44 Thursday November 25 2021 | the times
Wo rld
After a hectic start to the Atlantic
hurricane season, cyclone activity
around the world has come to a
sudden halt, leaving seas eerily silent
and scientists stumped.
For weeks, the oceans have been
quiet and the tropics devoid of
cyclones. Not one hurricane-
strength storm has formed since
October 29. This has happened only
twice since 1966, Phil Klotzbach, a
hurricane researcher at Colorado
State University, told the Washington
Post.
The lack of big hurricane-strength
storms — Category 3 or higher — is
even stranger. For eight weeks there
has been no sign of the hurricanes of
the Atlantic and northeast Pacific,
the typhoons that terrorise the
northwest Pacific, or the tropical cy-
clones that form in the Indian Ocean.
The Atlantic hurricane season
peaked in late August as Ida smashed
Louisiana with 150mph winds before
drenching New York City, New En-
gland and Philadelphia.
Scientists said that there was equi-
librium in the oceans, so increased
Charlie Mitchell
San Francisco was the city of love for
hippies in the 1960s but it has become
riddled with crime as residents are
plagued by burglaries and car thefts.
People are taking matters into their
own hands with the San Francisco
Chronicle reporting a rise in demand
for self-defence classes and home
security equipment. It reported that
the Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy had
recorded a doubling of new students
in the past year. This year more than
100 students have enrolled.
Many of the recruits are women
and older adults. “This was some-
thing I wanted to do in light of recent
events,” Dorothy Wong, 35, said. She
referred to online videos of attacks on
elderly Asians that worried many in
the city. “The hate, especially towards
elderly, is concerning,” Wong, who
lives with her 99-year-old grand-
mother, said. “So part of that was me
trying to be prepared in case I needed
to defend my family.”
As well as an increased demandStudents at a Catholic university are
petitioning to remove a “heretical”
painting that depicts George Floyd as
Jesus.
Mama, by Kelly Latimore, shows
Floyd being cradled by a maternal
figure and evokes Michelangelo’s
Pietà sculpture of Mary and Jesus
after the crucifixion.
Floyd, who was murdered in Min-
neapolis last year by Derek Chauvin,
a police officer, called out for his
mother as the killer knelt on his neck.
The painting is being displayed at
the Catholic University of America in
Washington, and has provoked aEverybody is kung fu
fighting in San Francisco
for self-defence classes, there has
also been a rise reported in business
for locksmiths and home-security
companies.
Rampant inequality in San Fran-
cisco is often blamed for the increase
in crime. Visitors to the city are fre-
quently faced with the disconcerting
sight of homeless people sleeping on
the street yards from the headquar-
ters of tech giants, such as Twitter
and Uber.
Chesa Boudin, 41, the city’s pro-
gressive district attorney, was con-
fronted with more unwanted head-
lines at the weekend after a series of
smash-and-grab raids at luxury
shops, including up to 40 people
rampaging through a Louis Vuitton
store. Boudin, who is facing a recall
election amid criticism of his liberal
policies, has promised a tough
response.
An estimated 20 to 40 intruders
filled their arms with as much as they
could carry and fled the shop on Fri-
day before packing the leather goods,
shoes and jewellery into a fleet of
waiting cars. Boudin said that thegroup also targeted other shops in the
city centre.
Nine people were arrested, three of
whom were linked to a burglary at a
cannabis dispensary while another
was connected to a raid at a pharma-
cy. Some of the raids were recorded
on video and shared online.
Boudin, who is accused of being
soft on crime, stressed the serious-
ness of the charges.
The wave of raids continued over
the weekend. On Saturday, about
80 people in what onlookers de-
scribed as a “flash mob-style” group
raided a department store in Walnut
Creek, a city across the bay from San
Francisco.
The unrest spread to Los Angeles,
where thieves used a sledgehammer
to smash windows at designer shops
in Beverly Hills and there was an at-
tempted raid at a shopping centre.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of
California, said that the crimes were
“unacceptable”. He is the owner of
restaurants and hotels and said that
his own business premises had been
broken into three times this year.United States
Keiran Southern Los AngelesCalls to remove the George Floyd Jesus
backlash from some students. Blayne
Clegg told Fox News he had been
shocked to see the work
outside a chapel at the
law school.
“There’s a fine line
between recognising
the innate dignity and
righteousness of
human beings that are
made in the image of
God and embracing
brazen, progressive
politics,” Clegg said,adding that the response from stu-
dents had been “universally nega-
tive”. He described it as
“heretical, blasphemous
idolatry”.
The university defend-
ed the work and said that
it represented “a good-
faith attempt to include
religious imagery on
campus that reflects the
universality of the
Catholic Church”. The
university said in March
that it had unveiled the
painting after its celebra-
tion of Black History
Month the previous month.“h
ided
it
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MKeiran SouthernThe painting evokes
Michelangelo’s
Pietà sculptureBIANCA DE MARCHI/EPAAll quiet on the hurricane
front as storms disappear
hurricane activity in one basin was
tied to reduced activity elsewhere,
but the quiet everywhere is odd.
Simon Donner, a climate scientist
at the University of British Columbia,
told The Times: “The tropical Pacific
Ocean shifted into ‘La Nina’ condi-
tions earlier this year... the shift in
Pacific Ocean conditions can also
affect the position of the jet stream...
those high-altitude winds can limit
hurricanes. This natural variability
should not be confused with the long-
term trend. The climate is still warm-
ing and, unfortunately, a warmer cli-
mate will on average create hurri-
canes with stronger winds, heavier
rainfall and higher storm surges.”
Klotzbach said that wind shear, a
change in wind speed or direction
that can kill fledgling storms, could
partially explain it. La Niña condi-
tions reduced shear in the Caribbean
but increased it in the north Pacific.
The Caribbean may have been sub-
dued by heat radiation leaving the re-
gion, but the tranquility of the Atlan-
tic is harder to explain. Storminess
was expected due to a lack of wind
shear, but a peaceful November has
been a surprise, Klotzbach said.Out of the
darkness
Dancers rehearse
for White Swan
Pas de Deux, part
of the Australian
Ballet’s
Celebration Gala
at the Sydney
Opera House