Today the Bee Informed Partnership, in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America and the United States Department of Agriculture, released its annual report on honey bee losses in the United States based on a national survey of beekeepers. Most significantly, beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of the total number of colonies managed over the last year (total annual loss, between April 2014 and April 2015). This represents the second highest annual loss recorded to date.

Preliminary results indicate that during the winter of 2014-2015 U.S. beekeepers lost 23.1 percent of their hives on average, which is lower than average losses in recent years, but considered too high to be sustainable. U.S. beekeepers lost an average of 27.4 percent of their hives in the summer of 2014 (April-October), which is higher than 2013 summer losses.

A large and growing body of science has attributed alarming bee declines in recent years to several key factors, including exposure to the world's most widely used class of insecticides, neonicotinoids. In 2013, the European Union banned the three most widely used neonicotinoids based on the weight of scientific evidence indicating that these pesticides can kill bees outright and make them more vulnerable to pests, pathogens and other stressors. However, these pesticides are still widely used in the U.S. despite massive bee losses that threaten vital food crops, from almonds in California to apples in Washington.

Tiffany Finck-Haynes, food futures campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said "These dire honey bee numbers add to the consistent pattern of unsustainable bee losses in recent years that threatens our food system. The science is clear -- we must take action now to protect these essential pollinators from bee-toxic pesticides."

What are we going to do once all the water is gone? Thanks to the worst drought in more than 1,000 years, the western third of the country is facing the greatest water crisis that the United States has ever seen. Lake Mead is now the lowest that it has ever been since the Hoover Dam was finished in the 1930s, mandatory water restrictions have already been implemented in the state of California, and there are already widespread reports of people stealing water in some of the worst hit areas. But this is just the beginning. Right now, in a desperate attempt to maintain somewhat "normal" levels of activity, water is being pumped out of the ground in the western half of the nation at an absolutely staggering pace. Once that irreplaceable groundwater is gone, that is when the real crisis will begin. If this multi-year drought stretches on and becomes the "megadrought" that a lot of scientists are now warning about, life as we know it in much of the country is going to be fundamentally transformed and millions of Americans may be forced to find somewhere else to live.

Simply put, this is not a normal drought. What the western half of the nation is experiencing right now is highly unusual. In fact, scientists tell us that California has not seen anything quite like this in at least 1,200 years...

A Falls man was seriously injured Tuesday when his own dog bit him in the face, township police said.

Police were called to the 300 block of Trenton Road at 4:55 p.m. and found a female 2-year-old Italian mastiff, also known as a cane corso, had bitten its owner in the face, said Lt. Hank Ward.

The man suffered severe face trauma and was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown.

It is unknown if the dog was provoked or what circumstances led to the attack, which occurred inside the house. There were no children present.

Ward said family members called 911. He said the township's animal control officer is investigating; the dog remains with the family.

An Italian mastiff can grow to 110 pounds, according to an animal website.

No further information was released because the injured man suffered facial trauma leaving him unable to talk to police, Ward said.

Zoologists in Valencia are investigating the death of a six-tonne whale that washed up near the shore this week.

Guardia Civil agents patrolling the area spotted the whale in shallow waters on Monday morning. They said it was floating lifelessly towards the shore and deployed a boat to protect the animal from oncoming vessels.

Five hours later, the whale washed up on a beach in Cullera, a town about 30 miles south of Valencia. Police at the scene confirmed it was dead.

Zoologists from the University of Valencia have been investigating the animal's death. They confirmed it was a fin whale, one of the most common species in the Mediterranean.

Kazakh authorities say some 100 saiga antelope have been found dead in a northern region, with few clues as to what killed the critically endangered animals.

The Kazakh Agriculture Ministry says local forest inspectors found the animals' remains in the Amangeldy district of the Qostanai region on May 11.

It is the latest mass die-off to strike the increasingly rare ungulates in the Eurasian steppe region.

In May 2012, nearly 1,000 dead saiga antelope were found, also in Qostanai. Environmental activists blamed those deaths on the landing in the region of a Russian spacecraft carrying a Russian-American crew from the International Space Station less than a month earlier.

That connection has never been proven, and the Agriculture Ministry later said the deaths were the result of an infection carried in the mouth and breathing passage called pasteurellosis.

Floods have been affecting Dar es Salaam and other regions of Tanzania, including Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Tanga and Kagera, for the last 6 days.

Streets of Dar es Salaam have been under water after 85 mm of rain fell in 24 hours on 07 May 2015.

