Severe weather warnings for almost all of the UK are in place, with heavy snow, widespread icy roads and bitter temperatures forecast.

Some 10ins (25cm) of snow is expected to fall over higher ground, while parts of the Midlands and London will not escape a dusting. Overnight temperatures across the UK plunged well below zero again, after a day when much of the country was badly disrupted by the earliest widespread snow for 17 years.

The Met Office said London and the South East, the South West, East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber and the north east of England face widespread icy roads. The North East, Yorkshire and Humber, East Midlands and the South West were also braced for heavy snow and Wales and Northern Ireland can expect icy roads while Scotland is in line for more heavy snow and drifts thanks to a biting wind.

Forecasters said the cold snap is set to tighten its grip, blanketing swathes of the country in white by the middle of next week.

Aisling Creevey, of MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "It's definitely staying cold and going into next week, we could see a lot more snow. There is a low pressure system across the country and if it moves the way it is looking to at the moment, it's going to be very windy, very snowy and really bitter."

Temperatures will barely rise above freezing on Saturday, with the South West set to be the warmest at around 3C.

Jakarta -- Officials say one of Indonesia's dozens of volcanos has shot ash into the air in a minor eruption that caused no injuries.

Earlier this week the government raised the alert level at Mount Bromo to its highest level, telling villagers and tourists to stay off the rumbling slopes.

Government volcanologist Agus Budiono says the mountain, a popular tourist attraction, spewed ash more than 1,600 feet (500 meters) in the air Friday.

Mount Bromo typically erupts about once a year but unlike nearby Mount Merapi rarely spits debris and hot gas far from its crater. However, two people were killed in a 2004 eruption.

Quincy - Seventeen rare sea turtles suffering a variety of ailments are recovering at the New England Aquarium after being rescued over the past two days off of Cape Cod, Mass.

The turtles rescued by volunteers with the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay are being cared for at the aquarium's new animal care center in Quincy. They eventually will be released back to the ocean.

Most of them are Kemp's ridley turtles and are suffering from hypothermia, dehydration and malnourishment. The turtles usually migrate to warmer waters in the winter, but aquarium officials say strong northwest winds Wednesday drove the turtles to shore.

Many had body temperatures in the 50s, when they should have been in the 70s.

An aquarium spokesman says it's unusual for the center to care for so many at one time.

Eyeless cave fish and a frog that carries its offspring on its back are among the new species a team of scientists have discovered in Indonesia's eastern Papua region.

The researchers from the Institute of Research and Development (IRD) in Montpellier, southern France, studied caves, underground rivers and jungles in the remote Lengguru area of New Guinea island.

'In terms of discoveries almost everything remains to be done in this area, which is very difficult to access but which has exceptionally rich biodiversity,' IRD scientist Laurent Pouyaud told AFP.

For seven weeks, the team including biologists, paleontologists and archaeologists explored the vast limestone 'labyrinth' where species have evolved in isolation for millions of years.

In one previously undocumented cave they found a new species of fish which had developed without eyes or pigmentation.

Motorists battled with hazardous conditions on the roads today as the widest-spread November snowfall for 17 years gripped the country. Parts of the UK were blanketed in white as many woke to wintry scenes and freezing temperatures following a bitterly cold night.

The Met Office issued severe weather warnings, flagging up drifting snow for the eastern side of the country as well as parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, while North Yorkshire County Council said six village primary schools were forced to close. Worst-hit were the Scottish Highlands, with up to 8ins (20cm) of snow forecast to settle in Grampian - along with Yorkshire, north east England and East Anglia.

But the rest of Britain did not escape unscathed and snow ploughs and gritters were out in force. A heavy dump of snow caused havoc for commuters in north east Scotland and northern England where up to to 4ins (10cm) had settled today. Drivers also struggled on the North York Moors, which have been hit by bad weather and sub-zero temperatures.

The A170 at Sutton Bank was particularly affected, as was the B1249 at Staxton Bank near Scarborough. The A165 Reighton bypass was partially blocked this morning, with slow traffic around the Sands Road junction.

The number of people killed in recent eruptions of Indonesia's most volatile volcano has risen to 324, according to an official.

Syamsul Maarif of Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency said Wednesday the official death toll from Mount Merapi's eruptions rose after some victims succumbed to severe burns and more bodies were found on the volcano's slopes.

The volcano, located in the middle of the central Indonesian island of Java, initially erupted Oct. 26 - less than 24 hours after a tsunami slammed into the remote Mentawai islands at the western end of the country, killing 509 people.

