Egypt announced on Tuesday that the teenager from the northern governorate of Menufiya had been taken to hospital four days earlier. She was the 12th Egyptian infected by the pathogenic virus.

The woman is said to have contracted the disease after handling infected poultry.

Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, is on a major route for migratory birds and is the hardest-hit non-Asian country since the bird flu epidemic broke out in 2003.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu, its most aggressive form, has killed more than 100 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It was first detected in birds in Egypt in February. The first human case was reported on March 18.

Of the 12 Egyptians infected over the past weeks, four have died, five have recovered and three are receiving treatment, health officials said.

According to health officials, although no human-to-human transmission has yet been reported in Egypt, the risk of contamination from infected birds remains as high because public awareness is low.

In a bid to thwart the virus, Egypt has slapped a ban on domestic poultry farms and more than 10 million birds are believed to have been slaughtered.

The world famous Cairo Zoo has also been shut down since February because birds there had tested positive for the deadly flu.

While the compliance of larger farms with anti-bird flu measures can be more easily controlled, some Egyptians in mainly rural areas have been reluctant to give up their domestic rearings.

An Egyptian worker in Jordan was also identified on March 31 as having been infected by the deadly virus, the Hashemite kingdom's first human case. He was treated for the illness and pronounced cured on Monday.

Residents sifted through debris downtown and in several neighborhoods. "We're in disaster mode," an Iowa City dispatcher said.

At the University of Iowa, which the National Weather Service said was hit by one tornado, students were assessing the damage, including downed trees.

Andrew Loffswold fled his apartment when he heard the howling winds of an oncoming twister grow louder. When he returned, his second-story apartment was in shambles, its roof torn off and its contents turned upside down.

"I'm just trying to salvage anything I can," said Loffswold, a 19-year-old student from Sioux City.

Nine other nearby apartments suffered major damage.

University spokesman Steve Parrott said classes have been canceled for Friday while crews repair the campus and clear debris.

Downtown, severe winds blew cars around, and a roof collapsed at a pedestrian mall, police said.

MidAmerican Energy said about 7,000 homes and businesses in eastern Iowa were without power Friday morning. Crews were working through the night to restore it.

The weather service reported tornadoes in Tama, Linn, Muscatine and Johnson counties, with much of the damage occurring in Iowa City.

Officials were keeping an eye out for more tornadoes in east-central Iowa on Thursday night, Donavon said.

The storms swept through northern Illinois, knocking down trees and power lines and prompting tornado warnings.

At least one tornado was spotted on the ground in Mercer County, the weather service said. Winds of 80 mph were reported in Warren County, where the roofs of two homes were heavily damaged, authorities said. There were no reports of injuries.

"The European Commission has taken a positive step by seeking to improve GMO risk assessment in the EU," said Eric Gall of Greenpeace after the move on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) by the EU's executive arm in Brussels.

"But it must make sure that the European Food Safety Authority is immediately subject to mandatory guidelines on how to evaluate the risks of GMOs," adding that GMO authorisation should be suspended pending this change.

The Brussels announcement came after EU environment ministers last month criticized the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for delivering systematically positive assessments of GMO applications.

The EFSA greenlight frequently clashed with the views of national food safety agencies in EU member states, where public skepticism about what critics call Frankestein foods varies widely.

At the EU commission's request, EFSA will from now on have to detail publicly the exact reasons "for rejecting scientific objections from national authorities."

The agency, set up in 2002 in the Italian city of Parma, will also have to carry out more extensive tests on potential long-terms risks of GMOs and their impact on biodiversity, key aspects demanded by environmentalists.

The EU commission trumpeted its move as a way improving public trust on the issue of GMOs, which is hugely divisive in Europe.

"We want to increase the confidence of (EU) member states and of public opinion in the GMO authorization process," said Philip Tod, spokesman for EU environment commissioner Markos Kyprianou.

Despite the lifting of a de facto European moratorium on GMOs in 2004, no GMO variety has been authorized to be grown in the 25-nation bloc.

But three varieties -- one potato and two types of maize -- have been approved by EFSA, and are now awaiting a green light from EU experts in Brussels.

The EU commission said its move made no fundamental difference to EU legislation on biotech foods, but was simply a "practical improvement" in how the bloc deals with the issue.

The United States, Canada and Argentina, three of the biggest exporters of GMOs, hauled the EU before the World Trade Organization over its pre-2004 moratorium, and a ruling handed down in February went in their favour.

But the commission did not propose changing the widely-criticized way decisions on GMOs are made in Brussels.

For the moment, once EFSA has given its assessment, the commission makes a proposal to experts from EU member states, then to ministers if no agreement is reached.

But since the end of the moratorium the 25 governments have never achieved the required qualified majority required to agree or reject an application, leaving it up to the EU commission to make the final decision.

Austria, which is fiercely anti-GMO and which holds the EU presidency until June, has called for decisions to be made by simple majority, making it easier to block applications. But there is little chance of this change being agreed.

According to NOAA, "Previous years with a busy start have produced high numbers of tornadoes throughout the year." Abnormally warm temperatures and dry conditions during winter kept water temperatures warm in the Gulf of Mexico, the scientists say.

"Once a spring pattern developed in early March bringing weather systems eastward into the central United States, it combined with warm, moist air moving north from the Gulf, and created all the right ingredients for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes," Dan McCarthy, warning coordination meteorologist with the NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. "If the pattern holds, the season could continue to be busy."

