Thread by @LookNoFurther4

Tourists flock to Chernobyl
Climate change->plant extinctions
2 Baby whales
ISIS terrorist subdued by 3 Americans on French train convicted
Henry VIII’s traumatic brain injury
Sarah Palin is not going quietly
Miss America-100 years old
JFK's last Christmas look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

1. In the afternoon of August 21, 2015, a French train carrying 554 passengers from Amsterdam to Paris was attacked by a 25-year-old Moroccan man named Ayoub El Khazzani.

2. He emerged from a train lavatory shirtless, brandishing a carbine and wearing a backpack that contained an automatic pistol, a utility knife, ammunition magazines and a bottle of gasoline.

3. A young Frenchman immediately attempted to restrain El Khazzani, but the young man was overpowered and fell to the floor. An American-born Frenchman, Mark Moogalian, joined in the struggle and pulled the carbine from Khazzani’s hand.

4. As Moogalian turned to push his wife to safety, El Khazzani pulled the pistol from his backpack and shot Moogalian in the back. El Khazzani then retrieved the carbine and advanced into the train car, attempting to fire at the seated passengers. Mercifully, the weapon misfired.

5.Three American friends from CA- Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler - were sitting together in the train car about 30 feet down the aisle from El Khazzani. Stone and Skarlatos were on leave from the US military and Sadler had joined them for a European vacation.

6.Skarlatos saw El Khazzani approach and cried out to his friends, Get him! Stone charged up the aisle, grabbed El Khazzani and placed him in a chokehold. El Khazzani dropped the carbine but cut Stone in the hand, head &neck with the utility knife, nearly severing Stone’s thumb.

7.Skarlatos grabbed the jammed carbine off the floor and began jabbing it into El Khazzani’s head while Stone continued his chokehold. El Khazzani fell unconscience. Chris Norman and a French train driver helped to hold El Khazzani down, using Norman’s T-shirt to tie his arms.

8.As Skarlatos went through the train searching for other gunmen, Stone, a military-trained medic, stopped Moogalian’s bleeding by inserting fingers into his wound to pinch a severed artery.

9. After he was detained, El Khazzani initially claimed that he was a homeless man who had found the weapons in an abandoned suitcase and wanted only to rob the train passengers.

10. Later, El Khazzani confessed that he was from Syria and had traveled to Europe for the purpose of killing Americans in revenge for Syrian bombings.

11.On Thursday, a special French terrorism court convicted El Khazzani for attempted terrorist murder after a month-long trial, rejecting his contention that he had changed his mind about the assault as events unfolded.

12.The three American friends testified at the trial and their stories captivated the courtroom.

13.As the trial unfolded, the prosecutors exposed El Khazzani as a part of the same network of ISIS terrorists that mounted the deadly music hall, cafe, restaurant and sports stadium attacks that claimed 130 lives in Paris three months later.

14. Both the train attack and the Paris attacks were orchestrated by the same man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud; and El Khazzani had traveled with Abaaoud when he left Syria.

15. French special forces killed Abaaoud shortly after the Paris massacre; and it was revealed in court that El Khazzani had been flagged by French authorities as a security risk.

16. El Khazzani was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum sentence before parole consideration of 22 years. Three accomplices who weren’t on the train were also convicted in the trial.

17. The three young Americans -- buddies since childhood -- received the French Legion of Honor from the French President and were welcomed into the Oval Office by President Obama. Clint Eastwood made a movie about them.

18. This story comes from our most recent edition of Eight Things To Know. There are seven other stories. Each contains background info and history that illuminates a pressing issue.

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19. Even the most stalwart of John McCain’s defenders shake their heads over his elevation of one-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to the national stage.

20.During the 2008 campaign, Republican strategists credited Palin with energizing their base, drawing large crowds of enthusiastic supporters to rallies in the hinterlands.

21. Few Palin fans were dissuaded from thinking she was a suitable vice presidential candidate by her stilted performance during the Katie Couric television interviews or her strange cameo appearance on SNL.

