Traffic has come to a halt in downtown Detroit after a sinkhole opened up in the middle of one of the city's main streets.

The disruption occurred just blocks from the North American International Auto Show and could take days to repair.

The hole originally was about twice as big as a manhole cover but now measures about 14 feet by 10 feet and is on Randolph street at the intersection of Jefferson, next to the Coleman A. Young municipal building and the Millender Center, WWJ-AM reports.

About four dozen pilot whales in shallow waters off of southwest Florida are being monitored by wildlife officials.

Two of the whales died and a third will be euthanized, officials said.

A handful of the whales stranded near shore in Lee County, while more than a dozen others swam nearby, said Kim Amendola of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service.

An additional 12 whales were spotted farther offshore earlier in the morning.

Necropsies would be performed on the three beached whales, said NOAA regional stranding coordinator Blair Mase.

The remaining whales were listless and emaciated, and many wouldn't react if a boat approached them, Mase said.

Dozens of Azle residents are planning a trip to the state capitol to send a message to the Texas Railroad Commission.

Organizers have named the bus trip "Shake the Ground in Austin," and they expect at least 50 people to show up for the regularly scheduled Texas Railroad Commission meeting Tuesday morning.

Some Azle residents believe there is a link between local fracking injection wells and a series of recent earthquakes. In a one-month span, about 30 minor earthquakes hit the area.

The Texas Railroad Commission regulates oil and gas operations. Earlier this month, more than 800 Parker County residents attended a meeting hosted by TRC Commissioner David Porter at Azle High School and pressed him for answers about the earthquakes. However, some residents left the meeting more angry and frustrated than when it began.

"We need to get some relief for people who are having their homes damaged by these earthquakes," said Sharon Wilson, Texas organizer for Earthworks Oil & Gas Accountability Project.

Four people were killed and 18 others were injured, at least four of them critically, in two separate explosions at industrial plants in Nebraska and Oklahoma on Monday, authorities said.

Two died when the three-story International Nutrition Inc. animal feed plant collapsed and burst into flames about 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) in Omaha, Neb., officials said. Four of the 17 other people injured there were critically wounded, interim Omaha Fire Chief Bernie Kanger said Monday night.

Witnesses described hearing a loud noise and then seeing a fireball seconds before the building collapsed.

Six hours later, two more people died and a third suffered head burns when a furnace exploded at the Mid-America Steel and Wire facility in rural Madill, Okla., the Marshall County Sheriff's Office told NBC News. The condition of the third person couldn't immediately be determined Monday night.

Both of the victims of the Omaha incident were on the second floor of the International Nutrition building. One of the bodies was recovered late Monday afternoon, but the second remained at the scene Monday night. Operations to recover that body were suspended Monday night because of severe weather.

All of the 36 other employees who were in the building when it collapsed were accounted for, Kanger said. Ten were taken to hospitals, four of them with critical injuries. Seven other people with minor injuries were treated at the scene.

Gyrfalcon in Kerry again - Fenit in north Kerry this time.

The same bird that was seen in Ballyferriter and Liscannor (http://www.irishbirding.com/birds/web) in November?

Locations not far apart as the falcon flies.

What a stunning bird.

* Draft report outlines solutions to climate change

* World doing too little to meeting temperature goal-UN

* Suggestions include burying emissions, planting more trees

Governments may have to extract vast amounts of greenhouse gases from the air by 2100 to achieve a target for limiting global warming, backed by trillion-dollar shifts towards clean energy, a draft U.N. report showed on Wednesday.

A 29-page summary for policymakers, seen by Reuters, says most scenarios show that rising world emissions will have to plunge by 40 to 70 percent between 2010 and 2050 to give a good chance of restricting warming to U.N. targets.

The report, outlining solutions to climate change, is due to be published in Germany in April after editing by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It will be the third in a series by the IPCC, updating science from 2007.

