sites when they finished their day. When ICE raided another popular restaurant in San Diego in 2008, agents did it in the early morning without incident.
White House border czar Tom Homan has said agents are being forced to make more arrests in communities because of sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with ICE in certain cities and states. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.
Vice President JD Vance, during a visit to Los Angeles on Friday, said those policies have given agents “a bit of a morale problem because they’ve had the local government in this community tell them that they’re not allowed to do their job.”
“When that Border Patrol agent goes out to do their job, they said within 15 minutes they have protesters, sometimes violent protesters who are in their face obstructing them,” he said.
’It was like a scene out of a movie’
Melyssa Rivas had just arrived at her office in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California one morning last week when she heard the frightened screams of young women. She went outside to find the women confronting nearly a dozen masked federal agents who had surrounded a man kneeling on the pavement.
“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Rivas said. “They all had their faces covered and were standing over this man who was clearly traumatized. And there are these young girls screaming at the top of their lungs.”
As Rivas began recording the interaction, a growing group of neighbors shouted at the agents to leave the man alone. They eventually drove off in vehicles, without detaining him, video shows.
Rivas spoke to the man afterward, who told her the agents had arrived at the car wash where he worked that morning, then pursued him as he fled on his bicycle. It was one of several recent workplace raids in the majority-Latino city.
The same day, federal agents were seen at a Home Depot, a construction site and an LA Fitness gym. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people had been detained.
“Everyone is just rattled,” said Alex Frayde, an employee at LA Fitness who said he saw the agents outside the gym and stood at the entrance, ready to turn them away as another employee warned customers about the sighting. In the end, the agents never came in.
Communities protest around ICE buildings
Arrests at immigration courts and other ICE buildings have also prompted emotional scenes as masked agents have turned up to detain people going to routine appointments and hearings.
In the city of Spokane in eastern Washington state, hundreds of people rushed to protest outside an ICE building June 11 after former city councilor Ben Stuckart posted on Facebook. Stuckart wrote that he was a legal guardian of a Venezuelan asylum seeker who went to check in at the ICE building, only to be detained. His Venezuelan roommate was also detained.
Both men had permission to live and work in the US temporarily under humanitarian parole, Stuckart told The Associated Press.
“I am going to sit in front of the bus,” Stuckart wrote, referring to the van that was set to transport the two men to an ICE detention center in Tacoma. “The Latino community needs the rest of our community now. Not tonight, not Saturday, but right now!!!!”
The city of roughly 230,000 is the seat of Spokane County, where just over half of voters cast ballots for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Stuckart was touched to see his mother’s caregiver among the demonstrators.
“She was just like, ‘I’m here because I love your mom, and I love you, and if you or your friends need help, then I want to help,’” he said through tears.
By evening, the Spokane Police Department sent over 180 officers, with some using pepper balls, to disperse protesters. Over 30 people were arrested, including Stuckart who blocked the transport van with others. He was later released.
Aysha Mercer, a stay-at-home mother of three, said she is “not political in any way, shape or form.” But many children in her Spokane neighborhood — who play in her yard and jump on her trampoline — come from immigrant families, and the thought of them being affected by deportations was “unacceptable,” she said.
She said she wasn’t able to go to Stuckart’s protest. But she marched for the first time in her life on June 14, joining millions in “No Kings” protests across the country.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as strongly as I do right this here second,” she said.

Survive, nothing more: Cuba’s elderly live hand to mouth

Updated 21 June 2025
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Survive, nothing more: Cuba’s elderly live hand to mouth

  • The country is finding it increasingly hard to care for some 2.4 million inhabitants, more than a quarter of the population, aged 60 and over

