Cessna Private Jet Crash at Shenandoah Valley Leaves 4 Dead

Posted on June 5, 2023 by Leslie Park

FAA investigated the incident of the private jet crash on Sunday afternoon at Shenandoah Valley. The plane flew over the restricted zone in D.C. and military f-16s intercepted a plane with a sonic boom which shocked the residents in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The supersonic speeds of the responsive fighter jets jolted over the nation’s capital region with high warning alerts. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) are investigating the incident. Virginia State Police reported no survivors.

The FAA said that a Cessna Citation aircraft departed from Elizabethton, TN, and was headed to Long Island McArthur Airport in New York. The plane didn’t land at Long Island airport and turned around over the airport flying a straight path to D.C. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) F-16 jets intercepted the plane around 3:20 p.m., and the military aircraft tried to make contact with the Cessna pilot until the plane crashed in Shenandoah Valley.

The NORAD was authorized to operate at supersonic speeds and the sonic boom that resulted startled DMV area residents. According to the data from FlightAware, the Cessna flew over 34,000 feet altitude and dropped down to 20,000 feet in a very short time.

Virginia State Police said in a statement, it was notified of a possible aircraft crash at 3:50 p.m. in the Shenandoah mountains regions at Stanton and Blue Ridge Parkway. FAA and NTSB are going to a future update, according to NPR.

John and Barbara Rumpel, a Florida-based company, owned the Cessna aircraft. John Rumpel said his daughter, his 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny, and the pilot were on aboard the flight. Barbara Rumpel said on her Facebook, “My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter

DUI Driver Switches Seat with Dog After Police Stop

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Leslie Park

Photo from Google images

A piece of news got the attention of viewers all over the world today, and in a way, its delightfulness helps us with a breather in an otherwise bleak world. This Colorado man made many people smile, and it went viral in many news outlets and media.

A driver in Colorado was pulled over by an officer and the driver was in fact intoxicated at the time of the incident. He quickly swapped his seat with his passenger-side pal, his dog, and he himself sat down passenger seat after being pulled over by the officer. He drove 52 mph in a 30 mph zone, according to CBS, The driver claimed that he was not driving the car. He ran away from the officer, and he was apprehended 20 yards away from the scene at the end.

The man has two warrants for his arrest in Pueblo, Colorado, and was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, driving while ability impaired, driving under suspension, speeding 20-24 over, and resisting arrest. The incident happened at 11:30 p.m. last Saturday.

He was booked in the Baca County Jail after he was checked with an accompanying officer at the local hospital. His friend will take care of the dog while he is held behind bars in the meantime.

“The dog does not face any charges and was let go with just a warning,” they joked on the Facebook of the Springfield Police Department, Colorado. The department said that the investigation is ongoing and all parties are still innocent until proven guilty.

WHO Says Don’t Take No-Sugar Sweetener

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Leslie Park

After the pandemic, many Americans have gained a few pounds of weight, especially those who work from home, which is the most significant change from a few years back. Of course, there are many factors that contribute to this weight gain.

Today, WHO released a new guideline on non-sugar sweeteners (NSS), which recommends against the use of NSS to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

WHO says the use of NSS does not confer any long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children after its findings of a systematic review of the available pieces of evidence. Results of the review also suggest that there may be unfavorable effects from long-term use of NSS, like an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and mortalities in adults.

According to WHO, “Replacing free sugars with NSS does not help with weight control in the long term. People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars [intakes], such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages,” says Francesco Branca, WHO Director for Nutrition and Food Safety. “NSS are not essential dietary factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health.”

The most common NSS include acesulfame K, aspartame, advantage, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin, sucralose, stevia, and stevia derivatives. Some exception applies to personal care and hygiene products like toothpaste, skin cream, and medications or low-calorie sugars and sugar alcohols (polyols) which are sugars or sugar derivatives containing calories are not considered NSS.

The WHO guideline on NSS is for establishing lifelong healthy eating habits, improving dietary quality, and decreasing the unnecessary health risk of NCDs worldwide.

As More Data Centers Move East, Water Scarcity Concerns Rise for the Residents

Posted on April 26, 2023 by Leslie Park

Recently severe drought hit Virginia. In recent years, more data centers have moved from the West Coast to East Coast. This has many residents worrying about water scarcity. Data centers require electricity to run the computer equipment, and it also requires cooling down servers and maintaining a certain temperature. They currently use about 2% of the nation’s total electricity supplies. Data centers can use traditional air conditioning or use water to evaporate and cool down the servers; usually, water is preferred as the cheaper choice.

With more data centers being built across northern Virginia, residents are becoming increasingly concerned with the cutting down of trees, increase in traffic jams and congestion (even more), as well as noise (https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/verify-whats-all-the-data-center-noise-about/65-0a695ecf-9eac-44bc-93f8-9fd7f4bbfd88) from data centers to nearby neighborhoods and elementary schools.

Many residents have become concerned with the aesthetics of living next to a large, usually blocky concrete structure that emits loud noises and uses up too much water and electricity.

