Earthquake shakes Peru's Andes region, killing at least 5, displacing hundreds

Earthquake shakes Peru's Andes region, killing at least 5, displacing hundreds

Stephen Sorace

A powerful earthquake ripped through Peru's Andes region overnight, killing at least five people and leaving hundreds displaced as homes and a church collapsed, with authorities warning Sunday that an unknown number of people remain missing.

The magnitude 5.5 quake struck shortly after 9:20 p.m. Saturday near the city of Sicaya in central Peru, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake injured more than 20 people and forced at least 300 residents from their homes, Peru's National Civil Defense Institute said.

Officials were still trying to account for missing residents Sunday after several buildings collapsed or were left unsafe, including a local church and convent.

Authorities said the region's widespread use of traditional adobe construction likely made the damage worse. Luis Vásquez, head of the local civil defense office, said the rustic building materials "contributed to the greater impact and damage."

Images from the hard-hit farming community of Chongo Bajo showed families wrapped in blankets outside damaged homes as neighbors picked through the rubble. Animals could also be seen trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

"My home has been destroyed," resident Hermenegilda Guamalato told local radio while looking for shelter with her three children in the neighboring province of Huayucachi.

Israel On 'High Alert'

Israel on 'high alert' ahead of possible Iran campaign

Shirit Avitan Cohen

Amid the escalating confrontation between Iran and the United States, Israeli officials say Jerusalem and Washington are maintaining close coordination and direct contact.

"The Israel Defense Forces are on very high alert for every scenario. There will be no surprises," the officials said.

Israeli assessments indicate that as US strikes in Iran expand, and Iranian retaliation intensifies accordingly, the likelihood is growing that Israel will find itself drawn into the renewed campaign.

Three scenarios

According to the officials, Israel could find itself in the line of fire under three possible scenarios:

1. A direct Iranian attack on Israel.
2. Signs that Iran is preparing to attack Israel.
3. A formal US request for the IDF to join the campaign.

None of the three scenarios has materialized so far, and Israel is continuing to strengthen its preparations while remaining outside the fighting.

Senior officials in Jerusalem said continuous contact with Washington was taking place at every level and at all times, reflecting the "majority" of interests shared by the two countries.

However, when the countries' interests do not fully align, discussions are held in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on Israel's security requirements. One example, the officials said, was the continuation of IDF operations in Lebanon despite demands from the White House.

Now, however, with fighting in Iran resuming and appearing to be heading toward further escalation, Jerusalem has not yet received a signal from Washington to enter the campaign. As of publication, Iran also appears uninterested in deliberately drawing Israel into the conflict.

A further area of close coordination involves aviation. Israel and the United States are conducting daily assessments based on the operational needs of the US military following the renewed outbreak of fighting with Iran.

For now, under instructions issued by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, the large number of US aerial refueling aircraft that have returned to the region have been directed to Israeli Air Force bases around the country.

However, officials familiar with the matter said there was a tangible risk that numerous commercial flights could be canceled if the offensive expanded and the US military needed to increase its aircraft presence at Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Netanyahu's planned trip to the United States next week to attend the funeral of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is also at risk of cancellation because of the regional security tensions.

Netanyahu hinted at that possibility during a meeting Sunday with Likud mayors, saying that if the security situation escalated, the party would not hold primaries ahead of the elections. Instead, a selection committee would be established to determine the makeup of the Likud candidate list.

The drone threat

Another Iranian threat troubling Israel's defense establishment is the possible use of drones launched from inside the country.

As reported over the weekend, Israel is considering a complete suspension of civilian drone flights and making the operation of a drone without authorization a criminal offense.

Although the use of drones against Israeli forces in Lebanon appears to have been largely curtailed, the primary concern is that all elements of the Iranian axis possess similar capabilities in areas very close to Israel's borders.

Dr. Yossi Mansharof, an Iran and Shiite militias researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and a lecturer in the University of Haifa's Middle East Politics master's program at the School of Political Sciences, told Hayom that "the level of the threat from Iran is extremely high."

He warned that the regime's capabilities should not be underestimated, as the Houthis' capabilities initially were. "Their technological capabilities improve as the years pass. They are not standing still, and that has to be taken into account," Mansharof said.

"If this device, the 'fiber drone,' is in Hezbollah's possession, it is probably held by the entire axis, particularly along the Jordanian border. The defense establishment therefore needs to maintain heightened vigilance.

"Given the nature of the threats, I would expect the Israeli Air Force to shorten its response time, unlike what we saw on Oct. 7."

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US hits Iranian command centers in ninth night of strikes as American death toll rises

US hits Iranian command centers in ninth night of strikes as American death toll rises

News Agencies

CENTCOM says the latest attacks targeted air defenses, coastal surveillance, maritime capabilities, missile and drone sites and communications networks as Iran reported strikes across several cities and the US military confirmed another death

The U.S. military completed its ninth consecutive night of strikes against Iran, targeting military command centers, air defenses, coastal-surveillance sites, maritime capabilities and missile and drone infrastructure, U.S. Central Command said Sunday.

