First Fatal School Shooting of 2018

A 15-year-old boy shot 14 people on Tuesday, January 23, 2018, at the Marshall County High School (below) in Benton, Kentucky. The suspect, a student, entered the school at 7:57 a.m. and soon opened fire with a handgun. The first 911 call came in two minutes later, and police were on scene by 8:06 a.m.

The two people killed include a 15-year-old female student, Bailey Nicole Holt​, who died at the scene. Five of the other victims were airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center​ in Nashville, where another student, Preston Ryan Cope​, later died.

The suspect (pictured at top and below) has been identified as Gabe Parker, a freshman and band member at Marshall County High School. 

This shooting is the nation's first fatal school shooting of 2018. 

The suspect will be charged with murder and attempted murder, Kentucky State Police Lt. Michael Webb said.

Marshall County High School is about 30 minutes from Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, where a 1997 mass shooting killed three and injured five. Michael Carneal, then 14, opened fire there about two years before the fatal attack at Columbine High School in Colorado, ushering in an era when mass school shootings have become much more common.

Meanwhile, yesterday, in the small North Texas town of Italy (pronounced "It'ly"), a 15-year-old girl Noelle “Cricket” Jones was recovering after police said she was shot by a 16-year-old classmate in Ellis County's Italy High School (above) cafeteria on Monday, January 22, 2018, sending dozens of students scrambling for safety.

On Monday, January 22, 2018, Chad Padilla, 16, was taken into custody without incident after the Italy, Texas, shooting​ of a 15-year-old female student in the cafeteria just before 8:00 a.m. with a semi-automatic​ handgun.

Chad Padilla's Facebook Profile Picture.

Auroras

Benton, Kentucky is 15 miles away from Aurora, Kentucky, also in Marshall County.

Italy, Texas is 82 miles away from Aurora, Texas, in Wise County.

Ring of Fire

Are humans effected by tidal forces?

The Pacific Ring of Fire has been very active in the last 24 hours:

Philippines : Mt. Mayon Volcano erupted
Japan: Mt. Kusatsu-Shirane volcano erupted causing an avalanche.
Indonesia: 5.3 or 6.1 Magnitude earthquake jolts Jakarta, Java.
Alaska: 7.9 or 8.2 Magnitude earthquake off the coast of Kodiak, Alaska, causing tsunami warnings.

United States: Two small earthquakes in Missouri, in last few days.

United States: Mount St. Helens, Washington State, placed on "very high" threat level as shockwaves rattle state.

Eclipse Today = Earthquakes Tomorrow?

Seeing it in Asia: The moon's shadow races eastward across Earth's surface at more than 2,000 mph, starting in China's southern Guangxi Province. Theoretically, the "Ring of Fire" could be visible just after 6 p.m. ET over Asian urban centers such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, Osaka and Tokyo. But for many of those cities, the weather outlook isn't that great: Cloudy skies or even thundershowers are in the forecast.

Seeing it in America: The partial eclipse begins over the U.S. West Coast and Canada around 8 p.m. ET, and even earlier in Alaska. Skywatchers in portions of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas can witness the "Ring of Fire" effect at its peak after 9 p.m. ET. As you go farther east, sunset becomes the limiting factor. The U.S. East Coast, for example, will miss out on all phases of the eclipse. Consult NASA's clickable map to find out what will be visible from your locale. The times are listed as UTC, so subtract five hours for Central Daylight Time, six hours for Mountain Time, and seven hours for Pacific Time. Don't forget to check the weather, too.

Meanwhile, for those looking for the links between full moons, new moons, eclipses, and strong earthquakes, all you have to do is read the morning news.

Aftershocks continued to be felt in northern Italy on Sunday after a strong earthquake in the early hours killed at least seven [updated Monday May 21st], injured more than 50 and reduced historic churches and castle towers to rubble.

The epicentre of the quake, which the US Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, was 3.2 miles below ground, north of Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region, and was felt across Italy, from Liguria to the Veneto.

Hundreds of terrified residents fled their homes and hospitals were evacuated after the 20-second earthquake struck at 4.04 am. While major towns including Bologna emerged unscathed, helicopters were flying over remote villages as day broke, looking for collapsed buildings in which survivors could be trapped.

Four people killed by the quake were working overnight in factories which collapsed, including Geraldo Cesaro, 57, one of 10 employees at Tecopress, a maker of aluminium car parts in Sant' Agostino, where the town hall was seriously damaged and in danger of collapse.

Florence Attack by Author of The Key of Chaos

Leige, Belgium, was shaken by a seemingly random lone individual's attack on the city. Something similar happened in Florence, Italy, on the same day.

Photos from Leige (above) and Florence (below) looked eerily similar on 13 December 2011 (13.12.11). 

