Month: July 2022

Authored by Lawrence Franklin via The Gatestone Institute,

• One of the leaked documents, which contains “a shoot to kill order” for guards in the camp’s watchtowers, confirms that these camps are indeed prisons. Another leaked report stipulates how detainees are to be transported from one site to an alternate location: ankle shackles, handcuffs and hoods.

• Previous leaks of official documents, unauthorized films, commercial satellite images and testimony from escaped former inmates have scripted a profile of the hell that the Chinese Communist state has crafted for the Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. This massive province-size gulag regime includes forced abortions, sterilization and rape of female detainees, separation of husbands and wives, removal of children from the custody of parents, obligatory retraining of workers in skills supportive of CCP economic goals, and daily ideological indoctrination of inmates.

• Democratic countries should distribute these leaks globally as cautionary warning to all societies that the CCP’s projected panda bear image of China obscures the reality of a quite different animal with an insatiable appetite.

The massive gulag regime for ethnic Uighurs in Communist China’s Xinjiang Province includes forced abortions, sterilization and rape of female detainees, separation of husbands and wives, removal of children from the custody of parents, obligatory retraining of workers in skills supportive of Party economic goals, and daily ideological indoctrination of inmates.

“The Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center,” a facility where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, north of Kashgar in Xinjiang. (Photo by Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

Documents and photos of thousands of ethnic Uighurs arrested by Chinese authorities, made public in late May, lend additional indisputable evidence to the Communist regime’s massive human rights violations in Xinjiang. Many of the leaked documents are official Chinese Ministry of Interior dossiers of incarcerated individuals just from Shufu, one among 61 counties in Xinjiang Province. The Shufu County in the Kashgar Prefecture is the site of several large internment camps.

One of the leaked documents, which contains “a shoot to kill order” for guards in the camp’s watchtowers, confirms that these camps are indeed prisons. Another leaked report stipulates how detainees are to be transported from one site to an alternate location: ankle shackles, handcuffs and hoods.

The documents also contain policy papers and speeches by high-level officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concerning the “Uyghur Question.” One speech was delivered on June 18, 2018 by Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo , the principal architect of the Uyghur Re-education Infrastructure. Chen developed his minority-suppression model while regional Party leader in Tibet from 2011 to 2016. Chen was then transferred by China’s President Xi Jinping to apply his skills to Xinjiang, where he was Party leader from August 2016 to December 2021. Chen’s replacement should not be viewed as a demotion for Chen. He remains a full (voting) member of the CCP Politburo and may be promoted even further in the upcoming 20th CCP Congress this autumn.

In another report, authored a few days before Chen’s address, China’s Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi draws a solid line connecting Xi and the campaign supposedly to eradicate “separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism” among Xinjiang’s Turkic minorities. The imprisonment and “reprogramming” of the daily lives of millions of Xinjiang’s inhabitants is fully in concert with CCP policy. In fact, the replacement of the brutal Chen as Xinjiang’s Party boss by the hi-tech savvy former Guangdong Province Governor of Ma Xingrui probably does not signal a decision by China “to clean-up its act” in Xinjiang because of international pressure. It is more likely a sign of the regime’s confidence that the repressive infrastructure it has visited upon Xinjiang’s Muslim minorities has successfully suppressed any separatist sentiment for an independent state in China’s Far West.

The CCP’s propaganda machine has attempted to blunt international criticism but not at price of sacrificing its abusive policies in Xinjiang. The Party has produced several propaganda documentaries on Xinjiang, some of which have been aired on the Chinese Global Television Network (CGTN). These videos of life in Xinjiang display a pluralistic society while modernizing, but that still celebrates ethnic minority traditions. Visiting dignitaries are given orchestrated and “sanitized” tours of allegedly authentic daily life in the province. China’s power, wealth and commercial prowess also tend to dampen or even mute criticism of the CCP’s anti-Islamic regulations from the world’s many Muslim nations. Any citizen of Xinjiang sporting a beard, wearing a veil, attending a religious service or downloading verses from the Koran is subject to arrest and confinement in an internment camp.

