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Locust plague encroaches on Melbourne

Australia's worst locust plague in 70 years has marched into metropolitan Melbourne as federal and state authorities met to consider their plan of attack.

Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig today met with ministers and officials from NSW, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland to discuss the response to the swarms.

Senator Ludwig said the response so far had been "extremely efficient", but with the pests taking to the wing the time had come to discuss realistic approaches to controlling the swarms.

There had been an increase in reports of fledgling or young adult locusts, with swarms even spotted in Melbourne, he said.

"There has been a sudden influx of locusts into parts of the Melbourne metropolitan area," Senator Ludwig said in a statement.

Question

African Pelicans migrate in wrong direction and end up in Siberia.

Lost Pelicans
© AllvoicesZoo officials holding pink pelicans at an aviary in Barnaul in the Altai region. The birds were migrating to Africa.

A small flock of African pink pelicans apparently bamboozled by the warm weather in Siberia flew north from Kazakhstan instead of south as any properly functioning pelican GPS system should have told them. Vladimir Pyagin from the village of Suslovo said:"I left home early in the morning and what a sight!" "When I got closer, I immediately realized they were pelicans. ... Everybody in the village started trying to catch them to save the exhausted birds from the dogs""

Residents captured four of the exotic pelicans. They were moved to a zoo in the regional capital Barnaul. The other three birds in the flock were able to fly off.

Members of the Bird Conservation Union said the pelicans were flying back to their native Africa from Kazakhstan but obviously lost their way. The head of the Union said: "This is a unique case. Some reports suggest pelicans last flew here over 100 years ago,"

Bizarro Earth

Flashback Mysterious crack still begs answers

Nearly 200 yards long, 5 feet deep in parts


Menominee Township, Michigan - Nestled just beyond the tree line of Eileen Heider's 53 acres, is Menominee County's newest tourist attraction.

"It's amazing, I want to get back there and check the rest of it out," said Kevin Clermont of Wallace, Michigan, who stopped on his way home from work to sightsee.

Heider and neighbors heard an explosion-like sound Monday morning. Heider found the nearly 200-yard-long crevice, which measures five-feet deep in parts, Tuesday.

"I was sitting in my recliner and the recliner started to vibrate," said Heider. "And it's not electric."

Cloud Lightning

Landslide Cuts Off Cornwall as Storms Hit Southwest

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© Suzanne Chapman/ApexFlooding on Station Road in St Blazey, Cornwall
The main train line into Cornwall has been blocked by a landslide, cutting off the county from the rest of Britain, as storms bring flooding and disruption to large parts of the south west.

Drivers were washed into Portloe harbour near Truro while still in their cars and three feet of standing water trapped hundreds of people in their homes in many places.

Traffic on the main routes through mid-Cornwall backed up for several miles, causing long delays to commuters.

The landslip took place at around 6.30am at Lostwithiel and there are currently no trains in or out of the county.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported this morning despite the severity of the weather.

Gales have contributed to the problems as trees have been brought down and blocked roads including the A390 at Gunnislake.

Many schools have been closed.

Lostwithiel, Bodmin, St Austell, Par, Luxulyan and St Blazey have been flooded.

Cloud Lightning

Thai Flood Death Toll Climbs to 227

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© PressTVA flooded house affected in the recent Thai floods
Thailand's flood death toll has risen to 227 with the government helping flood victims obtain compensation in the affected provinces.

Wiboon Sanguanpong, the director-general of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, confirmed on Tuesday that 227 people were killed in the recent flooding, reported China's Xinhua news agency. Heavy floods, caused by a combination of heavy rainfall and water released from overloaded reservoirs, have hit Thailand since October 10, especially in the country's northeast and the south.

The families of the flood victims will receive additional financial aid under state regulations, a government official said.

Overall, 51 provinces have been impacted by the flooding, affecting more than 8.6 million people. The floods in 35 provinces have eased and restoration work has begun, while floodwaters remain in 16 provinces with 1.4 million people being affected.

