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Black bear cub spotted stalking the aisles of a pharmacy in Oregon
Shoppers at an Oregon, US drug store were surprised to see a bear cub scurrying down the aisles.
Witnesses say the cub first showed up Sunday at a nearby hotel, hopped out a window and crossed the street to the Rite Aid in Ashland, a city 15 miles north of the California border.
Local media reports said that customers took photos and video until police arrived and scooped the little bear into a shopping cart.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is holding the cub until it can be moved to a rehab center or a zoo.
Shoppers at an Oregon, US drug store were surprised to see a bear cub scurrying down the aisles.
Witnesses say the cub first showed up Sunday at a nearby hotel, hopped out a window and crossed the street to the Rite Aid in Ashland, a city 15 miles north of the California border.
Local media reports said that customers took photos and video until police arrived and scooped the little bear into a shopping cart.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is holding the cub until it can be moved to a rehab center or a zoo.
Indian jackal
The animal seemed to have gone berserk as it first bit into a youth's legs and clawed at him. As the devotees tried to save him and themselves, the jackal attacked two other youths - 19-year-old Faiz and Arif (24). The duo, along with 25-year-old Farman Ali, was admitted to the district hospital by locals.
After more than an hour of struggle, a few devotees managed to put a blanket on the animal and capture it after which they beat it up. They then took it to the Baradari police station, where cops also allegedly beat up the animal and asked locals to take it back.
The poor animal would have most likely died had it not been for the timely intervention of a team of People for Animals, which got him admitted to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute.
Several people are reported to have been seriously injured in the bear attacks
A dozen others have been injured in attacks by bears from forestry in the area around Kotpad village.
Angry villagers last week chased the bears and beat one of them to death, the officials said.
They say that the bears could have turned violent following excessive consumption of intoxicating flowers.
© ReutersA female bear and its three cubs were slaughtered in Sweden after nearly killing an elderly man.
A bear and its cubs were put down after nearly killing an 80-year-old pensioner in northern Sweden.
Hunters were authorised to slaughter the female bear after it pounced on the elderly man while he was fishing by a lake in Homnabo.
The man, who has not been named, attempted to escape when he spotted the bear, but it quickly caught up with him and threw him to the ground.
The victim wrestled with the bear but managed to escape after being bitten on his shoulder and ear. He was later taken to a local hospital in Gävle.
© NBC
National Weather Service recorded the following rainfall levels:
Port of Palm Beach - 9.13 inches (230 mm)
Palm Beach - 8.21 inches (208 mm)
Riviera Beach - 5.49 (140 mm)
Lake Worth - 3.32 (84 mm)
Palm Beach Airport - 2.64 (67 mm)
A cold front has brought dramatic temperature drops to the northern regions of China.
North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin are seeing falls of up to 20 degrees Celsius. In Harbin, the highest temperature is just 5 degrees Celsius. And the lowest in many cities is below zero. Heilongjiang's Mohe has seen some heavy snowfall this season already.
The cold front is however a bringer of good news as it's driving away the smog that's been lingering in the north for several days. Air pollution has been easing gradually since Monday afternoon.
The cold will also creep down into the southern and eastern regions, with temperature falls of up to 10 degrees Celsius, along with bouts of rain.
© Credit: Wikipedia.Aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain, northwest of Los Angeles.
"We previously had very limited information about how ruptures grow into great earthquakes and interact with regions around them," said seismologist Thorne Lay of the University of California at Santa Cruz. "So we are using the recorded data for these recent events to guide our understanding of future earthquakes. We've gained a new level of appreciation for how one earthquake can influence events in other zones."
High on the list of areas ripe for a great quake is Cascadia, the Pacific Northwest, where the risk for great quakes had long been under appreciated. Evidence began surfacing about 20 years ago that there had been a great quake in the region in the year 1700. Since then the view of the great quake risk in Cascadia has shifted dramatically.
Comment: See also: Earthquake frequency increasing rate of strong quakes doubles in 2014
To understand why this is happening, read Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection. Here's a relevant excerpt:
From 1973 to 1996, earthquake and eruption frequencies were almost stable, increasing only slightly year after year, but from 1996 onwards, an acceleration is noticeable. Volcanic eruptions show an increase from about 59 eruptions per year at the end of the 1990s to roughly 75 eruptions per year in the period 2007 - 2010 (+30%).
Today, the increase in volcanic activity has reached such a level that, by late November 2013, 35 volcanoes were actively erupting , including volcanoes that had been dormant for decades.
It could be argued that the increase in both the frequency and intensity of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions is, at least partly, a result of the slowdown and 'opening up' processes:
1) The Earth's minute slowdown exerts mechanical stress on the crust (compression at low latitudes and extension at high latitude). This stress deforms the crust. This deformation is more pronounced and can even lead to partial ruptures around the weakest spots of the crust, i.e. the fault lines (boundaries between tectonic plates) which are the typical location of seismic and volcanic activity.
2) The mantle has a higher density than the crust and therefore has a higher momentum and won't slow down as fast as the crust. The difference in rotation between the crust and the mantle is equal to the crustal slippage. The fluidity of the mantle enables slippage induced by the different momentum carried by the crust, the upper mantle and the core.
This speed difference can cause friction at the interface between the crust and the mantle. This friction can locally deform the crust and cause earthquakes and eruptions.
3) The decrease in the surface - core E-field reduces the binding force and loosens the tectonic plates relative to each other. The plates are then free to move relative to each other. It is this very relative movement (divergence, convergence or sliding) which is one of the main causes for earthquakes and volcanic eruptions:[Change] in Earth's speed of rotation would induce changes in the magma tide as it adjusted to the new equator or altered rotational speed. Such changes, however, might not be uniform throughout, owing to a 'drag' factor deep in the magma itself, although, overall, they would certainly impose terrible strains on the lithosphere generally.4) A final factor involved in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions is electromagnetism:Some scientists have become aware of a correlation between sunspots and earthquakes and want to use sunspot data to help predict earthquakes. The theory is that an intensification of the magnetic field can cause changes in the geosphere [i.e. crust]. NASA and the European Geosciences Union have already put their stamp of approval on the sunspot hypothesis, which suggests that certain changes in the Sun-Earth environment affect the magnetic field of the Earth, which can then trigger earthquakes in areas prone to them. It is not clear how such a trigger might work.
© Canarias Emergencias / TwitterFlood damage in Tenerife, Canary Islands, October 2014.
Streets were turned to rivers as the eye of a storm passed over Tenerife and La Gomera islands, dumping 140 mm of rain on the Santa Cruz area of Tenerife in just 24 hours. Cars were submerged and tarmac ripped up from roads as raging flood water swept through the streets. Over 4,000 homes were left without power during the peak of the storm.
The dead man was found on Monday after two members of a rescue team were allegedly attacked by a bear on Sunday evening.
"According to initial findings, the wounds found on the victim's body indicate that he may have died after being attacked by a predator," commented police spokesperson Katarzyna Fechner.
"However, this will only be verified after the autopsy by doctors," she stressed.
The 61-year-old, a resident of the village of Olszanica, had been reported missing on Saturday.
Comment: See also: Jackal attacks 2 children outside their house in Goa, India
Pack of jackals injure 17 villagers in Nepal