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Weather conditions in Australia's 'heat engine' warding off heatwaves nationwide

At this time of year it wouldn't be unusual for Australians to be sweltering from the oppressive summer heat.

But instead, conditions in most places on the continent are considerably mild.

It's not the sudden onset of global cooling that's keeping Australia out of heatwave conditions.

READ MORE: Flood emergency in WA

Instead, it's unusual weather in a part of Australia where barely anybody lives.

https://twitter.com/BOM_au/status/1359334645561704453

Cloud and rain over the Pilbara has prevented heatwave conditions from developing across the rest of the country, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

"The Pilbara in WA is Australia's heat engine, but plenty of cloud and rain have prevented heat from building this past week," the bureau said in a statement.

In the next few days, the only parts of Australia recording heatwave conditions are parts of South Australia, southern Northern Territory and far southwestern Queensland.

Rain in the Pilbara is keeping the whole country cooler.

Even those conditions are listed by the bureau as a "low-intensity heatwave".

A tropical low over northeastern Western Australia is dumping heavy falls over the outback.

In the Northern Territory's remote Nathan River cattle station, 310mm fell in three days. It was the cattle station's heaviest falls in 18 years.

The Pilbara will be at least partly cloudy for the rest of the week.

READ MORE: Man survives four weeks in outback on 'crunchy ants and leaves'

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RAAF pilot suffered bloodied nose after bailing out during WWII

As streams of smoke poured from the engine of Alexander MacDonald's plane the World War II pilot from Sydney had only one decision to make, when to bail out.

It was late one evening in 1943 when the Sergeant from Waitara, in New South Wales, was flying above Sicily's south east and his engine began to splutter.

He was eight kilometres from the city of Modeca and his altitude of about 5000 feet was dropping fast.

At 1000 feet, Sergeant MacDonald decided to eject, parachuting to the ground in allied territory.

He would suffer only a bloody nose in the ordeal and become only the second Australian member of the Caterpillar Club – individuals who had bailed out and been saved by an Irvin parachute.

Sergeant Alexander MacDonald became the second Australian member of the Caterpillar Club after baling out over Italy in 1943.

The Department of Air would share Sergeant MacDonald's remarkable story in a press release in August 1943. In it he would share intimate details behind his decision.

"The countryside was too hilly and too closely terraced for a crash landing, so I decided to jump at 1000 feet. I pushed the stick smartly forward and felt myself catapulted from the cockpit," he said in the statement recently released by the Australian National Archives.

"I pulled the rip cord and my parachute opened with a slight jerk. After a short fall I landed with a heavy bump in a sitting position.

"Sicilian peasants came from all directions and soon a crowd of over 200 had gathered. They were very friendly, expressing some concern, but my only injury was a bleeding nose."

Sergeant MacDonald said the locals led him to a dying donkey that had been hit by the aircraft, the only casualty in the crash.

When the Royal Australian Air Force pilot sought directions to the nearest road, he said the crowd all answered at once.

"Speaking with a volubility far beyond my recently acquired knowledge of Italian," he said in the statement.

"After some time six of them guided me to the roadway where a passing cyclist loaded my flying kit on his machine and walked with me to a military post seven miles away.

"On the way the cyclist took me to his home where he and his wife were hospitality itself. They served a welcome meal of spaghetti eggs and bread and showed a desire to help in every possible way."

Sergeant Alexander MacDonald's account of bailing from his plane in 1943 (left) with a patent application for an improved parachute harness. (NAA: A627, 29690/1930)

Sergeant MacDonald spent the night at the military came and returned to his unit the next day.

He was one of the lucky ones, with other Australian pilots who have crashed behind enemy lines during WWII ending up as prisoners of war.

South Australian David Richards and Victorian Leslie Harvey both ended up POWs in Germany.

The Caterpillar Club was founded in 1922 by Leslie Irvin, a stuntman from California.

Mr Irvin also owned the Irvin Air Chute Company.

"Eligible members would receive a gold caterpillar pin and membership card from the Irvin Air Chute Company," ANA records said.