Local media say that Dar es Salaam Police have confirmed that at least 12 people have died in the floods. There are fears that more are still missing or unaccounted for. Further heavy rainfall yesterday is causing problems for authorities to fully assess the situation. A better picture of the damage caused by the floods will only become clearer once the flood waters start to recede. As quoted in IPP, Dar es Salaam Special Police Zone Commander, Suleiman Kova said:

"As the intensity of the rains reduces and the level of waters decreases, the effects of the floods are becoming more vivid,'

The worst affected areas in Dar es Salaam are said to be Kinondoni and Temeke. Both districts are affected by flooding on a regular basis. Last week, Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner called for those in the affected areas to move to safer areas.

In Kilimanjaro region, as many as 3,000 people have been displaced after floods destroyed houses near Arusha Chini town in the Moshi rural district.

At least 200 camels have died of an unconfirmed viral disease during last one week and around hundreds are suffering from it in Noorpur Thal area, according to local media on Monday.

Local livestock department said, the animals suffered shivering and bleeding from the nose accompanied by coughing and finally died.

"The villagers and traders have lost more than 200 animals so far", official said.

"The local people have been asked not to eat meat till the further advisory, a warning alert had also been issued in this regard", he further explained.

I thought I'd wax a little Biblical today. As many of you know, my very first book was a commentary on Revelations entitled The Noah Syndrome. I was quite struck by the fact that the descriptions given by the alleged "John of Patmos" were so similar to the descriptions of the plagues in Egypt as reported in Exodus and that is what started my research into cataclysms, Earth Changes, etc. That was back in the mid 80s; a lot of water has gone over the dam and under the bridge since then and my most recent book, Comets and the Horns of Moses covers the topic more broadly with scientific backing for what is likely to come on the Earth in the not-too-distant future. Following that volume, my research helper, Pierre Lescaudron, wrote Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection based on certain ideas that had developed in "Comets and the Horns..." which he understood a lot better than I did so I said "you write it!"

Anyway, as the horror increases daily on our planet and I feel more and more like I have awakened into a nightmare because of the rampant psychopathy on an almost global scale; as I observe the back and forth between Israel and the US, Israel and Gaza, the US and Russia, the manipulations of the US in Ukraine; Ukraine against its own people; wars in Africa, ISIS in Iraq; the growing peril of Ebola (and probably worse to come); the onward march of global climate change (not warming, oncoming Ice Age) burning, blasting, destroying; one thing keeps running through my head: Revelations Chapter 18. You see, even if the religious parts of the Bible, all the God said/did stuff, is hokum in my opinion, I still think that there were some fundamental texts that were utilized to create Judaism/Christianity/Islam, and those texts were descriptions of real events - cataclysmic events that we haven't seen the likes of since Rome was destroyed by similar processes. So, even if the book of Revelations might have been written much later, (and I don't think that Jehovah/Yahweh/any other God was doing things, and I think that 'angels' were actually descriptions of comets), I do think that it is possible that the Information Fundament of our reality can inform and inspire writers in ways we don't understand. That is, literary foreshadowing, drawing on unknown characteristics of the Cosmic Information Field, might be a valid channel of real prophecy.

Wellington had an unusually wet morning with parts of the city flooded and firefighters called out to deal with the deluge.

The capital was enjoying clearer skies this afternoon after a wild morning.

The Fire Service said its staff were called out to about eight flooding or rain-related incidents in Wellington today, mostly in relation to surface flooding.

Wellington City Council said it sent staff to tackle surface flooding in Taranaki Street. A video the council posted to Instagram showed fast-flowing water made a manhole "dance" in the road.

MetService said 34.2mm of rain fell in Wellington this morning. Most of that -- 23.2mm -- fell in just the last two hours of the morning.

Parts of a low-lying road in Mt Cook, Wakefield St in Te Aro and the Kent Terrace sidewalk in Mt Victoria were flooded.

Forecasters at MetService expected sunnier spells for the rest of the day.

A powerful 6.8 earthquake has struck off the eastern coast of Japan's Honshu island, USGS and Japan Meteorological Agency report. Shaking has been felt in Tokyo.

The quake struck at 6:13am local time at a depth of almost 50 kilometers. While USGS originally reported the quake at 6.9 magnitude, JMA measured it at 6.6. No casualties or damage have yet been reported.

No tsunami warning was issued by JMA and according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, based on all available data a "destructive pacific-wide tsunami" is not expected. No warning has been issued for the US state of Hawaii.