By Henry Goldman and Esmé E. Deprez - Apr 30, 2012 - Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe today calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth. Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-30/occupy-wall-street-plans-global-disruption-of-status-quo-may-1.html

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A meteor expert at UCLA says tiny meteorites found in Northern California likely were part of the giant fireball that exploded in daylight over the weekend. John T. Wasson, a longtime professor at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, tells The Associated Press at least two tiny meteorites weighing about 10 grams each were found Wednesday near the towns of Coloma and Lotus, northeast of Sacramento. The flaming meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere with a loud boom about 8 a.m. Sunday. It was seen from Sacramento to Las Vegas and parts of northern Nevada. NASA scientists say it probably was about the size of a minivan and exploded with the force equal to one-third of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FIREBALL_EXPLOSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

USDA holding press briefing as mad cow rumor roils market - Tue Apr 24, 2012 (Reuters) - The United States Department of Agriculture was holding a press conference on Tuesday as rumors that a case of mad cow disease was discovered in California sent live cattle futures tumbling. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-usda-briefing-idUSBRE83N14L20120424

Monday, April 23, 2012 at 10:37:02 AM at epicenter Location 33.502°N, 117.720°W Depth 13.1 km (8.1 miles)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — FBS newcomer UMass will play Penn State in 2014 in an early-season nonconference game in Happy Valley.
UMass announced the Sept. 20, 2014 matchup in a statement over the weekend.
The game also allows Penn State coach Bill O'Brien to host a team from his home state. O'Brien was born Dorchester, Mass., and raised in the Boston suburb of Andover.
O'Brien also has notoriety in New England after spending six seasons as an assistant coach for the Patriots, including offensive coordinator in 2011.
A power in the Football Championship Subdivision, UMass is upgrading its program to FBS status starting this fall. The Minutemen will play in the Mid-American Conference.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Astronomers say a loud explosion heard across a large swath of Nevada and California on Sunday morning was likely caused by a meteor.
The sound of the explosion around 8 a.m. prompted a flood of calls to law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Sierra Nevada in the two states.
The explosion rattled windows and shook houses from Reno to Winnemucca in Nevada, and from the Sacramento to Bakersfield areas in California.
Some people in the two states reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky at the same time.
Dan Ruby of the Fleischmann Planetarium at the University of Nevada, Reno, says the reports indicate the meteor broke up above Earth somewhere over the Sierra southwest of Reno.
There were no reports of earthquakes at the time.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano is continuing to spout gases and hot rock fragments and it is dusting towns on its flanks with volcanic ash. But unlike recent days, the ash has not spread to neighboring cities. Civil defense radio dispatcher Dulce Maria Casquera says the volcano alert level remains high, but no evacuations are planned at present. Casquera says that apart from the ash, the 17,886-foot (5,450-meter) volcano has been relatively calm. However, the National Disaster Prevention Center says in a report Wednesday that that some glowing rock fragments rolled about a quarter mile (half kilometer) down the slopes. Authorities this week raised the alert level due to increasing activity at the peak southeast of Mexico City. Its most violent eruption in 1,200 years occurred on Dec. 18, 2000.

Magnitude 6.2 - east of the South Sandwich Islands 2012-04-17 19:03:55 UTC

SSPECTACULAR EXPLOSION (UPDATED): Magnetic fields on the sun's northeastern limb erupted around 17:45 UT on April 16th, producing one of the most visually-spectacular explosions in years. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the blast at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.
The explosion, which registered M1.7 on the Richter Scale of solar flares, was not Earth-directed, but it did hurl a CME into space. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have analyzed the trajectory of the cloud and found that it will hit NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft, the Spitzer space telescope, and the rover Curiosity en route to Mars. Planets Venus and Mars could also receive a glancing blow.
http://www.spaceweather.com/

(Reuters)April 16, 2012 - The insurgents who mounted weekend attacks in central Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan carefully rehearsed for months, even building small military-style models and pre-positioning weapons, a Taliban spokesman said on Monday. Zabihullah Mujahid provided Reuters with a rare insight into how the group plans strategic high-profile attacks designed to deal a psychological blow to U.S.-led NATO forces and their allies in the Afghan security forces. In the latest, a 30-member suicide squad was dispatched to launch simultaneous assaults on parliament, NATO bases and Western embassies after two months of painstaking discussions on tactics.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/16/us-afghan-taliban-plan-idUSBRE83F0LX20120416

Magnitude 6.0 - NORTH INDIAN OCEAN
2012 April 11 09:27:56 UTC

Magnitude 5.5 - Andreanof Islands, Aleutian Is., Alaska.
Apr 11 12:00am at epicenter
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 09:27:56 UTC

Magnitude 8.6 - off the west coast of northern Sumatra
2012-04-11 08:38:37 UTC
Indian Ocean tsunami watch issued for Aceh quake.
The Associated Press - BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) - A tsunami watch was issued for countries across the Indian Ocean after a massive earthquake hit waters off Indonesia on Wednesday, triggering widespread panic...

Magnitude 3.2 - Garrett, Washington
2012-04-10 04:43:35 UTC

M2.9 - Ferndale, California
2012-04-10 05:43:06 UTC

Apr 10, 2012- Dow, S&P 500 make worst drop of the year. Dow = 12,715.93

Apr 09, 2012 - REUTERS (CNN) - March 2012 will go down as the warmest March in the United States since record-keeping began in 1895, NOAA said Monday. In addition, the three-month period of January, February and March was the warmest first quarter ever recorded in the Lower 48 states. The average was 42 degrees Fahrenheit, a whopping 6 degrees above the long-term average. A staggering 15,292 warm temperature records were broken, (7,755 record highs and 7,517 record high overnight lows), according to Chris Vaccaro, representative for NOAA. "That's tremendously excessive. The scope and the scale of warmth was really unprecedented, Vaccaro said.

http://www.wfmz.com/news/NOAA-March-was-America-s-warmest-ever/-/121458/10367810/-/d35t4tz/-/index.html

BBC- A Grad rocket has landed in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, but has caused no damage or injuries, Israeli security officials said. District police chief Ron Gertner told Israeli radio the rocket had been fired from Egypt's Sinai peninsula. He said it struck a construction site close to a residential area shortly after midnight (21:00 GMT). The blast took place as thousands congregated in the resort town for the Jewish holiday of Passover. Rocket attacks from Egyptian soil are uncommon. Attacks on Eilat and the nearby Jordanian town of Aqaba in 2010 killed one person and injured another four.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17620925

Magnitude 5.5 - NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
2012 April 04 20:27:29 UTC

Wednesday, April 04, 2012 at 20:27:29 UT

Magnitude 4.0 - VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
2012 April 03 16:24:36 UTC

Magnitude 3.5 - SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
2012 April 03 15:15:37 UTC

Magnitude 4.0 - OKLAHOMA
2012 April 03 07:33:59 UTC

6.3 earthquake, Oaxaca, Mexico. Apr 2 12:36pm at epicenter (depth 12km).