Contact reporter Kate Kachor at kk*****@******om.au

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Impeachment:US Senators View Trump Inspired Capitol Riot

House Democrats on Tuesday launched their impeachment case against former President  Trump with a stirring video montage of violence and mayhem at the Capitol on Jan. 6 — a highly charged opening salvo, stripped of all subtlety, that at once implicated the former president in the deadly attack and heightened the pressure on Republicans to convict him.

The 13-minute video, introduced by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, featured a sampling of Trump’s fiery rhetoric leading up to the deadly siege, mashed up with scenes of mob violence in and around the Capitol building in the subsequent hours.

The extraordinary demonstration — violent, profane and highly visceral — set an early tone for this week’s trial in the Senate, where lawmakers will decide if Trump’s conduct surrounding the unprecedented assault should disqualify him from ever holding high office again.

It’s highly unlikely that Republican senators will cross the aisle in numbers high enough to convict their party’s standard-bearer, a judgment requiring a two-thirds majority of the upper chamber. And in a test vote on Tuesday evening, only six Republicans joined Democrats in allowing the trial to move forward on constitutional grounds — a likely preview of the final verdict.

“Nobody seemed to change any minds,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said after the vote.

“No one’s going to convince me that impeachment was put in place to remove from office someone that’s not in office,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

But by forcing the Senate jurors to relive the chaos of Jan. 6, the Democrats’ made-for-TV trial strategy is designed to appeal to voters outraged by Trump’s conduct — and to maximize the discomfort for the Republicans already signaling a readiness to clear the former president of any wrongdoing.

Indeed, the Democrats’ video did not pull punches, but featured the most brutal scenes to emerge publicly from the countless hours of footage that have circulated in the month since the siege, including depictions of police officers being beaten and crushed, and the gunshot that killed a rioter outside the House chamber.

Interspersed with those tumultuous scenes were Trump’s remarks at different points during the attack, including a video urging the “very special” rioters to “go home,” and a later tweet claiming that rampant fraud had “viciously” stolen his election victory from “great patriots” denied their voice.

When the video ended, Raskin paused on the floor in silence to allow the message to sink in.

“You ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is under our Constitution? That’s a high crime and misdemeanor,” Raskin finally said. “If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there is no such thing.”

House Democrats had impeached Trump last month on one charge: inciting insurrection. And a handful of Senate Republicans appear poised to side with the Democrats’ verdict that such a charge is merited. While Trump has already left office, a Senate conviction could prohibit him from running again in 2024, as he has hinted he might do.

Trump’s defense attorneys have said the impeachment case should be immediately dismissed, and they’re leaning on a two-pronged argument to make their case. First, they say Trump cannot be subject to impeachment because he’s no longer in office. And second, they maintain that Trump’s fiery rhetoric leading up to the Capitol siege is well protected under the First Amendment right to free speech.

“Presidents are impeachable because presidents are removable, former presidents are not because they cannot be removed,” said Trump defense attorney David Schoen.

Democrats rejected both arguments out of hand. There’s nothing in the Constitution preventing the impeachment of a former official, they said, and the First Amendment should not shield a president from provoking an attack on the federal government.

“President Trump was not impeached because he used words that the House decided are forbidden or unpopular.  He was impeached for inciting armed violence against the government of the United States of America,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), another impeachment manager.

One thing the two parties could agree on is that the Democratic prosecutors came fully prepared, while Trump’s defense attorneys left lawmakers on both sides of the aisle underwhelmed.

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general who has argued cases before the Supreme Court, called Raskin “impressive and “a serious lawyer.”

“Anyone who listened to those arguments would recognize that the House managers were focused, relied upon and trusted upon the opinion of legal scholars,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.), one of the six Republicans who voted to advance the trial. “Anyone who listened to President Trump’s legal team saw they were unfocused, they attempted to avoid the issue, and they talked about everything but the issue at hand.”