Previous leaks of official documents, unauthorized films, commercial satellite images and testimony from escaped former inmates have scripted a profile of the hell that the Chinese Communist state has crafted for the Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. This massive province-size gulag regime includes forced abortions, sterilization and rape of female detainees, separation of husbands and wives, removal of children from the custody of parents, obligatory retraining of workers in skills supportive of CCP economic goals, and daily ideological indoctrination of inmates. The comprehensive and intense nature of the persecution of non-Han Chinese minorities in Xinjiang amounts to a conscious plan by China’s leaders to erase the culture and values of the native populations of northwest China. Democratic countries should distribute these leaks globally as cautionary warning to all societies that the CCP’s projected panda bear image of China obscures the reality of a quite different animal with an insatiable appetite.

One of the hallmarks of democratic society is a healthy, free-flowing media ecosystem.

In times past, that media ecosystem would include various mass media outlets, from newspapers to cable TV networks. Today, the internet and social media platforms have greatly expanded the scope and reach of communication within society.

Of course, journalism plays a key role within that ecosystem. High quality journalism and the unprecedented transparency of social media keeps power structures in check—and sometimes, these forces can drive genuine societal change. Reporters bring us news from the front lines of conflict, and uncover hard truths through investigative journalism.

That said, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley and Carmen Ang detail below, these positive impacts are sometimes overshadowed by harmful practices and negative externalities occurring in the media ecosystem.

The graphic above is an attempt to catalog problems within the media ecosystem as a basis for discussion. Many of the problems are easy to understand once they’re identified. However, in some cases, there is an interplay between these issues that is worth digging into. Below are a few of those instances.

Explicit Bias vs. Implicit Bias

Broadly speaking, bias in media breaks down into two types: explicit and implicit.

Publishers with explicit biases will overtly dictate the types of stories that are covered in their publications and control the framing of those stories. They usually have a political or ideological leaning, and these outlets will use narrative fallacies or false balance in an effort to push their own agenda.

Unintentional filtering or skewing of information is referred to as implicit bias, and this can manifest in a few different ways. For example, a publication may turn a blind eye to a topic or issue because it would paint an advertiser in a bad light. These are called no fly zones, and given the financial struggles of the news industry, these no fly zones are becoming increasingly treacherous territory.

Misinformation vs. Disinformation

Both of these terms imply that information being shared is not factually sound. The key difference is that misinformation is unintentional, and disinformation is deliberately created to deceive people.

Fake news stories, and concepts like deepfakes, fall into the latter category. We broke down the entire spectrum of fake news and how to spot it, in a previous infographic.

Simplify, Simplify

Mass media and social feeds are the ultimate Darwinistic scenario for ideas.

Through social media, stories are shared widely by many participants, and the most compelling framing usually wins out. More often than not, it’s the pithy, provocative posts that spread the furthest. This process strips context away from an idea, potentially warping its meaning.

Video clips shared on social platforms are a prime example of context stripping in action. An (often shocking) event occurs, and it generates a massive amount of discussion despite the complete lack of context.

This unintentionally encourages viewers to stereotype the persons in the video and bring our own preconceived ideas to the table to help fill in the gaps.

Members of the media are also looking for punchy story angles to capture attention and prove the point they’re making in an article. This can lead to cherrypicking facts and ideas. Cherrypicking is especially problematic because the facts are often correct, so they make sense at face value, however, they lack important context.

Simplified models of the world make for compelling narratives, like good-vs-evil, but situations are often far more complex than what meets the eye.

The News Media Squeeze

It’s no secret that journalism is facing lean times. Newsrooms are operating with much smaller teams and budgets, and one result is ‘churnalism’. This term refers to the practice of publishing articles directly from wire services and public relations releases.

Churnalism not only replaces more rigorous forms of reporting—but also acts as an avenue for advertising and propaganda that is harder to distinguish from the news.

The increased sense of urgency to drive revenue is causing other problems as well. High-quality content is increasingly being hidden behind paywalls.

The end result is a two-tiered system, with subscribers receiving thoughtful, high-quality news, and everyone else accessing shallow or sensationalized content. That everyone else isn’t just people with lower incomes, it also largely includes younger people. The average age of today’s paid news subscriber is 50 years old, raising questions about the future of the subscription business model.