More than 30% of the world’s data centers are located in the United States, according to the Washington Post, and Virginia (VA) has over 300 data centers, making it the state which has the most data centers in the United States. Of this total, ~90% or 275 data centers reside in Northern Virginia, specifically in , Prince William County, and Fairfax County, according to a Google search (Aug 16, 2022).

Virginia is a very popular state for data centers as it offers lower taxes for the requirement of employment and meets the statutory investment. According to VEDP, “Virginia offers an exemption from retail sales and uses tax for qualifying computer equipment purchased by data centers that meet statutory investment and employment requirements. Virginia was the first state to allow the tenants of colocation data centers to receive the benefit of the sales tax exemption. In addition, local business property tax rates on computers and related equipment for data centers have been reduced by a number of localities.”

That’s great, Virginia, but Data Centers are also consuming significant amounts of water and electricity; as summer approaches and the burden on water and electricity increases, how will this impact us? Furthermore, as Virginia gets drier, who will have to bear the burden of the extensive amount of data centers now in place?

Teacher Shot by 6-year-old student seeks $40 million for Damages

Posted on April 3, 2023 by Leslie Park

A first-grade Newport News elementary teacher who was shot and seriously injured by her 6-year-old student seeks a $40 million lawsuit against the Virginia state school system. According to AP, she had complained to the school officials several times about the boy’s behaviors against his peers and the teacher in her classroom; he had a gun and was in a “violent mood,” but the school official didn’t provide a suitable protocol.

Abby Zwerner (25), the teacher from Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, VA was shot by the boy and has had to undergo four surgeries since the shooting happened. She got two shots in her chest and on her hand on Jan. 6, 2023.

The lawsuit defendants are the Newport News School Board, former Superintendent George Parker III, former Richneck principal Briana Foster Newton, and former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker.

According to AP, no one has been charged in the shooting, including the boy. The school board fired the superintendent, and the assistant principal resigned. Newton is still in the school system. After the incident, the school board decided to install metal detectors in every school and has begun checking backpacks in the district including at Richneck elementary school.

Zwerner’s attorneys say in a lawsuit, all of the defendants knew the boy “had a history of random violence” at school and home. The boy had violent behavior in last year where he “strangled and choked” his kindergarten teacher.

The lawsuit states that school employees gave administrators a series of warnings in the hours before the shooting, beginning with Zwerner, who went to the office of assistant principal Ebony Parker between 11:15 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. She told Parker that the boy “was in a violent mood,” threatened to beat up a kindergartener, and stared down a security officer in the lunchroom. The lawsuit alleges that Parker “had no response, refusing even to look up at (Zwerner) when she expressed her concerns,”

The boy denied and refused to provide his backpack to look up after two students saw a firearm in his possession in the reading room. Zwerner told Kovac, the reading specialist that she had seen the boy take something out of his backpack and put it into the pocket of his sweatshirt. Kovac searched the backpack and didn’t find a weapon.

Kovac told Ebony Parker, that around 11:45 a.m., she’d been alerted by two students that the boy had a gun and Parker responded that “pockets were too small to hold a handgun and did nothing.”

A first-grade boy also reported seeing the gun, and the boy’s teacher informed the office and a music teacher, and both heard of the boy’s firearm possession and let Parker know. About one hour later, the boy shot the gun out of his pocket to aim at Zwerner and shot her.

The boy used his mother’s gun which had been purchased legally. An attorney for the boy’s family has said that the firearm was secured on a high closet shelf and had a lock on it.

[Opinion] Palm Reading leads more job cutting in Tech Companies?

Posted on March 22, 2023 by Leslie Park

AIs are replacing human jobs and workloads in some workplaces. Now, Amazon sells business software and its service to the U.S. cafe chain Panera Bread, and consumers’ eyes are wide open. This new software allows people to pay by opening their palms in front of the scanner at the cash register. According to Yahoo.com, Amazon started to sell such business software in June 2022 and has provided for more than 69 locations in U.S. and UK.

Amazon One device is a scanning system for regular customers that let customers scan their plans to pay, with two locations in greater St. Louis. Kumar said the deployment would expand to 10-20 Panera cafes in the coming months. Vice President Dilip Kumar from Amazon said the e-commerce and cloud-computing giant is widening the deployment of its contactless technology with existing customers, in an interview with Reuters.

“More than 50 of the installations were with the likes of independent retailers, stadiums, and university customers, and the rest were in Whole Foods and other Amazon stores,” he added.

AI and automation are seemingly threatening when it comes to people and their ability to retain and keep their jobs. Since November 2022, Amazon has cut jobs by a total of 27,000. Tech companies are cutting jobs like relay races now a day.

Due to the harsh economic climate, many businesses are liquidating their inventories and selling off their businesses or just closing. Meta cut 10,000 jobs in 2023, Google cut 12,000 in January, and Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees in January 2023.

M 5.7 Earthquake Jolts the Ground Already in Flood Aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle Hits In New Zealand

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Leslie Park

Photo captured from USGS

A magnitude of 5.7 earthquakes struck the Cook Strait by New Zealand on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. In the aftermath of the cyclone, Gabrielle hits the country disabled by the landslides and flooding. New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Center tweeted that the shake was “widely felt in the North Island.” There were no immediate reports of damage or injury and no tsunami warning.

