Paraguay's government declared a national state of emergency on Wednesday as it battles the worst forest fires ever to hit the poor South American country.

The flames have devoured more than 100,000 hectares (nearly 250,000 acres) of forest, crops and grazing pasture and burned down dozens of rural homes in three northeastern provinces, where a regional state of emergency was already in place.

Humberto made landfall on the Texas coast early Thursday shortly after strengthening into a Category 1 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said.

The center of the storm crossed the Texas coast just east of High Island at about 2 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) with maximum winds of 85 mph (135 kmh). Humberto -- a slow mover -- is primarily going to be a rainmaker, CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers said.

A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance. "This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.

©AP Photo/Abdilla

Residents and rescuers inspect a building destroyed by earthquake in Padang, Sumatra island, Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A powerful earthquake shook western Indonesia for the second straight day Thursday and triggered a tsunami alert, meteorological agencies said. The latest tremor was also felt in neighboring Singapore, causing tall buildings to sway.

Tropical Storm Humberto is expected to reach shore late tonight just south of Galveston, dumping heavy rain from Victoria to eastern Louisiana.

Some spots along the upper coast could receive 10 inches or more of rain by tomorrow, forecasters said. They hope the storm moves quickly to minimize rain totals in isolated areas.

"It's a slow moving storm," said Gene Hafele, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "But we don't think it'll stall out. It should move steadily inland."

The storm is expected to creep ashore between Freeport and Galveston near midnight, Hafele said. He said rain, high winds and rough seas are already lashing coastal areas. Hafele said rain would stretch as far south as Victoria, but be concentrated between Sargent and the Sabine River.

A sharp freeze could have dealt the killer blow that finished off our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals, according to a new study.

The ancient humans are thought to have died out in most parts of Europe by about 35,000 years ago.

Satellite experts have produced data that shows parts of Manchester have risen by 7 cm in 11 years.

Following recent earthquakes in the city, the NPA Group, a satellite mapping company, revealed that some areas are rising by 6 mm or more every year.

A small earthquake rumbled through the city centre of Manchester this morning, the sixth to hit the area this month.

Greece has experienced more wildfire activity this August than other European countries have over the last decade, according to data from ESA satellites. The country is currently battling an outbreak of blazes, which began last Thursday, that have spread across the country killing more than 60 people.

ESA's ERS-2 and Envisat satellites continuously survey fires burning across the Earth's surface with onboard sensors - the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) and the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) respectively, known as the ATSR Word Fire Atlas, which is available to users online in near-real time.

The ATSR World Fire Atlas is the longest worldwide fire atlas available. Even if the atlas is not supposed to pick up all fires due to satellite overpass constraints and cloud coverage, it is statistically representative from one month to the other and from one year to the other.

A male elephant from Southwest China's Yunnan Province has been cured of its addiction to drugs and will soon return to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Rainforest in Yunnan.

Before April 2005, the elephant, named Big Brother, lived peacefully with its herd near the Sino-Myanmar border. But in that year, several illegal elephant traders set their sights on Big Brother and its herd. To control it so that it could lead the herd to where they wanted, the traders kept feeding it bananas laced with drugs.

In less than one month, Big Brother became so addicted that it began to drool and twitch when not given the drugs.