HAVANA: With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba’s elderly struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America’s poorest and fastest-aging countries.
As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for some 2.4 million inhabitants — more than a quarter of the population — aged 60 and over.
Sixty is the age at which women — for men it’s 65 — qualify for the state pension which starts at 1,528 Cuban pesos per month.
This is less than $13 at the official exchange rate and a mere $4 on the informal street market where most Cubans do their shopping.
“Fight for life, for death is certain,” vendor Isidro Manuet, 73, told AFP sitting on a sidewalk in the heart of Havana, his skin battered by years in the sun, several of his front teeth missing.
“I manage to live, survive, nothing more,” he said of his meager income that allows him to buy a little food, and not much else.
As he spoke to AFP, Manuet looked on as small groups of people walked by his stall carrying bags full of food.
They were coming out of Casalinda, one of several part government-run megastores that sells goods exclusively to holders of US dollars — a small minority of Cubans.
Most rely instead on informal stalls such as the ones Manuet and other elderly Cubans set up on sidewalks every morning to sell fruit, coffee, cigarettes, candy, used clothes and other second-hand goods.


Near Manuet’s stall, 70-year-old Antonia Diez sells clothing and makeup.
“Things are bad, really bad,” she sighs, shaking her head.
Many of Cuba’s elderly have been without family support since 2022, when the biggest migratory exodus in the country’s history began amid a crisis marked by food, fuel and medicine shortages, power blackouts and rampant inflation.
More beggars can be seen on Havana’s streets — though there are no official figures — and every now and then an elderly person can be spotted rummaging through garbage bins for something to eat, or sell.
The Cuban crisis, which Havana blames on decades of US sanctions but analysts say was fueled by government economic mismanagement and tourism tanking under the Covid-19 pandemic, has affected the public purse too, with cuts in welfare spending.
As a result, the government has struggled to buy enough of the staples it has made available for decades to impoverished Cubans at heavily subsidized prices under the “libreta” ration book system.
It is the only way many people have to access affordable staples such as rice, sugar and beans — when there is any.
Diez said she used to receive an occasional state-sponsored food package, “but it’s been a while since they’ve sent anything.”


This all means that many products can only be found at “dollar stores” such as Casalinda, or private markets where most people cannot afford to shop.
According to the University of Havana’s Center for Cuban Economic Studies, in 2023 a Cuban family of three would have needed 12 to 14 times the average minimum monthly salary of 2,100 pesos (around $17) to meet their basic food needs.
Official figures show about 68,000 Cubans over 60 rely on soup kitchens run by the state Family Assistance System for one warm meal per day.
At one such facility, “Las Margaritas,” a plate of food costs about 13 pesos (11 dollar cents). Pensioner Eva Suarez, 78, has been going there daily for 18 months.
“The country is in such need. There’s no food, there’s nothing,” she told AFP, adding her pension is basically worthless “because everything is so expensive.”
Inflation rose by 190 percent between 2018 and 2023, but pensions have not kept pace.
Some are losing faith in communism, brought to the island by Fidel Castro’s revolution, and its unfulfilled promises such as a liter of subsidized milk for every child under seven per day.
“I have nothing, my house is falling apart,” said Lucy Perez, a 72-year-old economist who retired with 1,600 pesos (about 13 dollars) a month after a 36-year career.
“The situation is dire. The nation has no future.”
It’s not just the elderly suffering.
Cuba was rocked by unprecedented anti-government protests in 2021, and students have been rebelling in recent months due to a steep hike in the cost of mobile Internet — which only arrived on the island seven years ago.
In January, the government announced a partial dollarization of the economy that has angered many unable to lay their hands on greenbacks.


Japan scraps US meeting after Washington demands more defense spending: Report

Updated 21 June 2025
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Japan scraps US meeting after Washington demands more defense spending: Report

  • US asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, higher than an earlier request of 3 percent, FT reports
  • Japan’s Nikkei also reported that Trump’s government was pressing its Asian allies, including Japan, to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense

