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Three-foot python startles employees of Richmond cellphone store, Canada

Stephanie Ip
The Province
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 09:25 UTC
Image

This three-foot-long ball python was found by store staff inside Wind Mobile at Richmond’s Lansdowne Mall on Monday.
A three-foot-long snake was found slithering through a cellphone store Monday evening in Richmond, leaving store staff surprised and slightly scared.

Employees at Lansdowne Mall's Wind Mobile were preparing to close just before 6 p.m. Monday when a staff member walked into the store's back room and spotted a snake near a microwave oven.

Val Lofvendahl of Richmond-based Reptile Rescue was called in to handle the situation.

"First thing we do is, because we don't know what we're dealing with, we grab a container and a pair of gloves and hope that it's nothing - but prepare for possibly something aggressive," she told the Province.

Lofvendahl and her daughter arrived shortly after being called and were escorted by security through the closed mall to Wind Mobile, where two frightened employees were waiting outside the store front.

Inside, Lofvendahl found the snake on top of a cardboard box.
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Arrow Down

Mandatory sinkhole insurance coverage proposed in Missouri State Senate bill

Laura Kennedy
ozarksfirst.com
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC

A Missouri lawmaker lays the groundwork for homeowners to get sinkhole insurance.

Our entire region is at risk for sinkholes because of the porous limestone and Karst formations under the Ozarks.

But most insurance companies exclude sinkholes from coverage.

That's a gap Senate Bill 691 seeks to fill.

Springfield homeowner Mark Hill is still paying for a near disaster that happened one year ago.

"We had a collapse between the two houses which was not a sinkhole, but was an old mine shaft," he said.

When the mine shaft opened up it went well under the corner of his neighbor's house and extended eight feet underneath his house.

"My air conditioning unit fell into the hole," he said.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole eats up trash truck in Philadelphia!

NBC Philadelphia
Source
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:57 UTC
Image
© SkyForce10
A large sinkhole partially swallowed up a sanitation truck in Philadelphia, causing a Center City street to be blocked off this morning.

The hole on the 1300 block of Kater Street (near Broad Street) left the Waste Management truck stuck.

Police taped off the area around the truck a little after noon as utility crews responded to the scene. The sinkhole also appeared to swallow up some of the sidewalk on the north side of the street.

A tow truck freed the trash truck, which was able to drive away. No one was hurt.Workers at the scene inspected water and gas lines below the street for damage.
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Question

Something stinks in Hong Kong 'mystery' as hundreds of rotting dead fish wash up on beach

Sofia Mitra-Thakur
South China Morning Post
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 19:51 UTC
Dead Fishes
© Sam Tsang
The smell of fish washed up at Mo Tat Wan has engulfed the village.
Hundreds of dead and rotting fish that washed up on a beach have caused a stink for Lamma Island villagers - and experts say fish farms are probably to blame.

Villagers woke on Monday to find the narrow beach at Mo Tat Wan strewn with the carcasses of large fish. Scores more decaying fish were to be seen floating by the village pier.

Residents were stunned by the quantity of fish, which measured up to two feet and were identified by experts as sea bass, cobia and croaker - species common in Hong Kong fish farms. They said the smell of the decaying fish had engulfed the entire village.

One resident, who asked not to be named, described seeing "bloated, rotting carcasses" on the beach, along with the "usual piles of litter".

"The beach was littered with dead fish, with even more dead fish floating in the water near the pier," she said. "It's sad. It appears the Lamma channel gets used as a dumping ground for lots of things, a great deal of which gets washed up at Mo Tat Wan. Nothing ever seems to be done about it."
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Igloo

Daring tourists queue up to climb frozen waterfall in China

Ben Burrows
Mirror.co.uk
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:04 UTC
The wall of ice in the Miyun district is perfect for a spot of climbing, providing you have a head for heights

Frozen Waterfall
© Rex
Frozen Waterfall.
It is so cold in the Miyun District that a waterfall has actually frozen solid.

The sub zero conditions have caused havoc in places, but not in China where they're using the plummeting temperatures to their advantage.

Any ice cool tourists brave enough can scale the usually raging torrent with the help of some crampons and a pickax.

Freezing weather conditions have battered much of the globe with parts of America dropping to -60 thanks to Winter Storm Hercules.

Conditions in the north of America are so historically low that the world-famous Niagara Falls actually froze spawning some truly amazing snaps.