But if the dramatic video made an impression on the Republicans in the audience, they gave little indication. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was featured in the video warning against the dangers of voting to overturn state election results based on scant evidence of fraud, sat unflinching, his hands folded in his lap.

“It was uncomfortable,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

Other Senate Republicans appeared to turn away from the video footage of the rioters sacking the Capitol. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has aggressively argued the Senate trial is unconstitutional, doodled on a piece of paper, while Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) studied papers in his lap, according to The Washington Post. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also kept their attention on papers in front of them rather than the screens set up in the Senate chamber.

The sounds from the video montage echoed in the chamber, filling it with the screams and yells of the mob, bringing witnesses back to the day of the attack, according to people in the room. In one piece of footage, rioters breached the Senate floor and rifled through the very desks where senators now sat as jurors.

Minutes later, Raskin again rendered the normally boisterous chamber perfectly still by telling the personal, heart-wrenching story of how his family survived Jan. 6. The day before, he had buried his 25-year-old son, Tommy, a Harvard law student who had taken his own life. As rioters swarmed the Capitol, the lawmaker was separated from his daughter, Tabitha, and another family member. He feared he could lose her too in the violence.

When he was reunited with his daughter, Raskin apologized and promised it wouldn’t happen the next time she visited the building.

“She said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol again,’ ” Raskin recounted, choking up. “Of all the terrible, brutal things I saw and I heard on that day … that one hit me the hardest.

“That and watching someone use an American flagpole, with the flag still on it, to spear and pummel one of our police officers, ruthlessly, mercilessly, tortured by a pole with a flag on it that [the officer] was defending with his very life.”

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GOP senators ‘perplexed’ by ‘unfocused’ and ‘weaker’ Trump legal defense

A number of Republican senators said they were “stunned” and “perplexed” by former President Trump’s legal team Tuesday, criticizing the two attorneys for lacking focus and making “weaker” arguments than the House impeachment managers on the first day of Trump’s impeachment trial.

“Anyone who listened to those arguments would recognize that the House managers were focused, relied upon and trusted upon the opinion of legal scholars,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) after joining with five other Republican senators in voting that the trial was constitutional and should proceed.

“Anyone who listened to President Trump’s legal team saw they were unfocused, they attempted to avoid the issue and they talked about everything but the issue at hand,” he added.

Cassidy’s vote on Tuesday was a surprise after he voted last month in favor of a motion by Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) declaring the trial unconstitutional.

Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.), another Republican who voted with Democrats to move ahead with the trial, called Trump’s legal case “weaker.”

“I think they had a weaker case to start with, and I don’t think it was very persuasive,” he said.

Toomey, by contrast, praised Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and the other House impeachment managers.

“The House impeachment managers made very strong arguments. It was persuasive and well grounded in the Constitution and precedent,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), a key Republican swing vote, said she was perplexed by Bruce Castor’s folksy presentation, in which he called out a few lawmakers, including Toomey and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), by name.

“I was perplexed by the first attorney, who did not seem to make any arguments at all, which was an unusual approach to take,” she said, adding that it was “inappropriate” to mention Sasse and Toomey by name.

Castor opened Trump’s defense by denouncing the rioters and praising the emotional testimony from the House impeachment managers, who showed a powerful video that sought to tie Trump’s speech directly to the violence that consumed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump’s attorney at various points spoke broadly about the fall of ancient governments, the importance of liberty and his admiration for the senators seeking to impeach Trump.

In one odd instance, Castor admitted that “we changed what we were going to do on account that we thought the House managers’ presentation was well done.”

He also acknowledged he didn’t feel entirely comfortable speaking to senators.

“I worked in this building 40 years ago. I got lost then, and I still do,” he said.

After a long windup, Castor got into the meat of his argument that the impeachment was a political effort designed to keep Trump from ever running for office again.

However, even here, Castor’s arguments were criticized as meandering and unfocused.

“There is no argument. I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea why he’s saying what he’s saying,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump throughout his term in office, said on Newsmax.

