SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – A dog weighing more than 120 pounds survived being frozen to a sidewalk overnight, probably because he was insulated by layers of fat, authorities said. The Sheboygan County Humane Society says the "morbidly obese" dog, an aging border collie mix named Jiffy, froze to the sidewalk when he was left out overnight Wednesday. Shelter manager Carey Payne says few dogs could survive the single-digit temperatures, and it was probably the fat that made the difference.
Jiffy's 59-year-old owner was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of animal neglect, Sheboygan Police Lt. Tim Eirich said. She told police she tried to get the dog inside but couldn't, and instead checked on him every few hours.
The dog is 11 or 12 years old, Eirich said. Shelter workers poured warm water over Jiffy's back end to unstick him from the sidewalk, Payne said, and it was too soon to say whether he suffered any long-term effects.
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Information from: The Sheboygan Press, http://www.sheboyganpress.com
Saturday, December 6, 2008
5.1 quake hits inland Southern California
LOS ANGELES - A moderate earthquake struck a sparsely populated area of the Mojave Desert on Friday night and could be felt from Southern California to the fringes of Nevada and Arizona. No injuries or damage were reported.
The 5.1-magnitude temblor struck at 8:18 p.m. just outside Ludlow near Interstate 40 in San Bernardino County, about 120 miles east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The initial reports measured the quake at 5.5-magnitude.
"The ground was rolling underneath but it was very light. Nothing," said Jeremy Chestnut, 20, who was at a Dairy Queen in Ludlow when the quake struck. "I was standing in front of an ice cream machine and it makes the ground shake, too."
The quake is the second one above a magnitude-5.0 to hit Southern California this year. In July, a magnitude-5.4 quake centered in the hills east of Los Angeles was the strongest to rattle a populated area of Southern California since the 1994 Northridge disaster.
In the town of Yermo, about 20 miles from Ludlow, a dozen people in Lee's Tavern didn't seem too concerned when the bottles began to rattle.
"Everyone said, 'Oh, it's an earthquake.'" said Leon Lee, the bar's owner. "We didn't hardly feel anything, just some kind of vibration."
The quake struck 16 miles northwest of Ludlow, which has a population of 10, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
The quake was "relatively shallow and if it were located in a more populated area it could be very damaging," USGS
seismologist Richard Buckmaster said. "But it's out in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere."
Across the Colorado River at the western Arizona border, Fort Mojave Tribal police dispatcher Jessica Hopkins said she felt a gentle rumbling.
Shaking was also felt in Las Vegas, said Scott Allison, a spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department in Nevada. He said there were no reports of injuries or damage.
"People were just calling 911 saying, 'Did I feel the earth move?'" Allison said.
The temblor was just a few miles from where the 7.1-magnitude Hector Mine quake hit in 1999. USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said it was probably an aftershock of that shake. She said it's not uncommon for big earthquakes to spawn aftershocks years later.
Southern California on average feels about three moderate earthquakes a year, but the region has been unusually quiet since the Northridge quake, Jones said.
Kelly Ghiloni, a spokeswoman with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, said she felt shaking for several seconds but saw no major damage.
"There was some shaking, a little bit of rattling," Ghiloni said. "It was enough to wake you up and know there was an earthquake."
USGS geophysicist Rafael Abreu said the closest fault is the Lavic Lake Fault.
---
Associated Press writers Alicia Chang and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
The 5.1-magnitude temblor struck at 8:18 p.m. just outside Ludlow near Interstate 40 in San Bernardino County, about 120 miles east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The initial reports measured the quake at 5.5-magnitude.
"The ground was rolling underneath but it was very light. Nothing," said Jeremy Chestnut, 20, who was at a Dairy Queen in Ludlow when the quake struck. "I was standing in front of an ice cream machine and it makes the ground shake, too."
The quake is the second one above a magnitude-5.0 to hit Southern California this year. In July, a magnitude-5.4 quake centered in the hills east of Los Angeles was the strongest to rattle a populated area of Southern California since the 1994 Northridge disaster.
In the town of Yermo, about 20 miles from Ludlow, a dozen people in Lee's Tavern didn't seem too concerned when the bottles began to rattle.
"Everyone said, 'Oh, it's an earthquake.'" said Leon Lee, the bar's owner. "We didn't hardly feel anything, just some kind of vibration."
The quake struck 16 miles northwest of Ludlow, which has a population of 10, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
The quake was "relatively shallow and if it were located in a more populated area it could be very damaging," USGS
seismologist Richard Buckmaster said. "But it's out in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere."
