Earth Changes
Maniototo farmer Phil Smith said five ewes and seven lambs were sheltering under a tree on his property when it was struck by lightning on January 6, killing them instantly.
He said he had heard of it happening on other farms around New Zealand, but it was the first time he had seen it on his farm.
"I didn't know it had happened for the first few days. I only got notified by my neighbour. She walked her dogs down the road and she came across them and rang me about it.
Gas deliveries were cut to about 90,000 residential users in the north-eastern Razavi Khorasan province by Saturday night, Governor Yaghoub-Ali Nazari said on national television.
Supplies were also disrupted in at least four other northern provinces and several districts at the tail end of the national gas pipeline network near the country's eastern borders, according to reports by state TV.
President Ebrahim Raisi paid an unannounced visit on Sunday to the national gas company and was briefed on the supply situation.
Mr Raisi told employees at the National Iranian Gas Company that the closure of offices and organisations was not a suitable solution in addressing the shortage.

A snow blower attempts to clear the roadway on Interstate 80 near Kingvale on Jan. 15, 2022.
"We are now 204% of average precipitation to this point in the water year (Oct 1 to Sept 30) and we have 92% of our average peak seasonal #Snow Water Equivalent (SWE)," the lab tweeted Sunday, noting the snow water equivalent refers to the amount of water that can be collected by melting the snowpack.
At least 7.5 feet of snow has fallen at the lab in the last week. Caltrans said about one inch an hour had fallen over Donner Summit from Friday through Sunday alone.
"It's still coming down hard out there!" the lab tweeted earlier on Saturday. "The snowpack is DEEP with ~10 feet (3 meters) of snow already on the ground!"
"It will be near impossible to get you out from among the ice cold sludge once it rushes into your homes," Raivis Ragainis, mayor of the city of Jekabpils, warned on local radio.
Particularly exposed are Jekabpils and the town of Plavinas and surrounding areas, where the flow of the Daugava river has been blocked by pack ice that drifted in from Belarus.
"Chunks of ice and torrents of ice-cold water rapidly took over our city," Jekabpils resident Maris Kodols told AFP.
"These are the worst floods since 1981," he said, adding that current water levels are just five centimetres (two inches) below that year's all-time record.
Streets of the city were flooded following a period of heavy rain. Strong winds of more than 100 km/h also caused damage. Emergency services received over 180 calls for assistance late on 14 January 2023. Around 25 people suffered injuries as a result of the severe weather.
The worst of the flooding occurred in the Conquistadores neighbourhood where firefighters discovered a vehicle completely submerged in flood water with two people dead inside.

The Argentière Glacier in the French Alps, one of the Mont Blanc range’s biggest glaciers.
The accident happened on Saturday on the Argentière Glacier, one of the Mont Blanc mountain range's biggest glaciers.
Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest mountain at 4,800 metres (nearly 16,000ft), attracts 20,000 hikers and skiers every year.
The 45-year-old woman and her partner were hiking with a mountain guide when an avalanche buried her at about 5.30pm on Saturday, according to Le Figaro.

A sperm whale beached on the Oregon coast near Fort Stevens State Park on Saturday, Jan. 15. A gash in the carcass suggests a vessel may have struck the whale, which would typically swim in deep waters only.
The whale beached just south of the Peter Iredale shipwreck, said Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Photos show a gash in the carcass, suggesting a vessel may have struck the whale, he said.
As of Sunday, it wasn't clear if the gash caused the whale's death or happened after the whale was already ill in some way.
According to US Geological Survey, the magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit the Izu-Ogasawara Islands, south of the capital Tokyo, at around 0449GMT.
The earthquake was estimated to be at the depth of 409.1 kilometers (254.2 miles).
The islands are located some 1,000 kilometers (621.3 miles) south of the capital.
The magnitude 6.2 earthquake was centered 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Singkil, a coastal district in Aceh province at a depth of 37 kilometers (23 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said.
No tsunami alert was issued by Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 270 million people, is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

Mammoth Mountain, CA, has the most recorded snowfall out of any ski area on Earth right now.
Many of the resorts on this list have already surpassed their peak total snowpack for last season and it's only mid-January. Where will the rest of the winter take us? Could it be a record-breaking year? Time will tell but for now you can revel at these massive snowfall numbers and pinch yourself that there's still an entire half of a season left to go.
Open ski resorts with the most snowfall this season to date...