For outlets that rely on advertising, desperate times have called for desperate measures. User experience has taken a backseat to ad impressions, with ad clutter (e.g. auto-play videos, pop-ups, and prompts) interrupting content at every turn. Meanwhile, in the background, third-party trackers are still watching your every digital move, despite all the privacy opt-in prompts.

How Can We Fix the Problems with Media?

With great influence comes great responsibility. There is no easy fix to the issues that plague news and social media. But the first step is identifying these issues, and talking about them.

The more media literate we collectively become, the better equipped we will be to reform these broken systems, and push for accuracy and transparency in the communication channels that bind society together.

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Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday gave permission to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to order a statewide probe into alleged human trafficking activities aided by transnational crime organizations (TCOs).

The court approved DeSantis’s request to impanel a statewide grand jury for an initial duration of 12 calendar months to investigate TCOs and their affiliates who allegedly smuggle people—especially children—across the southern border, according to court records reviewed by The Epoch Times.

The statewide grand jury would independently investigate the criminal activities alleged in the petition, including human smuggling, kidnapping, and laundering of illegal substances, and make recommendations on current laws and law enforcement methods if deemed necessary, according to the petition.

Judge Ellen S. Masters, Chief Judge for the Tenth Judicial Circuit, will preside over the grand jury.

“The purpose of the grand jury will be to investigate individuals and organizations that are actively working with foreign nationals, drug cartels, coyotes, to illegally smuggle minors—some as young as 2 years old—across the border and into Florida,” DeSantis said during a press briefing on June 17.

“Many children who are smuggled are ‘assaulted, raped, kidnaped, and/or killed,’” the petition reads. “They are used to traffic drugs and weapons, as well as launder money.”

The petition continued by citing government data that Border Patrol agents have apprehended over 108,000 unaccompanied children who had illegally crossed the border in fiscal year 2021.

Almost all unaccompanied minors are being smuggled up from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Once apprehended, unaccompanied children are processed by Border Patrol and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), usually within 72 hours. HHS then places the child with a sponsor, who often is a family member of the child, according to the petition.

According to a June 17 press release on the governor’s website, the grand jury would also “investigate local governments that are aiding this smuggling scheme by intentionally violating state law, which requires them to cooperate with the federal government on immigration matters.”

The petition names Miami-Dade County as one of the government bodies under investigation.

“According to reports from federal law enforcement, however, Miami–Dade County is refusing to honor federal requests to take custody of criminal aliens in Miami–Dade’s detention facilities, including aliens arrested for attempted murder, domestic violence by strangulation, assault with a deadly weapon, and lewd and lascivious behavior on a minor,” the petition states.

“Miami-Dade appears to be basing this unlawful conduct on fraudulent use of the victim and witness exception.”

DeSantis’s petition comes as a part of what his office announced as a three-part measure to “protect Floridians from the dangerous impacts of the Biden Border crisis.”

The two other parts include assembling a “strike force of state and local law enforcement” personnel to tackle illegal border activities and signing into law a bill (SB 1808) that will prohibit “government agencies from contracting with any common carrier facilitating the resettlement of illegal aliens into Florida.”

Charlotte Cuthbertson contributed to this report.

How tough are things getting globally? Well, a new “admired” beer that’s breaking through in Singapore is being made from “recycled sewage”. 

What part in the global macroeconomic cycle is this again?

The beer, called “NEWBrew”, is a “collaboration between the country’s national water agency, PUB, and local craft brewery Brewerkz,” according to a Bloomberg report this week. The idea was first discussed in 2018 and it finally went on sale this past April. 

58 year old Chew Wei Lian, who recently tried the beer, told Bloomberg: “I seriously couldn’t tell this was made of toilet water. I don’t mind having it if it was in the fridge. I mean, it tastes just like beer, and I like beer.”

How’s that for a ringing endorsement? At least it’s not Busch Light.

The beer uses Singapore’s “NEWater”, which is the country’s drinking water that has been recycled from sewage. The water was first used in 2003 as a project to “improve the island’s water security,” the report says. 

