The scale of the Western crisis is demonstrated by a time-lapse photo of dust from a storm in Colorado and smoke from wildfires in New Mexico.

The video is captivating. A sheet of brown spills down from the north like a swash on a beach as three whitish-gray geysers erupt from the New Mexico highlands in the direction of the east.

What it represents is far more destructive.

Two deadly occurrences are depicted in the time-lapse photo, which was taken by a satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The first is a wildfire outbreak that began in northern New Mexico last month and has grown in size over the last two weeks as a result of an extremely dry climate and strong winds. The second is a dust storm in Colorado brought on by strong winds.

Both serve as illustrations of the kinds of natural disasters that, as a result of climate change, are growing more severe and frequent.

The NASA Earth Observatory reported that as of Tuesday, there were seven sizable fires active in New Mexico. Four of them are visible in the satellite view. The Cerro Pelado fire, which has burned about 27,000 acres close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the most western. The Cooks Peak fire, which has burned around 59,000 acres close to Taos, is the most northern. The Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires, which combined into a single massive, 160,000-acre conflagration around April 22; are located immediately south of that.

An area greater than Indianapolis is covered by the 380 square miles of burning land visible in the satellite image. Numerous people have had to leave their homes due to the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon fire, including those in Las Vegas, New Mexico, a community of 13,000 people located approximately an hour east of Santa Fe.

Although wildfires naturally occur in Western ecosystems, human activity has made them more worse. A significant factor is drought. The American Southwest has seen the driest two decades in 12 centuries, partly as a result of climate change, and there are currently no signs that the situation will soon get better.

The wind is another significant aspect that is currently stoking all of the flames in northern New Mexico. In actuality, the Hermits Peak Fire began as a planned burn, which is a fire purposefully started under controlled circumstances to remove dry vegetation and lower the risk of larger, uncontrolled fires, but blustery, uncontrollable winds caused it to spread quickly.

The Colorado dust storm, the second event visible in the NOAA image, was likewise brought on by strong winds.

The National Weather Service in Pueblo, Colorado, warned of highly hazardous driving conditions on Friday: “Visibility is lowering to near nil and winds are gusting to 50-60 m.p.h. within this blowing dust.”

The effects of these catastrophes can be extremely extensive, as shown by the satellite images. Even though the “brownout” conditions during the dust storm were largely confined, winds carried the dust particles hundreds of miles through southeast Colorado, western Kansas, and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles.

Air quality is lowered by fine particulate matter, which also poses health risks, especially for those who already have heart or lung conditions. That holds true for all wildfire by products, including smoke, soot, and dust.

The sun turned red as far east as New York City last summer due to wildfires, which caused air quality alerts to be issued over practically the entire nation. Additionally, scientists discovered in January that harmful ozone and smoke levels were rising over most of the Western United States.

An assistant professor admitted to killing his wife in their own house after being accused of doing so. Adam Brown, a former lecturer at Deakin University, admitted to killing Chen Cheng, the mother of his children, in court on Tuesday. After attempting to escape her murderer, Ms. Cheng, 35, was found dead at the back gate of their garden in Croydon North, northeast of Melbourne. According to Daily Mail Australia, Ms. Cheng was ‘fighting for her life’ just before she was allegedly fatally stabbed by Brown.

Unbelievably startling details, which can only now be published, show that Ms. Cheng begged her neighbors to save her life just before police said her husband killed her by stabbing her. Outside Chen Cheng’s home, where authorities believe her husband killed her, there were floral arrangements.

Around 10 p.m. on the night of the murder, a neighbor of the family who wished to remain anonymous told the Daily Mail Australia that she had rushed to Ms. Cheng’s aid after hearing horrific screams coming from her residence. “I knew someone was in trouble when I heard the screaming.” ,” she said.

The couple walked to the front of the family’s residence to investigate with the assistance of another neighbor who was equally startled by the screaming next door. I pounded on the door when he asked if we should knock. She then uttered the words “Call the police, he wants to kill me.” She yelled but was unable to escape.

The young mother allegedly tried to flee by the rear gate after being unable to do so through the front door, according to the heartbroken neighbor who had become friendly with Ms. Cheng. Ms. Cheng’s bloody body was later discovered behind the gate, which was likewise locked, by paramedics.

A mourner left a message on a bouquet of flowers outside the house where Chen Cheng was stabbed to death

She screamed to be let out as she went across the yard and pounded ferociously on the wooden door. She cried out, “Help me, help me, help me.” The neighbor of Mrs. Cheng said, “And then there was stillness.

