First up, US President Barack Obama wants changes made to America's criminal justice system. Yesterday he announced new government action attended to help rehabilitate1 US prisoners and help get their lives back on track after their time is served. His announcement came in as US government wrapped up its early release of 6000 federal prisoners, it was the largest release of its kind in American history. The president is also calling on Congress to change prison sentencing law for people who committed non-violent drug crime. It's part of an effort to decrease the US prison population, his action comes at a time when the use of certain drugs, especially heroine has increased in recent years. And some officials like the head of NYC's police department said the government needs to be cautious about the people in releases from prison, he says many inmates2 go to jail with negotiated charges, leading some might have committed violent crimes, they are just not specifically serving time for them.
The US Geological survey said the first earthquake that hit just before 9 pm with magnitude 3.2, the second 2.5 hours later with stronger magnitude 4.1, the third 20 minutes after that 4.0, this wouldn't have been breaking news in San Francisco maybe, but this series of earthquakes was felt in
Phoenix3 Arizona, pretty far remove from the west coast major fall line, there wasn't any major damage, quick speed magnitudes are felt, pictures may sway, place may fall, but they are not usually very destructive, still local residents were shaking up, US scientists are finding their potential for these well beyond Phoenix.
You may think that people living on the west coast are the only ones at risk of an earthquake, but that's far from the truth, in fact, the US CES just released new research that says nearly half of all Americans are at risk from damage shaking due to earthquake, the wonder is the population has grown significantly in some of these areas more
prone4 to earthquake, but also scientists haven't their
capability5 of estimating where these danger zones are so its sates have the strongest shaking potential, California, Washington, Utah, Tennessee, Oregon, South Carolina, Nevada, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, you may be surprised that how many east coast states are on the list, scientists learnt a lot from the Virginia earthquake in 2011, they say that a stronger earthquake is possible, specifically stating tower in South Carolina is at risk. NYC, you had a little good news, the threat is down from slower shaking which causes more damage to taller building VS fast shaking which does more damage to shorter structure, even with this new information,there is still a threat. California has always been known for their risk of earthquake, and that hasn't changed, in fact the risk has actually gone up for southern California and north bay area, and then specific northwest, the cascadia subduction zone has the potential to produce an earthquake with magnitude up to 9.3, this was discovered b studying the 2011 earthquake in Japan and the 2014 earthquake in Toa, both occurred along subduction zone similar to the northwest zone, whether you live right along a fall or not, you may still be at a risk of feeling the shaking from an earthquake.