CENTCOM said the operation began at 10 p.m. ET on July 19 and also struck communications networks used by the Iranian military.

The command said the attacks were intended to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial vessels and civilian mariners in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian media reported explosions in several cities early Monday. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said U.S. missiles struck Tabriz, Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini.

The latest attacks came as the number of confirmed U.S. military deaths in the renewed fighting rose to three.

The U.S. military said Sunday that a service member was killed Saturday in northern Iraq during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian attack drone.

Two other U.S. service members were killed Friday in Jordan, while another was listed as missing. CENTCOM said unidentified remains had been found at the attack site and were undergoing examination.

The latest death brought the total number of U.S. military personnel killed since the war began to 17, with more than 420 others wounded.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had carried out a surprise strike against what it called the enemy’s special-operations headquarters in Syria’s Al-Tanf region.

Iranian state television also reported that Tehran had launched a drone attack on U.S. military assets at Kuwait’s Al-Adiri camp and Ali Al Salem Air Base. Both locations had already been targeted during attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the Gulf over the past week.

Kuwait said a desalination plant was struck for a second consecutive day, causing a fire. The government described the attack as a direct strike on vital civilian infrastructure.

Concerns over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz also intensified after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center received a report that a vessel was on fire near Oman’s coast. The cause had not been verified.

Oil prices rose 3% Monday, with Brent crude futures climbing above $90 a barrel, their highest level since June 11.

The attacks followed CENTCOM’s eighth consecutive wave of strikes, which targeted Iranian coastal-surveillance and air-defense facilities.

The United States and Iran have intensified their attacks as an interim ceasefire agreement signed a month ago has unraveled and the struggle over control of the Strait of Hormuz has deepened.

“We hit them very hard again tonight, and we did it in honor of” the U.S. service members killed since Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters after returning from the World Cup final.

The U.S. Embassy in Bahrain also warned that it had information suggesting Iran could seek to target unspecified locations in central Manama and urged Americans to remain vigilant.

What Makes Imminency So Essential?

What Makes Imminency So Essential?

J Brentner

As readers of the Nearing Midnight column, you recognize the myriad of signs pointing to Jesus’ soon arrival to take us home to glory. However, as the days become weeks and then months and years, we sometimes struggle to maintain an eager anticipation of Jesus’s appearing. If you are like me, you wonder how much closer can we get to the start of the Tribulation before we meet Him in the air?

The silence in most churches regarding our “blessed hope” makes our expectation all the more difficult to maintain. Many of our Christian friends and family members believe it’s irrational to regard the Rapture as something that might happen in our lifetime, if at all. We also hear the laughter of Christians who mock our expectation of Jesus’ imminent appearing.

In spite of all these things, I remain convinced that imminency is not only important for the day in which we live, but also essential for believers regardless of the times in which we live.

I say this for a variety of reasons.

Imminency Imitates the Expectancy of New Testament Saints

When we view the Rapture as something that might take place at any moment, we imitate the expectations of the New Testament saints. Just a cursory sampling of verses from the epistles confirms that they lived each day with a sense of imminency:

• “For the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:8).
• “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20, LSB).
• “So that you are not lacking in any gift, eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Corinthians 1:7, LSB).
• “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

Early in his ministry, Paul believed that the Rapture might happen during his lifetime (1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:52). How is that possible apart from believing Jesus’ appearing could happen at any moment?

Imminency Leads to a Closer Walk with Jesus

The awareness that Jesus might come for us at any moment results in a closer walk with Him. The Apostle John alludes to this in 1 John 2:28:

“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”

What’s the encouragement in this verse for continuing to “abide” in Jesus? It’s the awareness that at any moment, we might find ourselves in the presence of our glorious and righteous Savior. Does this not motivate us to promptly deal with bitterness, unforgiveness, anger, and other sins rather than let them gain a foothold in us (i.e., Ephesians 4:26-27)?

In 1 John 3:2-3, John explains how our focus on Jesus’ appearing produces greater purity in us:

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

We will not arrive at sinless perfection in this life; however, living with the awareness that Jesus might come for us at any moment keeps us close to the Savior and quickly brings us back to Him when we sin and go astray.

Imminency Enables Us to Maintain an Eternal Perspective

I remember waiting for Metro trains to arrive in Washington, D.C. Once the countdown for the next train’s arrival neared zero, I fixed my eyes on the tunnel at the end of the platform, watching for its light to shine through the darkness.

Likewise, the awareness that the Rapture might occur at any moment sets our hopes on eternal realities as nothing else can. Paul describes this perspective for us in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Imminency provides us with a continual reminder that the things of this life are temporary and causes us to place a greater value on eternal realities versus our hopes for a brighter tomorrow. This perspective calms my anxious heart every week, if not daily.

