From India Today [https://www.indiatoday.in/environment/video/china-xinjiang-cold-wave-2504772-2024-02-20] - Watch: China's Xinjiang records -52.3 C: Birds freeze to death, lakes crack China's Xinjiang region is facing an unprecedented cold spell, marking its harshest winter in over six decades. Temperatures plummeted to a staggering minus 52.3 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking a 64-year-old record. This extreme weather event occurred amid traffic disruptions following the Lunar New Year holiday, further complicating the situation for residents and travellers alike. The sudden and dramatic temperature drop had immediate and tragic consequences for the region's wildlife. A significant number of waterfowl were caught off guard by the rapid onset of freezing temperatures, resulting in their instantaneous freezing in the lakes before they could escape. Additionally, footage emerged of wolves tunneling through the deep snow that blanketed Xinjiang. The severe drop in temperature is part of a broader pattern of unusual weather phenomena affecting China, attributed to factors such as the weakening of the polar vortex, which allows cold air from the Arctic to move southward, and changes in global climate patterns. From Reuters - [https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xinjiang-battles-harshest-cold-spell-over-six-decades-2024-02-19/] China's Xinjiang battles harshest cold spell in over six decades BEIJING, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Temperatures broke a 64-year-old record in China's far western region of Xinjiang, plunging to a bone-chilling minus 52.3 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Farenheit) amid a cold spell and traffic disruptions following the Lunar New Year holiday... State media said Sunday's milestone in the Tuerhong township of Fuyun county was the lowest since records began in Xinjiang, surpassing a temperature of minus 51.5 C (minus 60.7 F) set on Jan. 21, 1960. The figure was just shy of the lowest national temperature of minus 53 C (minus 63.4 F) in Mohe, a city in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang on Jan. 22 last year.

Video Credit - https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1757502504240107781 Post See new posts Conversation Breaking911 @Breaking911 SHOCK VIDEO: Female Cops UNLOAD on woman inside Houston apartment during burglary call • The Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) in Houston, Texas, released body camera footage showing deputies opening fire through a window while responding to a reported break-in. • The footage captures two officers approaching an upstairs apartment on Feb. 3. • The officers began shooting upon spotting a person inside who was believed to be armed, said HCSO. • Eboni Pouncy, identified as a friend of the apartment's resident, sustained five gunshot wounds to her leg and torso during the incident. • Attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Pouncy, said the video is evidence of "unnecessary and excessive force." • The incident is under investigation. Story Credit - https://abc7chicago.com/harris-county-texas-body-camera-mistaken-identity/14416355/ Texas deputies shoot woman mistaken for intruder, bodycam video shows HOUSTON -- The Harris County Sheriff's Office in Texas released body camera videos one week after a woman was shot by deputies after allegedly being mistaken for an intruder. On Feb. 3, deputies responded to a burglary at the Pines of Woodforest Apartments in the Cloverleaf area at about 2 a.m. The caller spoke with our sister station, ABC13 Eyewitness News in Houston, last week, saying he wishes he hadn't reported the suspected break-in, considering what happened next. "I was sitting on my couch, and I just started hearing glass breaking," Mitchell said. "I heard [the sheriff's office] knock on the door, nobody responded, and then maybe five seconds later, I heard a gun." Asst. Chief Tommy Diaz said deputies saw the apartment window broken, knocked, and announced their presence, but as they stepped away from the entrance, an armed woman could be seen through the window approaching the door. Seconds later, deputies fired multiple rounds, striking 28-year-old Eboni Pouncy who shares the apartment with her girlfriend, but Diaz said she wasn't an intruder. Investigators said that one of the women had forgotten her keys and smashed the window herself. On Saturday, the sheriff's office released the body cam videos of the two female deputies accused of opening fire. In both videos, the deputies can be heard knocking on the apartment door, announcing they're with the sheriff's office. Moments pass, and one deputy can be heard saying, "Someone is coming," before you hear a deputy shout, "Drop the gun!" Several shots are then fired. Both deputies can be seen reloading. One repeats her order to drop the weapon before both continue to shoot into the apartment. You can hear them talking on their radios, saying, "Shots fired." Pouncy's girlfriend told reporters Friday that she and Pouncy heard banging on the door and that Pouncy walked to the door with gun. In a cell phone video provided to Eyewitness News, you can see Pouncy's girlfriend being ordered downstairs after the shooting. "I live here. Please don't shoot," she yells before deputies order her onto her knees and handcuff her. Pouncy was taken to the hospital and has since retained high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump to represent her as she explores legal actions. "She got shot in the leg, got shot in the torso, many places," Crump told Eyewitness News. Both deputies will be placed on leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told ABC13 that one deputy has been with the department for four years, and the other has one year of patrol experience. The case is also being referred to a grand jury, which is standard in officer-involved shootings. The Harris County District Attorney's Office is conducting an independent investigation, which is standard when a deputy uses potentially deadly force.

[Please like, share and subscribe] This is not news, but the explosions were impressive as hell, so I thought I would share them for the visual spectacle. Following is the Wiki intro on the event - Link here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions On 12 August 2015, a series of explosions at the Port of Tianjin in Tianjin, Northern China, killed 173 people, according to official reports,[2] and injured hundreds of others. The explosions occurred at a container storage station in the Binhai New Area of Tianjin, China. The first two explosions occurred 33 seconds apart.[3] The second explosion was much larger and involved the detonation of about 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (approx. 256 tonnes TNT equivalent).[4][5] Fires caused by the initial explosions continued to burn uncontrolled throughout the weekend, resulting in eight additional explosions on 15 August. The cause of the explosions was not immediately known, but an investigation concluded in February 2016 that an overheated container of dry nitrocellulose was the cause of the initial explosion.[6] The official casualty report was 173 deaths, eight missing, and 798 non-fatal injuries. Of the 173 fatalities, 104 were firefighters.[7]

Today, 2024/1/17, Javier Milei, libertarian president of Argentina, addressed the World Economic Forum convention in Davos.