According to USGS, The location of New Zealand is the “3000 km long Australia-Pacific Plate boundary” extending from south of Macquarie Island to the southern-Kermadec Island chain which is two oppositely verging subduction zones (Puysegur and Hikurangi) and a transpressive continental transform, the Alpine Fault through South Island, New Zealand.

Due to the transformation of the tectonic plates, convergence, and subduction activities have occurred. The Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone generates many large earthquakes on the interface between the descending Pacific and overriding the Australian plates. Since 2009, one of the largest normal faults (outer rise) earthquakes has ever been recorded as of M 8.1 at the south of Samoa, 40 km east of the Tonga trench, generating a tsunami that left 180 people dead.

The earthquake occurred at the depth of 74km (50 miles) between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, is experiencing landslides and flooding due to cyclone Gabrielle, which has been causing havoc in the northern part of the country leaving four people dead this week.

More heavy rain is on the way toward the area as water undertakes the whole region and 5 million people are at risk according to ABC News. In 2011, an earthquake jolted at the South Island leaving 185 people dead. As long as the nation sits on the “Ring of Fire”, more earthquakes will visit the country in the future.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Shows 10 Sample Tubes on Mars for Future Mission

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Leslie Park

Perseverance’s Portrait of the Sample Depot: An annotated version of the portrait captured by NASA’s Perseverance shows the location of the 10 sample tubes in the depot. The “Amalik” sample closest to the rover was about 10 feet (3 meters) away; the “Mageik” and “Malay” samples farthest away were approximately 197 feet (60 meters) from the rover. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS.

NASA just announced the Perseverance rover began building a sample depot on Mars on December 21, 2022, and its 10 titanic tube samples at specific places were completed. The 10 sample tubes are on the surface of Mars where future missions of its “sample retrieval lander” will be part of the campaign, from another planet to Earth to study, according to NASA. “Perseverance built the depot at “Three Forks,” a location within Jezero Crater. Billions of years ago, a river flowed into the crater, carrying sediment that formed a steep, fan-shaped delta that the rover will drive up in the months ahead.”

The 10-tube samples for Mars are astrobiology that seeks the signs of ancient microbial life and the rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate for human exploration of the Red Planet. The first mission will be collecting and caching Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are cooperating on this mission, and they will send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed tube samples from the surface to bring them to deep analysis.

Eight tubes are filled with rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), one is an atmospheric sample, and one is a witness tube. The rover photographed the depot using the Mastcam-Z camera on the top of its mast, or “head,” on Jan.31, 2023. The color has been adjusted to show the Martian surface closely as it would look to the human eyes. The rover collected 18 tube samples for backup originally.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover. Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Neils Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.

Most Scenic Vista with Full Foliage at Shenandoah National Park

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Leslie Park

Photo by CoreeILBO.com

People from all over the states know the best time to visit Shenandoah National Mountains, and there were many cars sporting different state licenses on Skyline drive on Monday. However, the weather was a little shy about the tides of people who passed by the outlook with a cloudy sky. Many senior citizens were seen holding tightly onto their smartphones or cameras to catch the beautiful views.

Fall seems to be nearing its end as quickly as it has arrived, with weather forecasters calling for snow and a quick drop in temperatures as early as tomorrow. Peak foliage will be between this week and next week in Washington, D.C. areas.

There are many parks surrounding DMV. There are at least 10 best spots for nature lovers:

Shenandoah National Mountains
Rock Creek Park
Prince William Forest
Blandy Experimental Farm
Harpers Ferry
National Mall
National Arboretum
Dumbarton Oaks
Theodore Roosevelt Island
Great Falls Park

If you are over 62 years old, you are eligible for the Senior lifetime pass through the National Park Service. The cost is $80 for your lifetime access to National Parks and/or National Recreation fields in all 50 states. Sometimes, a few moments away from the headache-inducing human reality and choosing to visit nature, could do all of us wonders.

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Is Loudoun County the Next K-Restaurant Spot?

Posted on October 12, 2022 by Leslie Park

Since K-Pop has become more famous around the world, K-Restaurants are booming all around the globe. From Korean fusion snacking restaurants to K-style bakeries located in northern Virginia, these places are crowded especially at meal times. Paris Baguette is one of them. Paris Baguette has reportedly begun searching for a business location in Loudoun County. One might expect Shilla Bakery to follow suit, as Northern Virginia is home to a big Korean population.

Korean-owned companies are prone to compete in the business field which comes from the Korean culture where competition has always been notoriously fierce, from as young as pre-schoolers to death.

Paris Baguette bakery is slightly more expensive than Shilla Bakery, but its decor is more modern, and its food, equally so. Shilla Bakery’s breads are more traditional or familiar to the generation of Koreans who grew up in the 70s and 80s, whereas Paris Baguette is more appealing to the younger generation due to its experimental nature.

That being said, as the price of living in Loudoun county is quite high, if the prices reflect this, Koreans and other K-food-loving folks might go to the cheaper stores in Centreville or Fairfax, and the stores should keep this in mind when pricing their foods. No one wants a reputation of being exceedingly highly-priced as that will drive down demand.