It says the world is doing too little to achieve a goal agreed in 2010 of limiting warming to below 2 degrees (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, seen as a threshold for dangerous floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

To get on track, governments may have to turn ever more to technologies for "carbon dioxide removal" (CDR) from the air, ranging from capturing and burying emissions from coal-fired power plants to planting more forests that use carbon to grow.

Most projects for capturing carbon dioxide from power plants are experimental. Among big projects, Saskatchewan Power in Canada is overhauling its Boundary Dam power plant to capture a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

And, if the world overshoots concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere consistent with the 2C goal, most scenarios for getting back on track "deploy CDR technologies to an extent that net global carbon dioxide emissions become negative" before 2100, it says.

Along the leading edge of the invading polar blast, accumulating snow will spread from the Midwest to the East Coast on Tuesday.

The snow will come courtesy of yet another Alberta Clipper set to drop through the Dakotas and Ohio Valley on Monday through Monday night with accumulations on the order of a coating to 2 inches.

The snow will become heavier as it streaks across the mid-Atlantic on Tuesday, then makes a northeastward turn toward southern New England late in the day and evening.

Travel conditions will deteriorate with slippery roads and flight delays expected to unfold even in areas that avoid heavy snow. As colder air invades the storm, winds will increase and cause some blowing and drifting of the snow that has already fallen.

The remarkable video shows just how close the locomotive came to falling into the sea after it was hit by adverse weather conditions

This amazing footage shows just how close a train came to falling into the sea.

The remarkable images were captured by a drone camera and show the aftermath of a landslide which derailed the locomotive.

Adverse weather conditions caused widespread havoc in the Liguria region of Italy.

Just why there is a train line built so close to the edge of a cliff is unclear.

Check out the best of the eye-opening footage below or click here to check out the video in full.

The Scottish SPCA today launched an appeal to trace the owner of a small corn snake which slithered its way into a lawyer's office in Dunbartonshire.

Scotland's animal welfare charity was called in to rescue the snake after it was spotted inside the offices of Clyde Defence Lawyers in Alexander Street, Clydebank, on Thursday morning.

Now named Tango, the orange and yellow snake is being cared for at the charity's Glasgow Animal Rescue and Rehoming Centre in Cardonald.

Animal Rescue Officer Emma Campbell explained: "The person who first spotted Tango didn't think he was real as he wasn't moving. She thought someone in the office was playing a prank on her but after a colleague gave him a gentle prod it was clear he wasn't a toy and that they needed to contact us for help.

"Tango is a placid wee guy and he isn't very big as he's still a juvenile."

She continued: "There are flats on Alexander Street so it's possible Tango has escaped from his home nearby. We'd love to reunite Tango with his owner if he has gone missing but if no-one comes forward we'll find him a new home."

Anyone who recognises Tango is being asked to call the Scottish SPCA's Glasgow Animal Rescue and Rehoming Centre on 03000 999 999.

A "severe'' magnitude 6.2 quake has damaged homes and closed roads in the lower North Island, toppling walls and chimneys and sending rockfalls across roads.

The quake, initially reported as a magnitude 6.3, struck 10km north of Castlepoint in Wairarapa, at a depth of 33km, at 3.52pm, GeoNet said.

Sara Page, GeoNet public information specialist at GNS Science, said GeoNet had received more than 6000 "felt" reports from the public by 4.30pm, with some reporting damage.

"As expected after a quake of this size, there have been multiple aftershocks, and these will continue for some time as the region settles," she said.

The Wairarapa is no stranger to large earthquakes, with two very damaging magnitude 7 quakes in 1942.

However, the region's last earthquake above magnitude 6 was in 1961.

Damage reports

Fifteen people will not be able to return home tonight after their building in the centre of Masterton was red-stickered as a result of today's earthquake.

Wairarapa area Civil Defence controller Kevin Tunnell said the three-storey Daniels Building on Queen St had sustained unspecified damage in the quake.

It was initially deemed unsafe by the Fire Service and then by Masterton District Council engineers.

Its 15 tenants would not be allowed home for at least tonight and engineers would carry out further inspections tomorrow.