WASHINGTON: Japan has canceled a regular high-level meeting with its key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for the annual 2+2 security talks.
But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the US asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product, higher than an earlier request of 3 percent, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump’s government was demanding that its Asian allies, including Japan, spend 5 percent of GDP on defense.
A US official who asked not to be identified told Reuters that Japan had “postponed” the talks in a decision made several weeks ago. The official did not cite a reason. A non-government source familiar with the issue said he had also heard Japan had pulled out of the meeting but not the reason for it doing so.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said she had no comment on the FT report when asked about it at regular briefing. The Pentagon also had no immediate comment.
Japan’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The nation’s foreign and defense ministries and the Prime Minister’s Office did not answer phone calls seeking comment outside business hours on Saturday.
The FT said the higher spending demand was made in recent weeks by Elbridge Colby, the third-most senior Pentagon official, who has also recently upset another key US ally in the Indo-Pacific by launching a review of a project to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
In March, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that other nations do not decide Japan’s defense budget after Colby, in his nomination hearing to be under secretary of defense for policy, called for Tokyo to spend more to counter China.
Japan and other US allies have been engaged in difficult trade talks with the United States over President Donald Trump’s worldwide tariff offensive.
The FT said the decision to cancel the July 1 meeting was also related to Japan’s July 20 upper house elections, expected to be a major test for Ishiba’s minority coalition government.
Japan’s move on the 2+2 comes ahead of a meeting of the US-led NATO alliance in Europe next week, at which Trump is expected to press his demand that European allies boost their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.
 


Trump confirms DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal, gripes about Nobels

Updated 21 June 2025
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Trump confirms DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal, gripes about Nobels

  • DR Congo and Rwanda officials expected to sign accord in Washington next week
  • Trump's campaign promise to quickly end wars in Ukraine and Gaza have both failed
  • But he believes he deserves a Nobel for his supposed mediating role in other conflicts

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump took credit Friday for a peace deal negotiated in Washington between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda — and complained that he would not get a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
The warring African nations said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they had initialed an agreement aimed at ending the conflict in eastern DRC — to be formally signed in the US capital next week.
“This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World!” Trump said in a Truth Social post confirming the breakthrough.
But his triumphant tone darkened as he complained that he had been overlooked by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for his mediating role in conflicts between India and Pakistan, as well as Serbia and Kosovo.
He also demanded credit for “keeping peace” between Egypt and Ethiopia and brokering the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements aiming to normalize relations between Israel and several Arab nations.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosts a signing ceremony in which Congo's Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, left, and Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, right, pledge to work toward a peace deal at the State Department in Washington on April 25, 2025. (AP/File)

Trump campaigned for office as a “peacemaker” who would use his negotiating skills to quickly end wars in Ukraine and Gaza, although both conflicts are still raging five months into his presidency.
Indian officials have denied that he had any role in its ceasefire with Pakistan.
And the Republican greatly exaggerated the significance of the 2020 Serbia-Kosovo agreements, which were statements of intent thin on detail and that quickly unraveled.
Trump’s claims for the Abraham Accords being able to “unify the Middle East” have also yet to be realized, with war breaking out between Israel and Iran, and no end in sight to the conflict in Gaza.
The president said officials from DR Congo and Rwanda would be in Washington on Monday for their signing, although their joint statement said they would put pen to paper on June 27.
The resource-rich eastern DRC, which borders Rwanda, has been plagued by violence for three decades, with a resurgence since the anti-government M23 armed group went on a renewed offensive at the end of 2021.
The deal — which builds on a declaration of principles signed in April — was reached during three days of talks between the neighbors in Washington, according to their statement.
Trump has received multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations from supporters and loyal lawmakers over the years.
He has made no secret of his irritation at missing out on the prestigious award, bringing it up as recently as February during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
President Barack Obama won the prize soon after taking office in 2009, and Trump complained during his 2024 election campaign that his Democratic predecessor was not worthy of the honor.
 