“After all kinds of very strong presentations on the part of the House managers with the video tapes and the emotional speech by Congressman Raskin, my former student … you get up there and you respond,” he added. “Maybe he’ll bring it home, but right now, it does not appear to me to be effective advocacy.”

Castor has had a peripatetic career, serving as attorney general and solicitor general of Pennsylvania in 2016 and district attorney of Montgomery, Pa., from 2000 to 2008. He has worked for three different law firms over the past 13 years and handled cases ranging from personal injury to sexual harassment.

Trump’s second attorney, David Schoen, received far higher marks from Republicans for his defense.

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Schoen pointedly argued that the impeachment was political, that the Senate has no jurisdiction over a former president and that Trump had been deprived of due process by the House’s swift impeachment process.

He also has a varied legal career, working on public interest cases related to prison violence, foster care and the Ku Klux Klan as well as criminal defense cases.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, voted that continuing with the trial was not constitutional but nonetheless had a particularly harsh assessment of Castor.

“I thought the president’s lawyer the first lawyer just rambled on and on and on and didn’t really address the constitutional argument,” he said.

“Finally, the second lawyer got around to it and I thought did an effective job, but I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments, and that was not one of the finest I’ve seen,” he added.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another member of the Judiciary Committee, also criticized Trump’s legal team.

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“I don’t think the lawyers did the most effective job,” he said while praising Raskin as “impressive.”

Drawing an implicit contrast with Trump’s legal team, Cruz called the lead impeachment manager “a serious lawyer.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s closest allies and a senior member of the Judiciary panel, said, “I think the president’s defense was OK.”

“They took a long time to get to where I think the meat of the question is,” he said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is seen as a possible vote to convict the president, said she was “stunned” by Castor’s opening presentation.

“I was really stunned at the first attorney who presented for former President Trump. I couldn’t figure out where he was going,” she said. “I don’t think he helped with us better understanding where he was coming from on the constitutionality of this.”

Updated at 6:46 p.m.

The post Impeachment:US Senators View Trump Inspired Capitol Riot appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

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A quirky Presidents Day sale

It's almost Presidents Day, and now there's a chance to own a quirky piece of White House history.

Locks of George and Martha Washington's hair, Andrew Johnson's order of a national day of mourning after Abraham Lincoln's assassination and the pen that Warren Harding used to end US involvement in World War I are among a trove of nearly 300 presidential artifacts hitting the auction block.

Boston-based RR Auction said online bidding gets underway Thursday and runs through February 18.

Other items being auctioned include John F. Kennedy's crimson Harvard sweater and a photograph of Lincoln and his son, Tad, signed by the 16th president.

There are also numerous documents and personal papers signed by John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield and other presidents.

RR Auction spokesperson Mike Graff said the collection “honors America’s esteemed commanders-in-chief."

“From the nation’s founding to modern times, these are the leaders who have guided the United States through times of war and peace,” he said.

The clippings of the Washingtons' hair were passed down through their grandniece's family and include documentation, the auction house said.

Last year, RR Auction sold a lock of Lincoln’s hair wrapped in a bloodstained telegram about his 1865 assassination to an unidentified buyer for more than $110,000.

Johnson's order for a day of mourning in Lincoln's honor is dated May 31, 1865. It reads: “Tomorrow June 1 being the day appointed for Special Humiliation and Prayer in consequence of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln late President of the United States, the Executive Office and the Various Departments will be closed during the day.”

Harding used the signing pen on July 2, 1921, to adopt what became known as the Knox-Porter Resolution, a joint act of Congress drafted by two Pennsylvania Republicans, Sen. Philander Knox and Rep. Stephen Porter, to terminate the U.S. role in World War I.

JFK's Harvard sweater was acquired by Herman Lang, a CBS cameraman who filmed an interview with Jacqueline Kennedy in 1964, the year after the 35th president's assassination in Dallas.

Lang mentioned he was cold, and one of the former first lady's staffers brought him the cardigan, RR Auction says. He tried to return it but was told he could keep it as a memento.