22. Couric later said that Palin’s interview fumble, after she had been asked about her newspaper reading, fed into a growing anti-intellectualism in the country: "I think there's such a reverse snobbery about intellectuals...it would almost be seen as a badge of honor."

23. Couric was right. In his final days, McCain called his selection of Palin a mistake, expressing regret that he had not instead chosen Joe Lieberman as his running mate.

24.2020 has been a tumultuous year for Sarah Palin. Her 31-year marriage to Todd, her high school sweetheart, ended on March 23, in sealed, uncontested divorce proceedings that he had filed on his birthday. They have five children and several grandchildren.

25.Palin has lived in the Scottsdale, Arizona, area for the past decade, but recently sold a large home there. Palin has posted photos to her Instagram account in the past several weeks indicating she now considers Wasilla, Alaska, her legal residence.

26.Lisa Murkowski’s Senate term expires in two years and Palin may be considering entering the race for her seat. Palin’s Instagram account contains recent videos in which Palin criticizes Murkowski, in classic ‘Palin-speak,’ for not doing what “Alaska voters elected her to do.”

27. On March 11, Palin made an appearance on a Fox TV reality show called “The Masked Singer.” Wearing a fluffy pink costume and holding a microphone, Palin bumps and grinds while reciting the lyrics to “Baby Got Back,” a rap song about large derrieres.

28. I was raised not to talk about such things; but if you want to see Palin in action, we have the Youtube video in our report. You can watch it there.

It's awful and I am embarrassed for all John McCain supporters.

I really am.

29.Palin was the keynote speaker at the NYYoung Republicans’ annual gala on Dec 3. Last weekend, Palin toured GA, urging the audience at a Marietta campaign rally to “crush” the vote for GOP senatorial candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue to avoid “another rigged election.”

30. Palin’s Georgia campaign appearances are a part of a “Save America Tour,” sponsored by the conservative PAC Club For Growth.

While in Georgia, Palin smiled for photographs with rally attendees while wearing a sheer blouse and leather jacket.

[no masks or social distancing]

31. She was joined onstage by Cong. Jim Jordan & rep-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene [QAnon] used the occasion to proclaim that Georgia had actually voted to re-elect Trump, a sentiment with which Palin, a long-time Trump supporter, strongly agrees.

32. Sarah Palin is not going quietly.

33. This story comes from our most recent edition of Eight Things To Know. There are seven other stories. Each contains background info and history that illuminates a pressing issue.

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34. At 1:23 am on April 26, 1986, an explosion occurred in Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine [then part of the Soviet Union], sparking a large fire that ignited fuel and toxic materials as it quickly consumed adjacent buildings.

35. Radioactive debris rained down over the Chernobyl plant and winds carried toxic fumes and dust north over Belarus and the Baltic states, reaching Sweden three days later.

36When Sweden publicized information about radiation level changes &the toxic fumes & dust, scientists were able to trace the source of the contamin to Chernobyl. Only then did the Soviet Union acknowledge that its Chernobyl nuclear reactor had suffered a catastrophic accident.

37.During the 10 days that firefighters worked to put out the fire, toxic emissions swelled into the atmosphere, where winds carried them north across much of Europe. These toxic emissions continued to spew out from Chernobyl for 10 more days after the fire had been extinguished.

38. Evacuations of the 50,000 residents of Pripyat — just two miles away — began 36 hours after the explosion; and by then, many people were complaining of vomiting and headaches.

39. After two more weeks had passed, Soviet officials closed off an 18-mile area around the Chernobyl plant — the exclusion zone— evacuating 116,000 additional residents, including those from the old village of Chernobyl nine miles away.

40.Over the next few years, another 220,000 local residents were advised to leave the area and the exclusion zone reverted to forest. It is now home to large populations of animals — wolves, deer, lynx, beaver, eagles, boar, elk and bears — who thrive in an area devoid of humans.