It also says that the idea of processing sewage into drinking water “has been gaining support in the past decade as the world’s supply of fresh water is increasingly under stress”. 2.7 billion worldwide find water scarce for at least one month a year. 

Singapore is hardly the first to try such endeavors. Countries like Israel have also incorporated the technology being used into their supplies. L.A. and London are also looking at similar methods to implement the technology. 

Mitch Gribov, Brewerkz’s head brewer, said about the water: “NEWater perfectly suits brewing because it tastes neutral. The mineral profile of water plays a key role in chemical reactions during brewing.”

But not everyone is “sold” on the idea. 22 year old student Low Yu Chen concluded: “There are many kinds of beers around. If I wanted a beer, I’d pick something made of normal water.”

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via CaitlinJohnstone.com,

Former CIA director and secretary of state Mike Pompeo gave a speech at the Hudson Institute last week that’s probably worth taking a look at just because of how much it reveals about the nature of the US empire and the corrupt institutions which influence its policies.

Pompeo is serving as a “Distinguished Fellow” at the Hudson Institute while he waits for the revolving door of the DC swamp to rotate him back into a federal government position. The Hudson Institute is a neoconservative think tank which has a high degree of overlap with the infamous Project for the New American Century and its lineup of Iraq war architects, and spends a lot of its time manufacturing Beltway support for hawkish agendas against Iran. It was founded in 1961 with the help of a cold warrior named Herman Kahn, whose enthusiastic support for the idea that the US can win a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was reportedly an inspiration for the movie Dr Strangelove.

A think tank is an institution where academics are paid by the worst people in the world to come up with explanations for why it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid, which are then pitched at key points of influence in the media and the government. “Think tank” is a good and accurate label for these institutions, because they are dedicated to controlling what people think, and because they are artificial enclosures for slimy creatures.

Pompeo’s speech is one long rimjob for the military-industrial complex which indirectly employs him. He repeatedly sings the praises of the weapons that are being poured into Ukraine, two of them by name: the Patriot missile built by Raytheon and the Javelin missile built jointly by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, both of whom happen to be major funders of the Hudson Institute. He repeatedly decries the “disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan,” and excoriates the Biden administration for failing to control the world’s fossil fuel resources aggressively enough in its efforts to “prostrate itself to radicals.”

Pompeo, easily ranked among the most fanatical imperialists on the entire planet, hilariously says that “China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a form of imperialism.” He decries a “genocide” in Xinjiang and repeatedly implies that China deliberately unleashed Covid-19 upon the world, calling it “the global pandemic induced by China.” He repeatedly claims that Vladimir Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union.

Along with praise for NATO and for the various anti-China alliances in the Indo-Pacific, Pompeo names “Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan” as “the three lighthouses for liberty” which those alliances must work to support militarily. You will notice that those three “lighthouses” just so happen to be the hottest points of geostrategic conflict with the top three opponents of the US empire: Russia, Iran, and China.

But there are a couple of things Pompeo says which have some real meat on them.

“By aiding Ukraine, we undermined the creation of a Russian-Chinese axis bent on exerting military and economic hegemony in Europe, in Asia and in the Middle East,” Pompeo says.

“We must prevent the formation of a Pan-Eurasian colossus incorporating Russia, but led by China,” he later adds. “To do that, we have to strengthen NATO, and we see that nothing hinders Finland and Sweden’s entry into that organization.”

To stop a “Pan-Eurasian colossus” from forming, @mikepompeo stresses the importance of #Finland and #Sweden joining @NATO as well as #Russia‘s resulting increase in military capability if they are denied entry. pic.twitter.com/er0BKvcjEK

— Hudson Institute (@HudsonInstitute) June 29, 2022

That’s all the major international news stories of today are ultimately about, right there. Underlying all the smaller news stories about conflicts with nations like Russia, China and Iran, there’s one continuous story about the US power alliance trying to secure planetary domination by relentlessly working to subvert any nation which refuses to align with it, and about the nations who oppose that campaign working against it with steadily increasing intimacy.