Lake Michigan steamed because the water was warmer than the surrounding air, and the small town of Hell froze over - for real.
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Phoenix

256 wildfires suddenly break out in Victoria, Australia amid heatwave

Angus Thompson, James Dowling, Michelle Ainsworth
Herald Sun
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:52 UTC
fire ban sign
© Unknown
Crews have worked throughout the night extinguishing hundreds of fires in the driest parts of Victoria sparked by dry lightning from electrical storms.

CFA state duty officer Scott Purdy told 3AW radio crews responded to 256 fires between 5pm and 12am.

The Mallee and Wimmera received the most strikes as electrical storms hit the region and continued to other parts of the state including the central Victorian towns of Castlemaine, Daylesford, Woodend, Macedon, and metropolitan Melbourne.

There are still 22 fires burning in the Mallee. Waterbombing helicopters are monitoring the region and central Victoria to identify strikes before conditions worsen later in the week.

The CFA fears more dry lightning, which means lightning with not enough rain to combat its effect, will hit the state today.

The CFA battled several grass fires yesterday, with the most serious at Kangaroo Ground which is now under control.

There is a total fire ban across the state.

Comment: Dry lightning? Maybe. But then there's also this coming down from overhead:

Breaking News: NSW, Australia - Meteor spotted, 12 January 2014

      Read More...
Windsock

Severe storms, floods plague East U.S. coast


CBN News
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 16:43 UTC
Wild weather is sweeping the country following last weeks deep freeze.


Over the weekend powerful storms roared down South.

In North Carolina, hurricane strength winds destroyed a condominium complex.

In Georgia, two girls had to be rescued after a tree fell on their home.

Meanwhile, a big thaw from Pennsylvania to Maine is causing major flooding concerns for millions.

In Vermont, roads have been closed and some residents are being forced to use sand bags.

In western New York, homes and yards looked like swimming pools due to massive flood waters. Crews had to use boats and even a bulldozer to rescue residents trapped by the rising water.

Forecasters say more flooding is expected in the coming days.
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Newspaper

Hilarious: Akademic Shokalskiy makes it back to port, #spiritofmawson ship of fools still stuck in Antarctica

Anthony Watts
What's Up With That?
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:168.3123/centery:-46.88068/zoom:8/oldmmsi:273458210/olddate:lastknown
The comedy just keeps on coming. Plus, now it seems that Turney failed to get some approvals, and his welcome home may not be all the happy. Maybe he'll stay in Antarctica.

After having to prematurely abandon their mission due to being stuck in ice, and having a weather forecast provided that said all they had to do was wait a few more days, which came true, freeing the ship, the intrepid Dr. Turney and his gaggle of global warming geese tourists were evacuated by helicopter to the Aurora Australis, which then sailed to the Australian Casey Station to finish the resupply operations that got interrupted by Turney's distress call.

The #spirtofmawson people are still at Casey Station, waiting for their ride home, while the Akademic Shokalskiy has made it to port in New Zealand. See the current positions of both ships:
      Read More...
Stop

Walthall County family discovers mysterious hole in yard

Perrise Thomas
WJTV
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:02 UTC
Image

Walthall County hole is like a vacuum, and if the family pours water into it, it guzzles it right down.
A Walthall County family sent us a video Sunday morning of what they call a mysterious hole forming in their yard. The home is on Jayess road in Tylertown, Walthall County.

"We don't know what this is. There's a sink hole in our yard, and it's sucking air." says Max McKenzie.

They say it's like a vacuum, and if they pour water into it, it guzzles it right down.

"I don't know what it is, but we're going to have to do something to find out," says Max. His 14-year-old son, Brad, discovered it.

"I heard noise coming from the ground, I got my ear down there and listened to it," says Brad.

They took a shovel and dug around the hole, hoping to figure out what it is. They even stuck a pipe down there to see how deep it is. And no matter how much water they pour into the hole, it guzzles the water, and it just disappears.
      Read More...
Igloo

Fish encased in ice: Mass death in Norway as the water froze

Torkel Ødegård
Doubtful News
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:20 UTC
The school of fish perished as they froze to death when the water rapidly froze over this weekend at Lovund island, in the Nordland province in Norway.

A temperature of -7/8°C (that's approx 17-19°F) with an east wind made the bay freeze over very quickly. The fish had probably been chased towards the shore by cormorants and did not make it back to the open sea before the water froze solid.

Aril Slotte at the Sea Research Institute says it's not uncommon for fish to be chased to the shore by predators. The type of fish is described as coalfish or pollack (Pollachius virens).

It made for a striking photo op.
Frozen Fish
© Ingolf Kristiansen
Not the first time this has happened in Nordland this year.
      Read More...
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