“Subsequently, there was total silence. There was silence, and I wondered in my head, “Did she pass out or what?” I’m not sure. Never did she come out.

The toddler son of the couple was then taken by another neighbor and sent to safety to a nearby residence.

I was told that she was battling for her life. She wants to leave that home. The neighbor reported that she was shrieking and fighting for her life.

After that, Brown sat and observed as a neighbor and paramedics struggled to save his wife’s life.

Despite the neighbor’s and paramedics’ best attempts, Ms. Cheng passed away right there and then.

The gate where Chen Cheng was last heard yelling for aid before going silent had no way out.

“(A male neighbor) and I knocked on the door before the ambulance arrived, but I didn’t go inside because there was total silence after all the yelling,” she said.

“So he opened the garage door, then… They immediately raced downstairs to get the nurse after seeing her.

In the frantic minutes before police and paramedics arrived, the off-duty nurse labored assiduously to save Ms. Cheng.

The Melbourne Assessment Prison is where Brown, 40, will reside until his upcoming court appearance later this month. He entered his plea there via video link.

In an odd move, the prosecution requested that the court be closed so that a psychologist who had treated Brown during her interactions with the suspected murderer prior to the tragedy could be heard.

In order to conduct additional investigations in preparation for Brown’s formal plea in the Supreme Court of Victoria, the court was informed that the police were keen to learn what transpired between the couple.

Flowers were left outside the Patrick Avenue home where the young family appeared to be content after Ms. Cheng’s death stunned the country earlier this year.

A note was written on one of the bouquets, “Brought another woman.” At the location of the monument, only one candle was still burning. In a “very horrific” sight, bags of blood-stained evidence were hauled from the two-story estate as detectives searched the grounds for leads, according to forensic officers.

Toys for kids were also taken out of bags. The family appeared to be a typical, content family, according to neighbors who spoke with Daily Mail Australia.

A neighbor remarked, “He always said hello and just did his thing.

Ms. Cheng was praised as a kind neighbor who went above and beyond to assist others.

“She was coming, and I had an accident last year. They were a typical family, according to a different neighbor.

Brown held a Ph.D. in philosophy and was an associate professor of media and communications.

In 2017, he wed Ms. Cheng in China, and the two of them have since had two young children.

On International Women’s Day of the previous year, the social media addict sent a loving homage to his wife.

Brown referred to Ms. Cheng as a “strong, talented, and hilarious woman” in an Instagram post.

On the occasion of #InternationalWomensDay, I’d like to give a special shout-out to the powerful, funny, and creative woman who allows me the honor of being in her presence every day. She keeps me laughing, keeps me healthy, and always makes sure I’ll be ready for the night, he said. at that point.

Less than two weeks prior to his wife’s passing, Brown posted a different video to Twitter in which he captured the two ridings “The Slingshot,” a ride at a theme park.

The teacher’s wife responded simply, “This is fun,” when her husband overheard them laughing and asked whether she felt uncomfortable.

As 2021 came to a close, crypto enthusiasts were brimming with optimism. After all, it had been a banner year: Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, had crossed into the mainstream. Casual investors were talking to their friends about the relative merits of Bitcoin versus Ether. Some people even pretended to understand algorithmic stablecoins.

Fast forward a year, and the primary topics of conversation among even the most devout of the crypto faithful were more likely to be about Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced crypto co-founder of the fallen FTX empire, or whether they’d ever retrieve the coins trapped on bankrupt exchanges and lending platforms after a series of big digital-asset collapses.

“Crypto winter” is the industry term for the chill that descended on the market in 2022, and contagion was the name of the game. After the collapse of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin, major crypto players fell like dominos: Three Arrows Capital. Voyager Digital, Celsius Network, FTX, BlockFi.

The hits kept coming, but it wasn’t all downside – at least at first. The Super Bowl, one of the largest sporting events in the US, featured splashy, celebrity-filled commercials for crypto companies including Coinbase, Crypto.com and the aforementioned FTX, which was still riding high. There were crypto conferences in the Bahamas and Miami, with sessions about the future of Bitcoin by day and glitzy parties by night. And the industry’s prominence grew in Washington, as lavish political giving and an army of lobbyists signaled its increasing influence there.

Still, crypto prices kept falling. Bitcoin – the largest token by market value – plunged more than 60%, leading a rout in digital assets that erased some $2 trillion in total market value from the highs reached in November 2021. Bankman-Fried went from being described as a modern John Pierpont Morgan to being arrested and accused of multiple crimes including fraud. And NFT prices fell back to earth.

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