Teachers In US' Colorado Trained To Carry Guns In Classrooms

Los Angeles, Jun 22: Teachers in Colorado are being trained to use guns, which they will be allowed to carry in classrooms to fire back in the event of a school shooting.

A group of 17 teachers and staff in Weld County are taking part in a three-day course this week organized by the conservative organization Coloradans for Civil Liberties.

Laura Carno, the founder of the group, told news agency that the so-called FASTER training is carried out by off-duty police officers who teach participants how to respond in the event of an emergency.

FASTER is the acronym for "Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response," a program created in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children as well as six staff members were killed.

"The reason why (carrying weapons in schools) is developing is because it's a dangerous world," Carno said, referring to some of the mass shootings that have taken place in the United States in recent years.

Under Colorado law, staff at schools can carry concealed weapons as long as they have a permit and are designated as security officers.

Carno said the majority of those taking part in the training this week work in rural districts where a police response could take 30 to 45 minutes.

The training involves lessons about gun safety and use as well as emergency response and how to overcome a threat as students flee a classroom that comes under attack.

"The purpose is not to replace police and emergency medical personnel, but to allow teachers, administrators, and other personnel on-site to stop school violence rapidly and render medical aid immediately," according to FASTER's website.

Such training, however, has been denounced by groups that favor gun control and who say weapons do not belong in schools.

"The dangers of adding guns to a school environment are dramatically increased by allowing loaded lethal weapons into a school environment on a daily basis -- as the promoters of FASTER envision," Ken Tolz, founder of Safe Campus Colorado, told the NBC station in Denver.

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Powerful solar storm hits earth; will it disrupt communication, power grids?

News Network

May 11,2024

Washington, May 11: The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to Britain -- and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend.

The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) -- expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun -- came just after 1600 GMT, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center.

It was later upgraded to an "extreme" geomagnetic storm -- the first since the "Halloween Storms" of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged power infrastructure in South Africa. More CMEs are expected to pummel the planet in the coming days.

Social media lit up with people posting pictures of auroras from northern Europe and Australasia.

"We've just woken the kids to go watch the Northern Lights in the back garden! Clearly visible with the naked eye," Iain Mansfield in Hertford, England, told AFP.

That sense of wonder was shared in Australia's island state of Tasmania.

"Absolutely biblical skies in Tasmania at 4 am this morning. I'm leaving today and knew I could not pass up this opportunity," photographer Sean O' Riordan posted on social media platform X alongside a photo.

Authorities notified satellite operators, airlines, and the power grid to take precautionary steps for potential disruptions caused by changes to Earth's magnetic field.

Elon Musk, whose Starlink satellite internet operator has some 5,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, described the solar storm as the "biggest in a long time."

"Starlink satellites are under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far," Musk posted on his X platform.

Unlike solar flares, which travel at the speed of light and reach Earth in around eight minutes, CMEs travel at a more sedate pace, with officials putting the current average at 800 kilometers (500 miles) per second.

The CMEs emanated from a massive sunspot cluster that is 17 times wider than our planet. The Sun is approaching the peak of an 11-year cycle that brings heightened activity.

'Go outside tonight and look'

Mathew Owens, a professor of space physics at the University of Reading, told AFP that how far the effects would be felt over the planet's northern and southern latitudes would depend on the storm's final strength.

"Go outside tonight and look would be my advice because if you see the aurora, it's quite a spectacular thing," he said. People with eclipse glasses can also look for the sunspot cluster during the day.

In the United States, this could include places such as Northern California and Alabama, officials said.

NOAA's Brent Gordon encouraged the public to try to capture the night sky with phone cameras even if they couldn't see auroras with their naked eyes.

"Just go out your back door and take a picture with the newer cell phones and you'd be amazed at what you see in that picture versus what you see with your eyes."

Spacecraft and pigeons

Fluctuating magnetic fields associated with geomagnetic storms induce currents in long wires, including power lines, which can potentially lead to blackouts. Long pipelines can also become electrified, leading to engineering problems.

Spacecraft are also at risk from high doses of radiation, although the atmosphere prevents this from reaching Earth.

NASA has a dedicated team looking into astronaut safety and can ask astronauts on the International Space Station to move to places within the outpost that are better shielded.

Following one particularly strong flare peak, the US Space Weather Prediction Center said users of high-frequency radio signals "may experience temporary degradation or complete loss of signal on much of the sunlit side of Earth."

Even pigeons and other species that have internal biological compasses could also be affected. Pigeon handlers have noted a reduction in birds coming home during geomagnetic storms, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Officials said people should have the normal backup plans in place for power outages, such as having flashlights, batteries, and radios at hand.

The most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history, known as the Carrington Event after British astronomer Richard Carrington, occurred in September 1859.

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