Having seen no sunlight for more than a month, the northern Russian port city of Murmansk has finally greeted a sunrise and a glimpse of daylight that lasted little more than half an hour.

Crowds of local residents gathered on top of a hill to watch the sun emerge from the horizon on Thursday, marking the end of the polar night. Despite sub-zero temperatures, people came to celebrate the end of 24-hour darkness, which began in early December.

The sight of the first sunrise has been drawing locals since 2007 for the annual event on the hill, which is appropriately named "Sunny mountain." People cheered and raised their cameras to capture the moment, as the first sunbeams appeared at 12:39pm.

The first daylight of the year does not last long, and Thursday's glimpse of sunlight had disappeared again within 34 minutes.

A three-month-old baby girl died after being mauled by a hyena while sleeping outside their house in Raya village in Sankuri location, Garissa Sub-County.

The mother says that her daughter was sleeping next to her outside their grass thatched house when the hyena sneaked in the homestead, snatched her and took off.

Speaking to the press outside the Garissa mortuary, Abdullahi Sheikh, the father of the deceased said the incident occurred in the night and that they were only awakened by the baby's cries, but by the time they traced the baby the wild animal had already inflicted serious wounds on her.

"By the time her mother woke up, the hyena was a few meters away running with the child on its mouth. She chased the animal and was later joined by other family members," said Abdullahi.

Officials at a Maine outdoor center have warned skiers about an "aggressive dive-bombing owl" which silently attacks people who enter its territory.

Pineland Farms took to Facebook to alert "winter outdoor enthusiasts" of an owl (most likely a Barred or Great Horned owl) that attacked a man and cut his head while skiing in the campus loop area, reports AP.

These owls become particularly aggressive during their mating and nesting period of January to March, according to the post, and skiers are advised to stay away from nesting areas whenever possible "until the young are old enough to fly."

Around 430 passengers in Niigata Prefecture were forced to spend the night on a packed four-car train after it got stranded Thursday evening by heavy snow along the Sea of Japan coast.

According to rescue workers, five passengers — a man in his 40s and four women in their teens and 20s — were found unwell when they arrived, and the man was taken to a hospital. The train, which was bound for Nagaoka from Niigata, resumed service Friday morning about 15 hours after getting stuck.

More than half of the passengers on the train on the East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) Shinetsu Line were evacuated earlier in the morning, with families arriving to pick them up by car.

While JR East said the train's interior lights and heating worked properly, it only had one bathroom and the toilet paper ran out, passengers said. Some said they took turns using the seats to relieve passengers who were standing.

A Karoi man was struck by lightning while seated under a tree during a thunderstorm. Mashonaland West police spokesperson Inspector Clemence Mabgweazara said Mr Tatenda Hotel (22) died on Tuesday afternoon at Vuka Farm after being struck by a lightning bolt.

Mr Hotel was in the field with his friend Mr Peter Golden (24) when he sought refuge from the rain under a tree. While seated under the tree, Mr Golden decided to continue with his work in the field, while Mr Hotel stayed behind.

"Golden left Hotel sitting under the tree as he commenced his work, but immediately Hotel was struck by a lightning bolt and died on the spot," said Insp Mabgweazara. After noticing what had happened, Mr Golden rushed and informed the owner of the farm, Mr Godfrey Musaniwa, who made a report at Karoi rural police station.

A 56-year-old farmer died and another was injured on Tuesday when lightning struck them in Pursat province's Krakor district as they farmed in the rain.

Yo Soleang, 56, died from his injures, while On Sokheoun, 27, survived and is recovering. Both are from Tnot Chum commune.

Chap Sokheoun, Tnot Chum commune police chief, said the victims were harvesting cassava on their farm when they were struck by lightning.

"One man died immediately," he said. "Villagers rushed to send the other victim, a woman, to the hospital. She survived and is recovering."

Thousands of starfish have been found washed up on Portobello beach in Edinburgh.

They were spotted on Sunday by local residents who were out walking in the coastal suburb.

Edinburgh-based Susan Tomes, who was on the beach with her family, told BBC Scotland: "It was the strangest thing I have ever seen on Portobello beach.

"We saw this pinkish drift before realising with horror that they were starfish - thousands of them.

"People were looking at it and wondering what had happened to them.

The beach at Gibraltar Point was tinted orange after thousands of starfish washed up during strong winds.

The striking image here was captured by Boston and Skegness MP Matt Warman during a walk along the beach.

He tweeted the image last week with the caption: "Huge numbers of starfish washed up at a very chilly Gibraltar Point this morning."

But depite the odd sight, experts at Skegness Aquarium and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust say it is a fairly common occurrence.

Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity

Ocean dead zones with zero oxygen have quadrupled in size since 1950, scientists have warned, while the number of very low oxygen sites near coasts have multiplied tenfold. Most sea creatures cannot survive in these zones and current trends would lead to mass extinction in the long run, risking dire consequences for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on the sea.

Climate change caused by fossil fuel burning is the cause of the large-scale deoxygenation, as warmer waters hold less oxygen. The coastal dead zones result from fertiliser and sewage running off the land and into the seas.


The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the first comprehensive analysis of the areas and states: "Major extinction events in Earth's history have been associated with warm climates and oxygen-deficient oceans." Denise Breitburg, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in the US and who led the analysis, said: "Under the current trajectory that is where we would be headed. But the consequences to humans of staying on that trajectory are so dire that it is hard to imagine we would go quite that far down that path."

"This is a problem we can solve," Breitburg said. "Halting climate change requires a global effort, but even local actions can help with nutrient-driven oxygen decline." She pointed to recoveries in Chesapeake Bay in the US and the Thames river in the UK, where better farm and sewage practices led to dead zones disappearing.

However, Prof Robert Diaz at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, who reviewed the new study, said: "Right now, the increasing expansion of coastal dead zones and decline in open ocean oxygen are not priority problems for governments around the world. Unfortunately, it will take severe and persistent mortality of fisheries for the seriousness of low oxygen to be realised."

Hundreds of dead fish have mysteriously washed up on an Adelaide beach as authorities warn swimming is off limits.

Locals were shocked to find fish including mullet, trevally, bream and snapper washing up at West Lakes this week, 7 News reported.

One woman said she saw over 50 stranded on a concrete pillar.

Another said: 'We have a lot of people that come down here to do local fishing and they might be poisoning their children if they take the fish home.'