Across the Colorado River at the western Arizona border, Fort Mojave Tribal police dispatcher Jessica Hopkins said she felt a gentle rumbling.
Shaking was also felt in Las Vegas, said Scott Allison, a spokesman for the Clark County Fire Department in Nevada. He said there were no reports of injuries or damage.
"People were just calling 911 saying, 'Did I feel the earth move?'" Allison said.
The temblor was just a few miles from where the 7.1-magnitude Hector Mine quake hit in 1999. USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said it was probably an aftershock of that shake. She said it's not uncommon for big earthquakes to spawn aftershocks years later.
Southern California on average feels about three moderate earthquakes a year, but the region has been unusually quiet since the Northridge quake, Jones said.
Kelly Ghiloni, a spokeswoman with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, said she felt shaking for several seconds but saw no major damage.
"There was some shaking, a little bit of rattling," Ghiloni said. "It was enough to wake you up and know there was an earthquake."
USGS geophysicist Rafael Abreu said the closest fault is the Lavic Lake Fault.
---
Associated Press writers Alicia Chang and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
Return to $1 gas? Energy prices evaporate
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Oil prices hit four-year lows Friday as employers cut the highest number of jobs in 34 years. The continuing decline in prices is so dramatic and so sudden that it is raising the prospect that gas prices could soon fall below $1 a gallon.
The worst jobs data in 34 years on Friday just added more fuel to the deepening global recession as U.S. employers slashed a far worse-than-expected 533,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate rose to a 15-year high of 6.7 percent.
A gallon of gasoline can be had for 50 cents less than it cost just last month, and people are starting to talk about $1 gas.
Granted, gas prices are a long way off from that magic number last seen in March 1999 when prices were at 97 cents a gallon, according to motor club AAA. Prices at the pump fell 1.6 cents overnight to $1.773 nationally, according to AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
But consider what has happened since July 11 when a barrel of oil hit a record $147.27 and a gallon of gas was $4.117 on July 17. In less than five months, oil has fallen 72 percent.
Just this week, in which the National Bureau of Economic Research determined that the U.S. is in recession, oil has fallen 25 percent.
On Friday, light, sweet crude for January delivery settled at $40.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down by nearly $3 per barrel. Prices fell as low at $40.50, levels last seen in December 2004.
Gasoline futures for January delivery tumbled to 90 cents.
For gas prices to get close to a $1, oil prices probably would need to fall another $10 a barrel -- something that would have impossible to fathom during first part of this year as oil prices soared near $150 per barrel.
"Just seeing that '1' up there is just hard to imagine," said Kevin Keating, 65, an attorney as he filled up his Volvo S60 at a station in Phoenix that advertised prices at $1.67. "Wasn't that long ago that we worried about the '4' being up there."
Prices in New York City are well above the national averages, but still well off their highs of nearly $5 this summer.
"When gas prices are OK, we make a little profit," said Mamady Kourouma, 36, a cab driver from Guinea who paid $2.41 a gallon at a station in Chelsea.
With wages stagnant, home prices plummeting and foreclosure rated soaring, dollar-a-gallon gas may help mom fill up in the family minivan and cab drivers in New York City, but prices that low also would truly speak to how rotten the economy has become.
"The economy at that point worldwide would be in a serious, serious deterioration," said Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for AAA.
Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said Thursday on his blog that retail prices could fetch $1.25 a gallon soon in parts of the Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.
Already, some parts of the country are seeing prices around that level. The Web site gasbuddy.com, where motorists can post local gas prices, motorists can fill up for $1.29 in Neelyville, Mo., a village of about 500 people near the Arkansas state line.
The jobs number suggests that demand for gasoline, which has been running well below year-ago levels even with the cheaper prices in the last several weeks, will fall even more in early 2009 as work-related driving plummets, said Kloza.
"I believe that January 2009 will represent the most 'challenging' and ugly economic month of my lifetime, and my first memory is of Sputnik," Kloza said.
There is plenty of reason to suspect Kloza is right.
Since the start of the recession, the economy has lost 1.9 million jobs, the number of unemployed people has increased by 2.7 million and the jobless rate is up 1.7 percentage points. The meltdown in financial markets has crushed lending, the Detroit 3 are on the brink of bankruptcy without a big government bailout.
Friday's report was much deeper than the 320,000 job cuts economists were forecasting. If there is a plus side it is that the unemployment rate did not climb to the 6.8 percent level economists were expecting.
Kloza does not believe prices will make it to a $1. Gas prices neared a dollar last time on Dec. 18, 2001, three months after the terrorist attacks and the country in its last recession, when prices hit $1.08 a gallon.