The Upper Midwest will become one of the nation's worst regions for Thanksgiving travelers to pass through today due to an invasion of snow and ice. The snow will continue to create slick roadways from far eastern Montana to the western shores of Lake Superior today. The snow will fall intermittently throughout the day over North Dakota, eastern South Dakota and neighboring parts of Canada.

This afternoon and evening is when the snow will create the most adverse conditions for motorists in Minneapolis and Duluth. airline passengers should prepare for substantial delays. As the snow continues into tonight, as much as 6 inches will accumulate from northern North Dakota to places in the vicinity of western Lake Superior. International Falls, Minnesota, lies within this zone.

Gusty winds will worsen the situation for travelers today by whipping the snow around, leading to reduced visibility. The strongest winds will blast the northern High Plains, where high temperatures will be held to the teens and single digits. These winds will create dangerous blizzard conditions at times. While a substantial amount of new snow will not fall today, the winds will have no trouble blowing and drifting the snow left by recent storm systems.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 5 inches of snow remained on the ground in Rapid City, South Dakota

Weather system brings snow, power outages and unseasonably chilly temperatures

A blast of Arctic air is barrelling down on the West Coast of B.C., threatening to break low temperature records that have stood for 25 years. The low is expected to dip to -10 C in the Vancouver area and -4 C in Victoria - the "warm" spot for the province. The overnight low in the far northeast at Fort St. John is forecast at -30 C and in Prince George, in the central Interior, -26 C.

The lowest recorded temperature in Vancouver for this date is -12.9 C, set in 1985. Tuesday's forecast high of -6 C should smash the record for the coldest daytime high for Nov. 23 of -1 C, also set in 1985. The weather system brought more strong winds Monday night, knocking out power to more than 20,000 homes in the Fraser Valley. The outages were located mostly in Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Langley. Hydro crews were expected to have the power back on sometime overnight.

The freezing weather system also dumped snow on the streets of Victoria and shut down some ferry routes between the islands. Police in Victoria asked people to keep their vehicles off the street after a dump of snow made some routes impassable and led to a rash of traffic accidents. Environment Canada issued a snowfall warning for southern Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast as road conditions are expected to worsen. That prompted many businesses like Gateway Property Management to close for the day so their staff could avoid the afternoon rush hour, according to manager Nathan Enns.

"If the snow stops in the next hour then ... it's sort of a non-issue. But if it keeps going, it's going to be a messy, convoluted rush hour going home this afternoon," said Enns. In Victoria, the city urged drivers to stay out of their vehicles in order to give public works crews time to clear major arteries. A dozen smaller streets in the city are closed, in order to clear motor vehicle accidents, police said.

Seattle, Washington - A vicious storm struck the Pacific Northwest and other western states at the start of the holiday travel season, dumping heavy snow on roads, knocking out power to tens of thousands of people and causing a cargo plane to overshoot its runway in Seattle.

At least three deaths in Washington state have been blamed on the storm, including a man struck and killed outside his car Monday night on snowy Interstate 5 in Tacoma. Washington State Patrol Trooper Brandy Kessler said it wasn't clear whether the man was chaining up his car or pushing it when he was hit.

A man's body was found along the Willamette River waterfront in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday. Police were trying to determine whether the death was weather related.

Blowing snow, slick roads and temperatures in the mid-20s turned the Monday evening commute in the Puget Sound region into an hours-long crawl - for those who made it home. Some commuters gave up after being stuck for five hours or more and returned to their offices, or just left their cars at the side of the road.

Looking down on the world - and especially those tail-wagging dimwits known as dogs - may seem like the natural order of things for cats.

No longer. For scientists yesterday claimed pet dogs are smarter than their feline counterparts.

The reason, they claim, is that dogs evolved bigger brains because friendly, social mammals need more grey matter than solitary, aloof ones.

The findings, which are bound to divide pet owners around the world, come from a study into the brain size of more than 500 species of living and fossilised mammals.

The researchers at Oxford University charted the evolution of mammal brains over the last 60million years - from a few million years after the dinosaurs became extinct to the modern day.

They discovered that there is a strong link between the size of a brain relative to an animal's body and how sociable that creature is.

Sociable mammals such as whales, dogs, dolphins and humans tend to have much larger brains compared to their bodies. Solitary species - such as tigers, domestic cats and rhinos - have less grey matter, the scientists found.