This is all the Russia hysteria from 2016 onward has been about. This is all the phony, hypocritical hand-wringing about Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong have been about. This is all the staged histrionics about human rights in Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba have been about. It’s all been about manufacturing international consent for an increasingly dangerous campaign to secure unipolar global hegemony at any cost.

It’s worth calling this to mind, as NATO for the first time designates China a threat due to its alignment with Russia and as NATO’s secretary-general admits that NATO has been preparing for a conflict with Russia since 2014. It is worth calling to mind the fact that the US has had a policy in place since the fall of the Soviet Union to prevent the rise of any rival superpower to deny any serious challenge to its planetary domination. It is worth calling to mind that in 1997 the precursor to the US Space Force committed to working toward “full spectrum dominance,” meaning military control over land, sea, air, and space.

US unipolar hegemony.

They are right that China challenges NATO interests: the NATO cartel’s existential goal of enforcing a US global dictatorship, one that imposes neoliberalism on the planet, destroying any country that proposes a state-led, people-centered economic model https://t.co/y5HCWAGkiL

— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 30, 2022

People like to talk about secret conspiracies by shadowy cabals to establish a one-world government, but what is by far the most tangible and imminent global domination agenda has been orchestrated right out in the open. The US government has long sought to unite the world under a single power structure, no matter how much violence and devastation it needs to inflict upon humanity and no matter how much world-threatening nuclear brinkmanship it needs to engage in to do so.

This is the US empire which corrupt psychopaths like Mike Pompeo support. A power structure which wages nonstop wars in order to keep the peace, which continually oppresses populations around the world in order to protect freedom, and which risks nuclear war with increasingly reckless aggression to in order save the world.

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There are a number of factors that determine how much a region’s population changes.

If an area sees a high number of migrants, along with a strong birth rate and low death rate, then its population is bound to increase over time. On the flip side, as Visual Capitalists Nick Routley details below, if more people are leaving the area than coming in, and the region’s birth rate is low, then its population will likely decline.

Which areas in the United States are seeing the most growth, and which places are seeing their populations dwindle?

This map, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, shows a decade of population movement across U.S. counties, painting a detailed picture of U.S. population growth between 2010 and 2020.

Counties With The Biggest Population Growth from 2010-2020

To calculate population estimates for each county, the U.S. Census Bureau does the following calculations:

      A county’s base population → plus births → minus deaths → plus migration = new population estimate

From 2010 to 2020, Maricopa County in Arizona saw the highest increase in its population estimate. Over a decade, the county gained 753,898 residents. Below are the counties that saw the biggest increases in population:

Phoenix and surrounding areas grew faster than any other major city in the country. The region’s sunny climate and amenities are popular with retirees, but another draw is housing affordability. Families from more expensive markets—California in particular—are moving to the city in droves. This is a trend that spilled over into the pandemic era as more people moved into remote and hybrid work situations.

Texas counties saw a lot of growth as well, with five of the top 10 gainers located in the state of Texas. A big draw for Texas is its relatively affordable housing market. In 2021, average home prices in the state stood at $172,500—$53,310 below the national average.

Counties With The Biggest Population Drops from 2010-2020

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here’s a look at the top 10 counties that saw the biggest declines in their populations over the decade:

The largest drops happened in counties along the Great Lakes, including Cook County (which includes the city of Chicago) and Wayne County (which includes the city of Detroit).

For many of these counties, particularly those in America’s “Rust Belt”, population drops over this period were a continuation of decades-long trends. Wayne County is an extreme example of this trend. From 1970 to 2020, the area lost one-third of its population.

U.S. Population Growth in Percentage Terms (2010-2020)

While the map above is great at showing where the greatest number of Americans migrated, it downplays big changes in counties with smaller populations.

For example, McKenzie County in North Dakota, with a 2020 population of just 15,242, was the fastest-growing U.S. county over the past decade. The county’s 138% increase was driven primarily by the Bakken oil boom in the area. High-growth counties in Texas also grew as new sources of energy were extracted in rural areas.

The nation’s counties are evenly divided between population increase and decline, and clear patterns emerge.

