An earthquake has been strongly felt near Los Angeles, California, rattling nerves but so far causing no major damage, injury or deaths. The 4.4-magnitude quake struck 9km (5.6 miles) from the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Westwood. It hit at 06:25 local time (13:25 GMT), US officials said. It was the strongest earthquake in Los Angeles since the last aftershocks from the 1994 Northridge quake, a government scientist said.

Mysterious lightning flashes that appear to precede earthquakes could be sparked by movements in the ground below, US scientists say.

Small volcanic eruptions help explain a hiatus in global warming this century by dimming sunlight and offsetting a rise in emissions of heat-trapping gases to record highs, a study showed on Sunday. Eruptions of at least 17 volcanoes since 2000, including Nabro in Eritrea, Kasatochi in Alaska and Merapi in Indonesia, ejected sulphur whose sun-blocking effect had been largely ignored until now by climate scientists, it said.