The killer in Italy was a right-wing author who published a newsletter for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien.

An Italian far-right author shot dead two Senegalese vendors and wounded three in Florence on Tuesday (13 Dec. 2011) before killing himself in a daylight shooting spree that prompted outpourings of grief in the historic city.

Witnesses said they saw the gunman calmly getting out of a car at a street market on Piazza Dalmazia, north of the city centre, and firing off three shots that instantly killed two vendors and seriously wounded a third.

The white assailant was identified by authorities as 50-year-old Gianluca Casseri. 

The International Business Times ran this profile of Casseri:

Expert of right-wing European culture and passionate about fantasy and conspiracy books, the middle-aged man published many articles on the Germanic folklore, before founding literary magazine La Soglia or The Threshold in 2001. Issues included monographic volumes about Conan, Dracula, Tolkien, Lovecraft and other fantasy authors.
His favourite authors were Ezra Pound, Friedrich Nietzsche and Julius Evola. In 2010 he wrote along with Enrico Rulli Le chiavi del caos or The Key of Chaos, described as "a kind of alchemical play in the magic Prague of Emperor Rudolf II".
Initial reports suggest that he belonged to Casa Pound movement.
Named after the American Fascist poet Ezra Pound, Casa Pound is a neo-fascist movement born in Rome in 2003, when it squatted a state-owned building in the central neighbourhood of Esquilino. It soon developed as a national organisation and then proceeded to branch out into numerous cities in the country.

After Casseri's initial attack, he moved on to the San Lorenzo market in the centre -- a popular destination for the thousands of tourists who visit Florence every day -- where he wounded two more vendors.

Casseri then turned the gun -- a Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver according to news reports -- on himself after he was surrounded by police.

Around 200 Senegalese marched through the city in an angry protest after the shootings, shouting "Shame!" and "Racists!"

Hundreds of immigrants were later seen praying on their knees in tears in front of Florence's famous cathedral.

"The heart of Florence is crying today," Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi said in a Twitter message, declaring the city would hold a day of mourning Wednesday and would pay to repatriate the bodies to Senegal.

"I think the pain for the lives that have been cut short is not only for the Senegalese community but for all the citizens of our city," Renzi said.

International Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi and a Senegalese imam will attend a ceremony at Florence city hall on Wednesday.

"The Senegalese are good people, people who never get into trouble, who work every day," one Senegalese man told news channel SkyTG24.

Another man said: "These lads who were killed were only earning money for their wives, their fathers, their children."

Roccangelo Tritto, a spokesman for local Carabinieri police, told AFP that the man wounded at Piazza Dalmazia would live but remain paralysed for life.

The other two men were also in a serious condition -- one with a wound to the abdomen and another shot in the chest.

Casseri was the author of fantasy novels including "The Key of Chaos" about a wizard, a mathematician and an alchemist, which enjoyed some popularity.

He also wrote an academic paper about Dracula folklore and was the editor of a niche magazine about fantasy and horror fiction and comics.

Casseri lived on his own in the Tuscan countryside near Pistoia.

He was also a member of Casa Pound, a right-wing community group that is seen as more intellectual than other far-right organisations.

"He was a bit strange, a bit of a loner but he didn't seem crazy. He was living in his own world," said Fabio Barsanti, a regional coordinator for Casa Pound.

"He didn't seem capable of doing something like this," he said, adding: "We are against any type of violence. We consider the Senegalese humans like us."

Barsanti said Casseri was known locally mostly as a World War I buff.

While Casa Pound distanced itself from Casseri's actions, left-wingers were quick to pin the blame on a climate of racism in the country.

Walter Veltroni, a lawmaker from the centre-left Democratic Party, said the shootings were "a terrorist attack by a right-wing extremist."

"What happened in Florence is the product of a climate of intolerance against foreigners that has grown over the years," he said.

Nichi Vendola, leader of the Left, Ecology and Liberty party, condemned what he said was "a racist and fascist Italy that sows hatred."

At the scene of the first shooting in Piazza Dalmazia, eyewitnesses quoted by Italian media said they were in shock and a newspaper seller said the gunman told him: "Get out of the way or I'll bump you off next."

"I heard the shots but I thought they were fireworks. Then I turned around and I saw three men on the ground in a pool of blood," one vendor said.

Another man said: "There are often Senegalese guys here who sell the usual stuff, they don't bother anyone and no one was expecting this."

African vendors can be seen on the streets of Italy's main cities selling sculptures, trinkets and fake designer handbags. They are often selling their wares illegally but are popular with tourists and local residents.

Last summer in Norway, a Norwegian man apparently motivated by a hatred of immigrants went on a bomb and shooting spree that killed 77 people.