Pandemic Population Changes

More recent population changes reflect longer-term trends. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the counties that saw the strongest population increases were located in high-growth states like Florida and Texas.

Below are the 20 counties that grew the most from 2020 to 2021.

Many of these counties are located next to large cities, reflecting a shift to the suburbs and larger living spaces. However, as COVID-19 restrictions ease, and the pandemic housing boom tapers off due to rising interest rates, it remains to be seen whether the suburban shift will continue, or if people begin to migrate back to city centers.

Authored by Mary Hong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is introducing a bill to address domestic food security issues and the global food supply chain by preventing foreign adversaries from acquiring U.S. agricultural companies.

Stefanik’s bill, titled Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security (PASS) Act, would bar anyone acting on behalf of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from taking ownership of a U.S. agricultural company.

“Food security is national security, and I am proud to stand up against our foreign adversaries as they attempt to exploit any potential vulnerability and assert control over our agriculture industry,” Stefanik said in a press release on July 1.

“The United States cannot allow malign ownership bids of American assets by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to undermine the efforts of our farmers, whose hard work feeds and fuels our communities,” she said. “Especially as we witness the devastating impact of a supply chain crisis, the United States cannot cede any ownership of our food supply to those who do not share our security interests.”

Critical Threat to National Security

The proposed legislation included a provision that would make the Secretary of Agriculture a member of the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment. It would also require the secretary to submit a report every 180 days reviewing the risks that foreign purchases of agricultural companies may pose to the U.S. agricultural sector.

“Adversarial nations, like China, continue to threaten our homeland, using tactics like buying American agriculture companies and stealing agriculture research to undermine our economy,” Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), who co-introduced the bill, said in a statement.

“Washington must realize that agriculture security in national security, and we have a duty to protect our food supply and those who produce it.”

Experts have previously told The Epoch Times that Beijing could use U.S. farmland investments to stage espionage campaigns against the United States.

China’s Fufeng Group’s purchase of 370 acres of land in Grand Forks, North Dakota as the location for a massive new corn-milling plant was the largest single private capital investment in the region’s history.

Read more here…

A swarm of earthquakes rattled South Carolina and appeared to be getting more powerful. About 30 quakes have hit the state this year, and geologists are stumped about what’s causing “earthquake swarms” similar to those felt in Southern California. 

Two earthquakes hit Elgin, South Carolina, on Wednesday. The first was a magnitude 3.5, and the second 3.6, according to data from the United States Geological Survey. A 3.4 magnitude earthquake hit the state days before, while a stronger 3.9 rattled parts of the Georgia-South Carolina border on June 18. 

Wednesday’s earthquakes were the strongest since a magnitude of 4.1 struck the state in 2014. 

South Carolina’s Emergency Management Division shared a video of Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology in Washington D.C., who said about 30 quakes struck in the year’s first half. She said the swarm of quakes is different than others because “there is no mainshock, or a larger earthquake that happens first then there are lots of smaller earthquakes that happen afterward … in this case, the swam of quakes are happening a few every week without a large shock.” 

Thank you, Dr. Wendy Bohon.

Indeed, shift happens. https://t.co/pBHHALK9XP

— SCEMD (@SCEMD) June 29, 2022

The emergency agency also tweeted the state does have several fault systems and is “one of the most seismically active states on the East Coast.” However, some geologists are puzzled at why so many swarms are happening. 

“Most earthquakes occur where the earth’s plates come together, and they’re the result of the tension and the stress that builds up as those plates are grinding and moving, slamming into each other. That’s not happening to us here on the East Coast.

“But there are ancient fault lines here from in the past when continents had slammed together … and they are still building up stress and strain but on a much, much slower time scale,” Bohon told the Weather Channel. 

“If you can figure that out, you should go get your tux and pick up your Nobel Prize,” Thomas Pratt, regional coordinator of the Geological Survey’s earthquake hazard program, told The State newspaper. “The Eastern United States, in general, is not on a plate boundary, so it’s a mystery in the scientific community why in this exact location, in the middle of a plate, something would trigger this.”

Could the rumblings under ground suggest the next big quake is nearing? The last powerful quake to shake the state was a magnitude 7.3 in 1886.