When and how they strike

In the United States, May has historically had the most tornadoes: 176 on average between 1950 and 1999. But April is the deadliest month: an average of 26 tornado-related deaths over the same time period.
The worst outbreak in history occurred on April 11, 1965.

Twisters often start to become a minor menace in March, depending on climate conditions and where you live.

Tornadoes form where warm moist air is trapped underneath a layer of cold, dry air. This instability is upset when the warm bottom layer gets pushed up - either by heating near the ground, or by an influx of cold air.

As the moist air rises - sometimes 50,000 feet into the air - it cools, forming clouds and thunderstorms. If the conditions are right, the rapidly rising air will spin around a central funnel - at speeds sometimes exceeding 250 mph. A tornado technically is born when this funnel cloud touches down on the ground.

Although tornadoes are more frequent in the afternoon, they can happen anytime, even at night.

Tornado Alley

Twisters strike predominantly along Tornado Alley - a flat stretch of land from west Texas to North Dakota. The region is ideal for tornadoes, as dry polar air from Canada meets warm moist tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico.

Texas gets hit the most, with an average of about 110 tornadoes a year. But every state in the union has recorded at least one tornado in its past [Map]. In fact, Florida has the most tornadoes per area, but they are typically weaker.

In 2005, scientists explained fresh twists on when and where tornadoes can strike, including in Michigan on an October night.

In southern states like Arkansas and Missouri, the peak of tornado season is March through May, while in the northern states, like Iowa and Illinois, more tornadoes occur in the late spring and summer.

F-scale

In the early 1970s, T. Theodore Fujita developed a damage scale for high-wind events including tornadoes. The F-scale, which goes from F0 to F5, is the only widely used tornado rating method. Although wind speeds are given for different F-scale ratings, these are only estimates, as it is very hard to get reliable measurements near a twister.

Violent tornadoes - F4 and above - are less than one percent of all tornadoes, but account for 70 percent of tornado-related deaths. Some of these twisters can last more than an hour and travel hundreds of miles.

Almost 90 percent of tornadoes are weak - F0 or F1 - lasting usually less than 10 minutes and causing less than five percent of tornado-related deaths. The scale will be revised in 2007.

Rolland Crawford, Loma Linda Fire Department division chief, said firefighters are not certain of the origin of the opaque white ice. University spokeswoman Julie Smith said a building repairman saw an airplane flying overhead at the time.

FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said investigators will review radar records to identify planes in the area at the time of impact. That will take at least a week, Fergus said. But the color of the ice may mean authorities will never determine where it came from, he said.

Blue ice comes from an aircraft's galley or lavatory. The source of ice of other colors can be mysterious, he said. Sometimes rime forms on the fuselage and breaks off, but that ice tends to be only 2 or 3 inches thick.

He said there have been cases in which ice fell and there were no aircraft in the vicinity. That could be naturally forming gigantic hail, Fergus said. He said the FAA follows up in such cases, but it gets a lower priority than investigations involving injuries or deaths.

Crawford said a ladder truck and three firefighters initially were dispatched to the campus. A supervisor followed and finally, both Crawford and Fire Chief Mike Norris.

"Chief Norris and I said, 'We've got to see this.' "

Crawford said the ice penetrated the sheet metal roof of the Drayson Center, went through a coating of tar paper and plywood underneath, then through a layer of insulation and the ceiling of the gymnasium. Pieces of ice lodged in the metal latticework just below the ceiling but apparently did not reach the gym floor.

"There were people outside the building who heard it," he said. "They said it sounded like an artillery shell going through the air. It was a whistling, whooshing sound."

Smith said no one was in the gym at the time.

A similar incident occurred in Fontana in August 2005, when a chunk crashed through the roof of a home in the 14000 block of Westward Drive.

The imam of the mosque told CNN's Indian affiliate network, CNN-IBN, that the first blast went off inside the mosque's complex just after prayers at around 5:20 p.m. (1050 GMT).

Syed Ahmed Bukhari said the second detonated about 10 minutes later.

There were no immediate reports on the cause of the blasts.

Police cordoned off the area and bomb squads checked for explosive devices.

Both blasts happened near the entrance to the mosque's courtyard, where worshippers wash their feet before they gather inside for prayers. The courtyard of Jama Masjid can hold as many as 25,000 people.

"People were walking around and suddenly, boom, there was a bomb," Mohammed Salaudi, who was inside the mosque when the first of the explosions took place, told The Associated Press.

After the explosions, a crowd gathered outside the mosque complex, shouting slogans.

Speaking to a crowd that gathered in the mosque complex, Bukhari said the blasts were a deliberate terrorist attack intended to drive a wedge between India's Hindus and Muslims. He appealed to the crowd to remain calm.

Jama Masjid, which is one of the country's largest and best known mosques, did not suffer significant damage in the blasts.

The mosque was built in the mid-17th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Its courtyard can hold as many as 25,000 people.

The anhinga may be the most unique sighting. "The fact that it's here is pretty incredible. It would be the first state record, if it's passed by the records committee," Ellingson said. There was one other report from eastern North Dakota in the 1990s, but "there weren't enough details to pass it," he added.

To read the entire Bismarck Tribune article, find it here.

In a year that has already had extraordinarily warm weather, is this upswing in unusual bird sightings giving us a clue that there might be more or more interesting cryptid sightings throughout the Northern Hemisphere? Certainly in the past, unusual sightings of snowy owls lower south in their range, cranes out of their usual flyways, and other sightings of accidentals have sometimes been documented before or during cryptid encounters.

Watch those northern woods and skies, as the trees bud and the spring peepers begin to sing.