41. The Chernobyl plant operated four Soviet RBMK-1000 nuclear reactors that were built during the 1970s and 1980s using a design that engineers now believe was fatally flawed.

42. Valery Legasov, then a dep director of the Soviet Union’s leading nuclear energy research institute, committed suicide 2 years after the Chernobyl explosion.
Legasov was in despair over the failure of authorities to take seriously his warnings of catastrophic design flaws.

43. After his death, all remaining RBMK nuclear reactors were retrofitted with safety features. It is believed that nine RBMK reactors continue to operate in Russia and one reactor of similar design currently operates in North Korea.

44. The govt of Ukraine has allowed tourists to make one-day visits to the Chernobyl area for the last decade. Visitors are restricted to certain areas within the exclusion zone and are not allowed to wander on their own. This type of trip is sometimes called “disaster tourism.”

45. Visitors may not sit or touch any structures or plants, pocket any “souvenirs,” or place anything on the ground. They must submit to radiation level checks at the beginning and end of their visit, with an intermediate check at mid-day.

46.Despite these restrictions and radiation concerns, about 140,000 tourists visited Chernobyl in 2019. Many were drawn there following the release of an HBO film on the disaster. Tourist trackers say that Chernobyl now ranks as the #1 tourist site in Ukraine.

47. Pripyat, the ghost town that was once home to 50,000, draws the most interest. Pripyat has a decaying amusement park with rusted bumper cars and an intact Ferris wheel. Residential neighborhoods still hold personal belongings abandoned in the evacuation.

48. Ukraine-based tour company SoloEast Travel currently runs daylong tours through Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, taking visitors within 1,000 feet of the capped Reactor #4.

49Ukraine has decided to request that the Chernobyl exclusion zone be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Officials believe a UNESCO designation could boost the # of annual Chernobyl visitors to one million, generating funds that would permit a better regulation of visitors.

50. Achieving a UNESCO designation would be a classic example of using a lemon to make lemonade….

Does Chernobyl meet UNESCO’s criteria of having “outstanding universal value”? A decision is not expected until 2023.

51. This story comes from our most recent edition of Eight Things To Know. There are seven other stories. Each contains background info and history that illuminates a pressing issue.

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52.Two newborn whales, from a critically endangered species called the North Atlantic right whale, were spotted swimming off the coast of Florida in early December. This is happy news for one of the world’s most endangered large whale species.

53. The right whale is suffering a worrying downward population trend that began in 2010, with whale deaths outpacing births Only 400 right whales are now believed to survive. Fewer than 100 are breeding females.

54. By the early 1890s, commercial whalers had hunted the right whales to the brink of extinction. While whaling is no longer a threat, #climatechange has forced the right whale to move to more dangerous waters.

55.Warmer ocean water has caused small crustaceans — the right whale’s food source — to relocate. The whales have followed their prey into these new areas, where they face heightened risks from fishing net and line entanglements and vessel strikes.

56. Fishing net and line entanglements and vessel strikes are now the leading causes of right whale mortality.

57.Even after moving to new areas, the right whale is struggling to find enough to eat. Birth rates have fallen and the time interval between pregnancies has lengthened, showing that reproductively active females are having difficulty finding sufficient food to support pregnancy.

58.Ocean noise levels from human activities, especially from Naval vessels and oil and gas installations, have risen dramatically, causing more problems for the right whale. They rely on their ability to hear distant ocean noises clearly to forage for food, find a mate..
{NatGeo]

59...avoid predators, communicate with one another and navigate through vast waters. High levels of human ocean noise interfere with natural ocean sounds, making these whale functions more difficult.
[NatGeoMag]

60.The outlook for the right whale is grim.

Human life will surely go on when there are no more North Atlantic right whales, but we can’t say what the consequences will be for interdependent ocean species.
[Oceana/BBC]

61.

There are so many linkages in nature’s chain.

A break in one link threatens everything else.

[JournalPioneer]

62. This story comes from the most recent edition of Eight Things To Know. There are seven other stories. Each illuminates a pressing issue with background info and history.
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[WWF]