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<p>A massive power blackout hit U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday, closing nuclear power plants from New York to Michigan, driving workers in New York and Toronto into the streets, and shutting subways in blistering heat.</p> <p>Canadian officials said that the power outage was caused by a lightning strike at the Niagara power plant, setting off outages that spread over 9,300 square miles.</p>

Aug 14, 2003Canadian Officials Provide Conflicting Accounts, Blaming Outage on Lightning or FireBy Tom CohenAssociated Press Writer TORONTO (AP) - Canadian officials insisted a massive blackout Thursday across the Northeast and parts of Canada originated in the United States, though U.S. power workers denied that and American officials blamed Canada. In the hours of confusion after the outage - the biggest in U.S. history - Canada's government offered conflicting explanations for the blackout, blaming it first on lightning in Niagara, then a fire at a Niagara plant, and next a fire at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant. Canada's defense minister...

AMHERST, Va. -- Nine cows on an Amherst County farm were killed when they were struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Owner Vi Evans said the cows were standing near a cedar tree which was also struck by the bolt on Sunday night.

This is a special time of year, as expressed so poetically in the lyrics to the haunting song "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess": Summertime, and the livin’ is easy Fish are jumpin’ And gettin’ lodged in the throats of fisherpersons Those lyrics are as true today as when they were first performed way back in a specific year that I plan to look up later. Just this June, according to an Associated Press article sent in by many alert readers, an angler who was angling near Macomb, Ill., had to be rushed to the hospital when a 4-inch bluegill became...

<p>It happens every summer: Waves of thunderstorms move across the U.S., leaving tragedies behind them. Earlier this month, lightning killed a mother and father in Salt Lake City as they took cover under a tree; a 14-year-old girl was struck and killed during a soccer game in Canada; and a climber on Grand Teton in Wyoming died after lightning hit her and five friends.</p>

FOREST, Ohio -- A guest evangelist was preaching at the First Baptist Church in a small Hardin County town Tuesday night, emphasizing penance and asking for a sign from God. At that moment, the church's steeple was hit by lightning, setting the church on fire and blowing out the sound system. "It was awesome, just awesome," said church member Ronnie Cheney, 40, of rural Forest. "You could hear the storm building outside ... He (the evangelist) just kept asking God what else he needed to say," Cheney said. "He was asking for a sign and he got one." Cheney said...

Lightning Strikes Preacher Who Asked For Sign Bolt Hits Steeple, Travels Through Guest Evangelist's Microphone POSTED: 1:35 p.m. EDT July 3, 2003 UPDATED: 1:45 p.m. EDT July 3, 2003 FOREST, Ohio -- Damage to a church in Forest, Ohio, is estimated at $20,000 after a preacher asked God for a sign. A member of the First Baptist Church said a guest evangelist was preaching repentance and seeking a sign from God when lightning struck the steeple. Ronnie Cheney called the incident "awesome, just awesome!" Cheney said the lightning traveled through the microphone, blew out the sound system and enveloped the...

Lightning Strikes Preacher Who Asked For Sign Bolt Hits Steeple, Travels Through Guest Evangelist's Microphone POSTED: 1:35 p.m. EDT July 3, 2003 UPDATED: 1:45 p.m. EDT July 3, 2003 FOREST, Ohio -- Damage to a church in Forest, Ohio, is estimated at $20,000 after a preacher asked God for a sign. A member of the First Baptist Church said a guest evangelist was preaching repentance and seeking a sign from God when lightning struck the steeple. Ronnie Cheney called the incident "awesome, just awesome!" Cheney said the lightning traveled through the microphone, blew out the sound system and enveloped the...

The fountains of lightning that rise in the sky By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 26/06/2003) Huge discharges of lightning that flash from the tops of thunderclouds for distances of 40 miles or more, have been observed for the first time on Earth. The dramatic discovery of a new class of lightning adds to a collection of strange atmospheric electrics, with evocative names such as blue jets, sprites and elves, that have been documented by scientists in the past few years. Though there have been anecdotal reports by pilots of blobs, jets and other unusual effects for decades, scientists have...

