blackout

The Earth has just suffered a direct hit by a solar storm. The resulting radiation has caused a shortwave radio blackout over South America. Since the beginning of 2023, the Earth has become a target of vicious solar activity. After suffering a solar storm right on the new year's day, the Earth also became a victim of another eruption in the first week of January. But now, the Sun has blasted the Earth with an even stronger solar flare. According to NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), an X1.9-class solar flare…

A major solar flare activity was recorded in the early hours today, January 6. The X-class flare caused a shortwave radio blackout affecting most of the South Pacific including Australia and New Zealand. It was reported earlier that multiple unstable regions have emerged on the Sun, resulting in chaotic solar activity. This is now impacting Earth. On Wednesday, the Earth suffered a minor solar storm strike, which shockingly, managed to push a satellite away from its orbit. It was also reported that there were chances…

A Duke contractor repairs a power line during a storm in North Carolina in January 2022.Photo: Tom Copeland (AP)Huge portions of the East Coast narrowly avoided a grid catastrophe over Christmas like the one that hit Texas less than two years ago. Even so, hundreds of thousands of customers in North and South Carolina experienced hours-long holiday blackouts with little heads up during freezing temperatures—blackouts that, utility officials said, helped preserve the integrity of the larger grid.On Tuesday, representatives…

LONDON—Europe’s energy-squeezed winter has sent power operators and businesses into high alert for blackout risks, heightened by Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a control room in Glasgow, dozens of engineers and supervisors for months have been executing a series of “desktop rehearsals,” in which they game out the many various ways a blackout could unfold.  Winter is always dicey in Northern Europe, said Guy Jefferson, operations chief for ScottishPower’s SP Energy Networks in…

A dangerous M-5 class solar flare hit the Earth today causing a radio blackout in Australia and New Zealand. As the Sun enters the peak of its solar cycle, more solar flares, solar storms and geomagnetic storms are expected to hit the planet. The Sun is in the middle of its 11-year solar cycle leading to an increase in solar activity and solar output in the past few months. Strong Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) have been observed being emitted from the Sun in the past couple of days. Today, a strong M-5 class solar…

A federal judge dismissed a Pennsylvania mother’s lawsuit against TikTok for circulating the “blackout challenge,” citing a federal law that shielded the social-media company from responsibility regarding her 10-year-old daughter’s death.The mother, Tawainna Anderson, sued TikTok in May, blaming the app for repeatedly pushing dangerous challenge videos to her daughter, Nylah Anderson. She had alleged that in December, TikTok encouraged Nylah to try the…

TikTok won dismissal of a lawsuit accusing it of causing the death of a 10-year-old girl by promoting a deadly "blackout challenge" that encouraged people to choke themselves on its video-based social media platform. US District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia ruled Tuesday that the company was immune from the lawsuit under a part of the federal Communications Decency Act that shields publishers of others' work."The wisdom of conferring such immunity is something properly taken up with Congress, not the courts,"…

Iranians experienced a near-total Internet blackout on Wednesday amid days of mass protests against the government over the death of a woman held by the country's morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code.An Iranian official had earlier hinted that such measures might be taken out of security concerns. The loss of connectivity will make it more difficult for people to organise protests and share information about the government's rolling crackdown on dissent.Iran has seen nationwide protests…

Hurricane Fiona tore through Puerto Rico on Sunday, knocking out power across the island and unleashing catastrophic flooding. As of writing, more than 1.36 million households are without electricity, according to PowerOutage.us.The storm killed at least one man in Guadeloupe in the eastern Caribbean. No deaths have been reported so far in Puerto Rico, but the full scope of damage remains unknown, and dangerous conditions persist on the ground. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the hardest hit and most vulnerable…

Major Nigerian cities including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, were left in darkness Wednesday after electricity workers began a strike over welfare issues. The National Union of Electricity Workers (NUEE) had announced the strike on Tuesday during a protest at the Transmission Company Of Nigeria’s headquarters in Abuja. Electricity distribution companies told customers that there will be power outage as a result of the strike. “The Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc (AEDC) wishes to inform its…