The “no Rapture” message of our day greatly harms believers because it leads to an earthbound outlook on life that ignores eternal realities. They believe in eternal life, but it’s a far-distant, after-death reality that is easily overlooked amid the busyness of life. As a result, they focus on temporary aspirations which inevitably lead to greater frustration when things inevitably go awry.

Imminency Reminds Us of Jesus’ Certain Intervention

Not only does imminency change our perspective of the things of this life, but it also reminds us that Jesus will surely intervene in the world and righteously judge the violence, lawlessness, and widespread government corruption so prevalent in our day.

Although David wrote Psalm 37 a very long time ago, its message continues to calm the anger we feel as we watch evil and corruption prevail around us. Our expectation of Jesus’ soon appearing reminds us that the time of the Lord’s righteous judgment will begin in the not-too-distant future.

We do not need to see the perpetrators of today’s great wickedness and violence face the consequences for their actions (although admittedly, I would like to see many of them behind bars). Even should the Lord call us home before the Rapture, it’s our expectation that it might happen at any moment that keeps us from fretting that people successfully carry out their wicked schemes and steal billions of taxpayer money.

We live on the edge of eternity. The convergence of so many signs awakes us daily to the reality that we live in the last moments before Jesus’ dramatic intervention in human affairs, which we call the Rapture.

We do not know how much longer we will have to wait, but just knowing it could happen at any moment calms our hearts amid the perilous times in which we live. It also continually reminds us that this life is not all there is as we face the many storms and trials here below. Is it any wonder the Apostle Paul referred to it as our “blessed hope?”

Maranatha! Come soon, Lord Jesus.

The Next Phase Of Shrinkflation: Rolling Blackouts

The Next Phase Of Shrinkflation: Rolling Blackouts

By Peter Schiff

At the turn of the 20th century, hardly anyone had electricity in their homes. By 1920, it was about 35%. By the time the Great Depression hit in 1929, roughly 70% of US homes were electrified, and urban areas were nearly 85%.

The systems were surprisingly reliable given the rudimentary technology of the day. Blackouts were not infrequent, but they were generally short and localized, often just affecting a few streets or houses.

And typically the biggest reason for a short, localized blackout was simply because electrical demand was increasing more rapidly than the grid could create new supply. More and more homes were being electrified, and, after World War II, consumer appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners began consuming more power. We’ll come back to that.

In response, the industry began looking for efficiencies to be able to scale more quickly. They built larger, beefier power plants and connected their independent grids to be able to share reserves and load balance.

In short, they planned for speed and scale. Not resilience. And the end result was an incredibly complex network that was highly vulnerable to systemic failure.

That failure first came at 5:16pm on November 9, 1965: a minor maintenance issue near Niagara Falls triggered a chain reaction across the entire grid. 30 million people went without power– most until the next morning, some for a few days.

With the electrical grid’s vulnerabilities laid bare, Congress held inquiries and hearings. New rules and regulations were passed. And, before long, the US electrical industry became a confusing alphabet soup of state, local, and federal authorities– ISOs and RTOs, FERC, PJM, MISO, CAISO, SPP, and so many more.

Layers and layers of bureaucratic agencies didn’t fix anything. But technology was quite fortunately on America’s side, and over the past few decades, advances (like LED bulbs) made consumer appliances more energy efficient. Power plants also became more productive.

In fact, today the US consumes less electricity per capita than it did in 1995. And the grid produces much more power.

But this balance is starting to change rapidly.

We all know the story of data centers and their insatiable appetites for energy. Electricity is such a critical input, in fact, that data centers are typically described by their power consumption.

For example, Softbank recently announced 5GW of new data centers in France. The famous StarGate project in the US is targeting 10GW. Facebook is building a 5GW data center in Louisiana.

And various plans over the next few years go in to several hundred gigawatts.

This trend is similar to the 1950s– utility companies struggled to keep up with surging demand from US consumers who were plugging in air conditioners and refrigerators for the first time.

But supply and demand in the electricity market is a funny thing. Demand can surge very quickly… just like we’ve seen over the past year or so. But electrical supply grows more slowly.

New power plants take years to build. Thanks to the aforementioned alphabet soup, the regulatory burden alone is a minefield.

And most electrical producers aren’t willing to go through the effort, risk, and capital expenditure unless they’re sure the new power plant will be profitable. And profitability depends on the price of electricity.

That’s where politicians and the regulators have stepped in to screw it all up.

Naturally, with demand soaring and supply constrained, electricity prices are rising. You’d think that politicians would respond by making it easier for utilities to build new power plants, i.e. reduce the regulatory and permitting process to increase electricity supply.

But no. Instead, they’re capping prices.

Last year, a whole lot of state officials and federal regulators got together to set a ceiling for certain wholesale electricity prices to roughly $333 per megawatt-day.

Clearly, they’re responding to voters’ demands to rein in inflation and reduce the cost of living.

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