Cloud Lightning

Trees Crash Down, Cut Power In Windstorm

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© KiroTV.comShipping containers at the Port of Tacoma
Power crews worked to restore service after 150,000 customers were without power after a windstorm hit Western Washington hard.

Puget Sound Energy started out with about 90,000 outages across all of the counties it services for except Kittitas County. Olympia was hit especially hard. By noon, 76,000 were still without power. The utility said some in Thurston County may not have service restored until Thursday.

Chris Gleason with Tacoma Power said they started out with 54,000 outages but are down to 6,000 customers without power as crews work to restore service.

Jonathan White said 5,600 customers of Peninsula Light Company in Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula were in darkness, but by noon they were down to 3,700. White said trees were the main culprit for the outages.

Igloo

Climate change means colder winters: study

snow shoveling
© Andy King - Associated Press
Climate change could lead to colder winters in northern regions, according to a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on Tuesday.

Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study, said a shrinking of sea ice in the eastern Arctic causes some regional warming of lower air levels and may lead to anomalies in atmospheric airstreams, triggering an overall cooling of the northern continents.

"These anomalies could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia," he said. "Recent severe winters like last year's or the one of 2005/06 do not conflict with the global warming picture but rather supplement it."

Petoukhov, whose study is entitled "A link between reduced Barents-Kara sea ice and cold winter extremes over northern continents," said in a statement a warming of the air over the Barents-Kara Sea appeared to bring cold winter winds to Europe.

Stop

Israel: Thousands Affected as Heavy Fog Engulfs Ben-Gurion Airport

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© Avi Scharf Fog in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning, November 16, 2010.
Flights resume, but delays continue; chief El Al pilot: Scandalous that there's no other Israeli airport for landings.

Take-offs and landings at Ben-Gurion International Airport resumed late Tuesday morning, after an hours-long suspension due to heavy fog. Flight delays, however, are expected to continue until Wednesday.

Thousands of passengers were affected by the poor weather conditions.

The airport was effectively shut to air traffic from midnight until 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and more than two dozen Israel-bound aircraft were diverted to other airports in the region.

Dror Gorelick, El Al's chief pilot, criticized the chaos caused by the heavy fog and poor visibility.

Evil Rays

Israel: 3.6 magnitude earthquake felt in north

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© Unknown
Many residents of Upper Galilee wake up as mild earthquake hits Israel. 'I felt the bed literally shaking,' Safed resident says.

A mild earthquake was felt in northern Israel early Tuesday, many residents reported. The Geophysical Institute reported an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter Scale was felt in the Moshav Avivim area at 4:32 am. No injuries or damage were reported.

Yael of Safed said the quake caused her to wake up as she felt her house move. "I got up and felt the bed literally shaking under my stomach, actually moving. I can't fall back to sleep I'm so afraid."

Yael noted that some of her neighbors also woke up and added no damage was caused.

X

San Francisco, US: Thousands of dead jellyfish on Ocean Beach, but move along, nothing to see here or be alarmed about, folks

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© Brant Ward / The ChronicleJellyfish that washed up on the south side of Ocean Beach on Friday dry up in the sun.
Ocean Beach shimmered more than usual this weekend.

Not from the natural beauty of sand, surf and sea, but from a great slick of dead jellyfish that mysteriously washed ashore near Pacheco Street.

More than 10,000 of the gooey invertebrates, each about the size of a dinner plate, drifted onto the beach Friday evening. By Sunday, they had attracted hordes of the curious, the repulsed and the fascinated.

Kids stomped them. Dogs rolled in them. Surfers tossed them at each other. Some people tiptoed fearfully around them, while others pressed in with cameras for close-ups.

"I first saw it and thought, am I hallucinating?" said Nan Madden of San Francisco as she walked her yellow Labrador through the slimy swath Sunday morning. "I've never seen anything like it. I sent pictures to my grandkids."