Thursday, June 19, 2003 Kings Island sued by family -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Erica Solvig The Cincinnati EnquirerA Laurel, Ind., family is suing Paramount's Kings Island, claiming the park failed to warn them of an electrical storm during a June 2001 visit. The suit, filed last week in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court says Shawn Perkins was hit by lightning in the parking lot as he and his family left the park. "A bolt of lightning hit the car, touched him, threw him several feet and blew the tires," said Drake Ebner, the family's attorney. "A lot of voltage passed through his...

As if it was divine retribution, three men were struck by lightning while they peeped at a pair of passionate lovers having sex in a car in a hillside area in Taipei. Hiding in a broken hut and each using a high-powered telescope, the three were so oblivious as they watched the lovers' act that they did not notice lightning flashing in the sky before a bolt hit the hut, police said yesterday. "All three were hit at the same time, but survived as they appeared to have evenly shared the impact of the super-high voltage electric current when the...

Bulgarian president calls investigation into lightning-hit home The Bulgarian president has personally asked experts to investigate why a house has been struck by lightning nine separate times and always at the same hour of the day. President Georgi Parvanov said that the house in the southern Bulgarian village of Truncha needed to be looked at after the latest lightning strike this week. The owners of the house, the Cholakov family, have had two lightning conductors installed but the strikes have continued, local daily Monitor reported. Zekir Cholakov said the strikes always come at the same time of the day -...

A golfer has told how he completed a round despite being hit by lightning twice within 30 minutes. Pub manager Vincenzo Frascella, 50, of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, was struck on the 14th and 17th holes of the Orton Meadows Golf Course in Peterborough on Wednesday. Both times bolts struck the tip of his umbrella as he sheltered during storms. "It's one of those things where you don't know whether you're lucky to be alive or unlucky to have been hit. I actually think I was a bit unlucky," said Mr Frascella, a father of two who has a golf handicap of...

Men are more than twice as likely as women to die during thunderstorms, mainly because they do not come in from the rain, new research suggests. A new study of more than 1,400 thunderstorm-related deaths in the United States found 70% of the victims were male. The gender disparity was particularly pronounced among deaths caused by lightning strikes and flash floods. Close to 80% of the lightning victims were men, said Dr. Thomas Songer of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Injury Research. Canadian numbers support the theory. According to Statistics Canada, 34 men died after being struck by lightning...

<p>We have the War Against Poverty, the War Against Drugs and the War Against Terrorism. Needless to say, we're losing all of them. I say let's make a war that we can win. My proposal? The War Against Stupidity.</p> <p>Now you might think this would be the most difficult of all wars to win, but as a schoolteacher, I have hope. I'm fortunate to work in a school where the teachers think—they read books, they write poems, essays, songs and stories, they discuss current affairs and even timeless questions. They think about how they think and they think about how to help children to think. And the results are impressive. The children do think and they show promise of growing into adults who will continue to think.</p>

<p>SAN JOSE, Calif.(AP) - The space shuttle Columbia broke up in a mysterious area of the upper atmosphere once so little understood and difficult to study that scientists dubbed it the "ignorosphere."</p> <p>On Friday, NASA said it has asked outside atmospheric scientists for their opinion on whether some sort of electrical discharge could have occurred as the shuttle screamed toward touchdown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO(AP) - Federal scientists are investigating whether electricity in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space shuttle Columbia as it soared over California, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.</p> <p>Investigators are also reviewing data recorded by a little-known network of instruments that might have detected a faint thunderclap at the same time a purplish bolt of lightning may have struck the shuttle high above Earth, the paper reported.</p>

<p>A San Francisco amateur astronomer who photographs the space shuttles whenever their orbits carry them over the Bay Area has captured five strange and provocative images of the shuttle Columbia just as it was re-entering the Earth's atmosphere before dawn Saturday.</p>

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Sprites and elves dancing on thunder clouds have been captured by cameras on the space shuttle Columbia. The sprites, which are red flashes of electricity shooting up from thunderclouds 13 miles (20 km) into the ionosphere, and elves, which are glowing red doughnut shapes radiating 190 miles (300 km), were photographed Sunday by astronaut Dave Brown on the sprite hunt's first orbit. Columbia and a crew of seven astronauts are on a 16-day science mission that began Thursday. The study of sprites is part of an Israeli experiment known as MEIDEX that includes the first...