Last week, several dozen dead and dying Magellanic penguins were discovered on beaches throughout south Brazil, apparent victims of an oil spill. So far more than 140 penguins have been transfered to animal care facilities to be cleaned and rehabilitated, while an untold number more have already perished from contaminated waters. If this fact alone weren't cause enough for concern, what's more troubling is that it's hardly an isolated incident. For the last ten years, with disturbing regularity, penguins have been washing ashore starving or covered in oil. And while the origins of these annual mass deaths remain officially a mystery -- one biologists believes he knows the sinister truth behind them.

A powerful storm system raced through the upper Midwest Thursday night, killing a Wisconsin man when a tree collapsed onto his motorcycle, pelting Chicago skyscrapers with golf ball-sized hail and packing winds so strong they spun a grounded military cargo plane.

Several injuries were reported in Kenosha, Wis., where winds between 70 and 80 mph downed or damaged hundreds of trees and knocked out power to some 22,000 homes and businesses by early Friday, authorities said.

The 31-year-old man who died was riding his motorcycle on a local road at 8:12 p.m. CDT when he was struck by the tree, according to a news release from the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Two other residents were injured when they touched live electrical wires, and a woman was treated for a broken hip after she was struck by debris from a shed, authorities said.

Regular rainfall the past several days has somewhat boosted water levels in area lakes and refreshed area lawns, but much more rain is needed to end the extreme drought plaguing the state.

Parts of South Florida have received healthy amounts of rain, but that level of accumulation is spotty, according to Mike Bettwy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami.

"It hasn't exactly been widespread," Bettwy said. "If you go back and include late last week we have had several areas with over 5 inches, but at Palm Beach itself, (Palm Beach International Airport), they've had about an inch to an inch and a half."

Gabe Margasak, a spokesman with the South Florida Water Management District, called the recent rain short-term relief. "But it wasn't enough to erase the long-term drought. For Palm Beach, you are looking at a more than 20-inch rainfall deficit since the dry season began last October," Margasak said.

Forecasters are calling for a 50-60 percent chance of rain through Friday, with the chance of rain dropping over the weekend. The county has received about 18 fewer inches of rain since Jan. 1 than the historical average, according to Bettwy.

In case you missed it, the skies opened up late yesterday throughout Beaufort, the Lowcountry and Coastal Empire.

We don't have specific rain totals for Beaufort, but reports from the surrounding areas show we indeed got hammered.

The National Weather Service in Charleston is reporting rain totals of 2+ inches all around Jasper, but seems Savannah got the worst of it with 5.6 inches at Fort Pulaski and almost 5 inches at Savannah airport.

Today's forecast shows a 30% of more thunderstorms late today and tonight.

With the UN warning that both East and the Horn of Africa have been hit by the worst drought in 60 years, international aid agencies have warned of an alarming gap in the food pipeline to reach those most in need.

More than 10 million people are thought to be affected across the East African region.

The UN says that large swathes of northern Kenya and Somalia are now in the "emergency" category, one phase before what is officially classified as famine.

"Two consecutive poor rainy seasons have resulted in one of the driest years since 1950/51 in many pastoral zones," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a media briefing this week.

"There is no likelihood of improvement until 2012." Child malnutrition rates in the worst affected areas are more than double the emergency threshold of 15 per cent and are expected to rise further, Byrs said.

The world's climate is not only continuing to warm, it is also adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases even faster than in the past, researchers said Tuesday.

Indeed, the global temperature has been warmer than the 20th century average every month for more than 25 years, they said at a teleconference.

"The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm," Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, said in releasing the annual State of the Climate report for 2010.

"There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans," added Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University.

Carbon dioxide increased by 2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010, which is more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010, Karl added. Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas accumulating in the air that atmospheric scientists blame for warming the climate.

The warmer conditions are consistent with events such as heat waves and extreme rainfall, Karl said at a teleconference. However, it is more difficult to make a direct connection with things like tornado outbreaks, he said.

"Any single weather event is driven by a number of factors, from local conditions to global climate patterns and trends. Climate change is one of these," he said. "It is very likely that large-scale changes in climate, such as increased moisture in the atmosphere and warming temperatures, have influenced - and will continue to influence - many different types of extreme events, such as heavy rainfall, flooding, heat waves and droughts.

Cleveland -- It's about 2 inches wide and just as deep, stretching from Ontario to East Sixth Street and running the length of the new Medical Mart construction.

Fear of the unknown may run much deeper.

The point man for Medical Mart construction, Jeff Appelbaum, says he can't say yet what the cause of the crack is or what the contributing factors are.

Appelbaum isn't passing on or shouldering the blame, but the construction team is investigating the cause.

Appelbaum says the excavation is supported by a massive dirt mound and earth anchors on the north side of St. Clair Avenue.

Still, the street split this seam.

Albany - Drought conditions are being blamed for the deaths of hundreds of fish at Radium Springs in south Georgia.

Authorities say the creek that normally connects Radium Springs to the Flint River is dry, and the water level is so low that fish don't have enough oxygen to survive.

WALB-TV reports that the natural spring is usually 24 feet deep. Authorities say levels have dropped at least four feet, and all the fish have been pushed into one small area.

Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Supervisor Rob Weller says hundreds of fish have died, including large mouth bass, blue gill and gar.

Radium Springs is one of 15 major springs around Albany. State officials say that without rain, more of them could see the same problems as Radium Springs.

A magnitude 4.7 quake hit Eastern Honshu region of Japan on Thursday, injuring seven people.

Around 8.21 a.m. local time, the quake hit Nagano, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The quake was just four kilometers (2.5 miles) deep and no tsunami warning were issued after that, the agency said.

Mesa - Thousands of East Valley residents are without power after a transformer exploded at a Salt River Project facility in Mesa.

SRP spokesman Scott Harrelson confirm approximately 35,000 customers in Mesa and Apache Junction are affected by the outage.

Because of the fire and transformer outage the rest of the power grid is stressed, which has caused the loss of power across parts of the East Valley.

It is unclear at this time when power is expected to be restored.

SRP officials are also working to resolve an issue with their phone system, according to a tweet from the company just before 3 p.m.

The fire sent a thick plume of black smoke into the sky Thursday afternoon, and forced employees from the East Mesa Service Center near University Drive and Sossaman Road, according to fire department spokesman Forrest Smith.

Power was shut off to nearby transformers and a truck arrived at the scene and began spraying foam onto the flames just before 1:25 p.m.