Athens, Greece - A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck the western island of Zakynthos early Sunday, causing no injuries or damage, authorities said.
The Athens Geodynamic Institute said Saturday's undersea quake occurred at 8:42 a.m. (0642 GMT), about 250 kilometers (150 miles) west of Athens. The epicenter was south of Zakynthos, the Institute said.
Locals were somewhat concerned by the duration of the earthquake, authorities said, but there was no widespread panic as the area produces frequent strong earthquakes.
Northern New England may get as much as a half-foot of snow in the next two days as a wave a low pressure and cold air blows in from the U.S. Midwest and Plains.
The storm yesterday dumped 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow in Farwell, Michigan, said AccuWeather on its Web site. Farwell is 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Lansing, Michigan.
''Southern New England and the mid-Atlantic region will escape with nothing but rain this time,'' said John Kocet, an AccuWeather meteorologist. ''Just like the snow up north, the rain will come and go over a six- to eight-hour period.''
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| ©Oshkosh Northwestern/Shu-Ling Zhou
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| Andy VanKeuren, 6, and his sister, Maddy, 8, play at the snow at their backyard Friday, December 28, 2007.
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Another round of snow blanketed Oshkosh, Wisconsin with about four inches of the white stuff which fell Friday adding to a near record snowfall for the month.
WASHINGTON - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder. January was the warmest first month on record worldwide - 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.
And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.
A new case of bluetongue has been detected in Britain, for the first time in Scotland, the Scottish government said Saturday.
CHICAGO - A winter storm hit the Great Lakes on Friday, blanketing the region with several inches of snow and disrupting holiday travel.
A new effort is under way in the Philippines to stem the declining population of the world's largest clams, called taklobos.
A "clam garden" was built about 250 feet off the shore of Pico de Loro Cove in Batangas to provide new habitat for the giant clams, which can reach five feet in diameter and weigh up to 570 pounds, The Manila Times reported Thursday.
The reseeding was accomplished using clams brought from Bolinao, Pangasinian, the newspaper said. The conservation project is a joint effort of the Hamilo Coast, SM Investments Corp. and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Wellington - A strong earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale rattled thousands of mid-summer holidaymakers at the New Zealand North Island lakeside resort town of Taupo on Saturday morning.
2007 is set to be the warmest year in one and a half centuries for Russia, the head of the Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia said on Thursday.
"We are 99% sure that this will be the warmest year in the 150-year period in which accurate weather records have been kept," Roman Vilfand told a press-conference.
Vilfand said that on a wider scale, the year was set to become one of the top five warmest years our planet has seen since global temperatures have been recorded. He said it meant "that a warming of the climate is undoubtedly going on."
Indonesian rescuers hunted Thursday for victims of landslides and floods on Java island that have left more than 130 people feared dead and tens of thousands displaced, officials said.
Landslides hit two districts in Central Java in the early hours of Wednesday morning, engulfing entire homes and blocking roads, while floods in East Java swept away a bridge, leaving an estimated 50 missing.