Though the weak gasoline prices point how bad the economy is, they also could help it turnaround.
"That could be one important spur to some kind of economic recovery," Sundstrom said.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures tumbled 6.83 cents to settle at 90 cents. Heating oil slid 8.26 cents to $1.4265 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery shed 24.7 cents to sell at $5.77 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, January Brent crude slipped by $2.42 cents to $39.86 on the ICE Futures exchange.
AP Energy Writers Ernest Scheyder in New York and Chris Kahn in Phoenix contributed to this story along with Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, and Alex Kennedy in Singapore.
The worst jobs data in 34 years on Friday just added more fuel to the deepening global recession as U.S. employers slashed a far worse-than-expected 533,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate rose to a 15-year high of 6.7 percent.
A gallon of gasoline can be had for 50 cents less than it cost just last month, and people are starting to talk about $1 gas.
Granted, gas prices are a long way off from that magic number last seen in March 1999 when prices were at 97 cents a gallon, according to motor club AAA. Prices at the pump fell 1.6 cents overnight to $1.773 nationally, according to AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
But consider what has happened since July 11 when a barrel of oil hit a record $147.27 and a gallon of gas was $4.117 on July 17. In less than five months, oil has fallen 72 percent.
Just this week, in which the National Bureau of Economic Research determined that the U.S. is in recession, oil has fallen 25 percent.
On Friday, light, sweet crude for January delivery settled at $40.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down by nearly $3 per barrel. Prices fell as low at $40.50, levels last seen in December 2004.
Gasoline futures for January delivery tumbled to 90 cents.
For gas prices to get close to a $1, oil prices probably would need to fall another $10 a barrel -- something that would have impossible to fathom during first part of this year as oil prices soared near $150 per barrel.
"Just seeing that '1' up there is just hard to imagine," said Kevin Keating, 65, an attorney as he filled up his Volvo S60 at a station in Phoenix that advertised prices at $1.67. "Wasn't that long ago that we worried about the '4' being up there."
Prices in New York City are well above the national averages, but still well off their highs of nearly $5 this summer.
"When gas prices are OK, we make a little profit," said Mamady Kourouma, 36, a cab driver from Guinea who paid $2.41 a gallon at a station in Chelsea.
With wages stagnant, home prices plummeting and foreclosure rated soaring, dollar-a-gallon gas may help mom fill up in the family minivan and cab drivers in New York City, but prices that low also would truly speak to how rotten the economy has become.
"The economy at that point worldwide would be in a serious, serious deterioration," said Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for AAA.
Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said Thursday on his blog that retail prices could fetch $1.25 a gallon soon in parts of the Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.
Already, some parts of the country are seeing prices around that level. The Web site gasbuddy.com, where motorists can post local gas prices, motorists can fill up for $1.29 in Neelyville, Mo., a village of about 500 people near the Arkansas state line.
The jobs number suggests that demand for gasoline, which has been running well below year-ago levels even with the cheaper prices in the last several weeks, will fall even more in early 2009 as work-related driving plummets, said Kloza.
"I believe that January 2009 will represent the most 'challenging' and ugly economic month of my lifetime, and my first memory is of Sputnik," Kloza said.
There is plenty of reason to suspect Kloza is right.
Since the start of the recession, the economy has lost 1.9 million jobs, the number of unemployed people has increased by 2.7 million and the jobless rate is up 1.7 percentage points. The meltdown in financial markets has crushed lending, the Detroit 3 are on the brink of bankruptcy without a big government bailout.
Friday's report was much deeper than the 320,000 job cuts economists were forecasting. If there is a plus side it is that the unemployment rate did not climb to the 6.8 percent level economists were expecting.
Kloza does not believe prices will make it to a $1. Gas prices neared a dollar last time on Dec. 18, 2001, three months after the terrorist attacks and the country in its last recession, when prices hit $1.08 a gallon.
Though the weak gasoline prices point how bad the economy is, they also could help it turnaround.
"That could be one important spur to some kind of economic recovery," Sundstrom said.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures tumbled 6.83 cents to settle at 90 cents. Heating oil slid 8.26 cents to $1.4265 a gallon while natural gas for January delivery shed 24.7 cents to sell at $5.77 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, January Brent crude slipped by $2.42 cents to $39.86 on the ICE Futures exchange.
AP Energy Writers Ernest Scheyder in New York and Chris Kahn in Phoenix contributed to this story along with Associated Press writers George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, and Alex Kennedy in Singapore.
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