US federal judge blocks Trump effort to keep Harvard from hosting foreign students

Updated 21 June 2025
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US federal judge blocks Trump effort to keep Harvard from hosting foreign students

  • Homeland Security earlier withdrew the school’s certification to host foreign students after Harvard resisted Trump's interference
  • Harvard hosts roughly 7,000 international students, about a quarter of its total enrollment

WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep Harvard University from hosting international students, delivering the Ivy League school another victory as it challenges multiple government sanctions amid a battle with the White House.
The order from US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston preserves Harvard’s ability to host foreign students while the case is decided, but it falls short of resolving all of Harvard’s legal hurdles to hosting international students. Notably, Burroughs said the federal government still has authority to review Harvard’s ability to host international students through normal processes outlined in law.
Harvard sued the Department of Homeland Security in May after the agency abruptly withdrew the school’s certification to host foreign students and issue paperwork for their visas, skirting most of its usual procedures. The action would have forced Harvard’s roughly 7,000 international students — about a quarter of its total enrollment — to transfer or risk being in the US illegally. New foreign students would have been barred from coming to Harvard.
The university said it was experiencing illegal retaliation for rejecting the White House’s demands to overhaul Harvard policies related to campus protests, admissions, hiring and more. Burroughs temporarily had halted the government’s action hours after Harvard sued.
Less than two weeks later, in early June, President Donald Trump tried a new strategy. He issued a proclamation to block foreign students from entering the US to attend Harvard, citing a different legal justification. Harvard challenged the move, saying the president was attempting an end-run around the temporary court order. Burroughs temporarily blocked Trump’s proclamation as well. That emergency block remains in effect, and Burroughs did not address the proclamation in her order Friday.
“We expect the judge to issue a more enduring decision in the coming days,” Harvard said Friday in an email to international students. “Our Schools will continue to make contingency plans toward ensuring that our international students and scholars can pursue their academic work to the fullest extent possible, should there be a change to student visa eligibility or their ability to enroll at Harvard.”
Students in limbo
The stops and starts of the legal battle have unsettled current students and left others around the world waiting to find out whether they will be able to attend America’s oldest and wealthiest university.
The Trump administration’s efforts to stop Harvard from enrolling international students have created an environment of “profound fear, concern, and confusion,” the university said in a court filing. Countless international students have asked about transferring from the university, Harvard immigration services director Maureen Martin said.
Still, admissions consultants and students have indicated most current and prospective Harvard scholars are holding out hope they’ll be able to attend the university.
For one prospective graduate student, an admission to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education had rescued her educational dreams. Huang, who asked to be identified only by her surname for fear of being targeted, had seen her original doctoral offer at Vanderbilt University rescinded after federal cuts to research and programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Harvard stepped in a few weeks later with a scholarship she couldn’t refuse. She rushed to schedule her visa interview in Beijing. More than a month after the appointment, despite court orders against the Trump administration’s policies, she still hasn’t heard back.
“Your personal effort and capability means nothing in this era,” Huang said in a social media post. “Why does it have to be so hard to go to school?”
An ongoing battle
Trump has been warring with Harvard for months after the university rejected a series of government demands meant to address conservative complaints that the school has become too liberal and has tolerated anti-Jewish harassment. Trump officials have cut more than $2.6 billion in research grants, ended federal contracts and threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
On Friday, the president said in a post on Truth Social that the administration has been working with Harvard to address “their largescale improprieties” and that a deal with Harvard could be announced within the next week. “They have acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right,” Trump’s post said.
Trump’s administration first targeted Harvard’s international students in April. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of records related to any dangerous or illegal activity by foreign students. Harvard says it complied, but Noem said the response fell short and on May 22 revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
The sanction immediately put Harvard at a disadvantage as it competed for the world’s top students, the school said in its lawsuit, and it harmed Harvard’s reputation as a global research hub. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the lawsuit said.
The action would have upended some graduate schools that recruit heavily from abroad. Some schools overseas quickly offered invitations to Harvard’s students, including two universities in Hong Kong.
Harvard President Alan Garber previously said the university has made changes to combat antisemitism. But Harvard, he said, will not stray from its “core, legally-protected principles,” even after receiving federal ultimatums.