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50,000 people were told to flee their homes dramatically after evacuation warnings were issued in the early hours of the morning. Most were issued a flood warning but for 14,000 the order was mandatory. The flooding began when Coyote Creek, which runs through Silicone Valley from the San Francisco Bay, burst its banks on Tuesday night. It sent dirty water pouring in to the towns below it at frightening pace.

For centuries it has been one of the most vexing mysteries for mankind: are we, the seven billion inhabitants of this wondrous blue planet really alone, or is there life somewhere out there in the universe? Yesterday, we came a step closer to answering that tantalising question with the landmark announcement by Nasa scientists of the discovery of a new solar system that has at least three Earth-like planets - with climates that just might support life.

Mark Zuckerberg was out and about in Alabama this week as part of his New Year's resolution to 'talk to more people about how they're living, working and thinking about the future' in each of the 50 states. Zuckerberg also found time to sneak in a date night with wife Priscilla Chan at the Birmingham restaurant OvenBird on Monday night. He had no desire however to talk to anyone that night it seems though, and had his team called ahead to instruct the staff to take no photos and refrain from speaking to the social-network founder and his wife during their meal. He was back in a more social and jovial mood the next night however while out to dinner in Mississippi with Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman, perhaps because the Oscar-winning actor picked up the tab for the group according to their waitress.

Sarah Dunsey, 17, disappeared from the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 15 and was finally reunited with family in Utah last Saturday. But police in both Logan, Utah and Las Vegas do not believe foul play was involved in her disappearance. Captain Curtis Hooley of the Logan Police Department told DailyMail.com: 'She left [the MGM Grand] with a couple of other males. She did not appear to be struggling. She didn't seem unwilling at all,' according to an eyewitness. Officer Michael Rodriguez of the Las Vegas Police Department, said: 'Her mother told us that she was taken by sex traffickers. We found that not to be true.' Todd Ellis, her stepfather of seven years, claimed her boyfriend went to the restroom and returned to find Sarah had vanished - after being allegedly sedated with a date rape drug.The teen was found in Venice, California a month after vanishing. The FBI has thus far refused to discuss the case.

Kristen LaTour, 47, died in a Rhode Island hospital on Monday after being exposed to extremely high levels of carbon monoxide in her home last week. Mrs LaTour and her three children - aged 7, 9 and 11 - were all rushed to hospital after being poisoned, which authorities are now saying may be linked to the medical marijuana operation she and her husband were growing in their garage. The couple had a permit to grow the marijuana. Authorities say the operation is likely to have caused a blockage in the home's heating system, which caused the carbon monoxide to leak into the home. The children were released from hospital over the weekend.

The first daughter has cut the rent price on her second Manhattan apartment (pictured left) from $15,000 to $13,000. Ivanka and her husband Jared listed the apartment in the Trump Park Avenue building in December, but have struggled to find a buyer or tenant. The family used to live in a four-bedroom penthouse unit in the building with their three kids, before moving to Washington, DC last month. Pictured right: Ivanka with her daughter Arabella on Wednesday.

Special adviser to the president Kellyanne Conway returned to television on Wednesday to insist she hadn't been sidelined as claimed by CNN but had spent the week with family. 'I'm not sidelined. Someone's trying to stir up trouble,' she told a sympathetic Hannity and the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Conway was being kept from giving TV interviews after she inaccurately said President Trump had 'full confidence' in his national security advisor Mike Flynn just hours before Flynn resigned, according to a report.

He is the Cambridge University educated 'super villain of the internet' that refers to Donald Trump as 'daddy'. But the phenomenal rise of right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos came to a juddering halt this week after footage emerged of him appearing to condone pedophilia. The storm cost him first a $250,000 book deal, then a prestigious conservative speaking engagement and finally his job as technology editor of conservative website Breitbart, from which he resigned.

The boy is accused of slamming Henry Sembdner, 12, (left) to the ground after they bumped into each other at Kenyon Woods Middle School in South Elgin, Illinois on February 3. Henry was left with multiple face fractures and bleeding in the brain from the attack. The seventh grader was placed in an induced coma (right) in hospital for several days before being allowed to return home. The boy who allegedly attacked him was charged as a juvenile with one felony count of aggravated battery and two misdemeanor counts of battery. He faced court on Tuesday with both of his parents and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

She's used to reigning supreme in the style stakes, but tonight Queen Letizia of Spain (left) had serious competition from Argentina's very glamorous first lady Juliana Awada (right). The mother-of-two stunned in an ethereal dusky pink ballgown for a gala dinner at Madrid's royal palace while Letizia looked more sombre in floor length black velvet.

Liberty German, 14, recorded the man police believe murdered both her (left) and her friend Abigail Williams, 13, on a scenic hike near Delphi, Indiana, on February 14. The audio of the encounter has now been released by Indiana state troopers who said that they hope the recording of the voice leads them to the killer. Abigail (inset, top) and Liberty (inset, below) were found murdered the day after they went missing about three-quarters of a mile from the bridge (right) where they were last known to be alive thanks to a Snapchat posted by Liberty. It was also where Liberty made the recording. Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter added: 'Someone knows who this individual is. We'll find you.'

For decades far-right extremists have used well-worn symbols like the swastika and the white cross to signify their affiliation to racist causes. But as right-wing US hate groups have risen in prominence over the past year, their members have found themselves looking for new ways to show their allegiance without being spurned by society. That means creating new, secret methods of communication, Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League, told CNN. That's why the National Socialist Movement - and many neo-Nazis - have swapped the swastika (top-left) for the Othala rune (bottom-left), while the Ku Klux Klan have removed their white cross (top center), leaving just the red 'blood drop' (bottom-center). But there are other, more complex codes at play in the far-right world, such as the secret dice code (top-right) and the lettered grave (bottom-right).

Adrian Crook, 41, pictured top left, has always been a minimalist but after splitting up with his ex-wife he decided to move into a two-bed condo, pictured, in Vancouver, Canada, with his five children to improve their quality of life and sustainability. He customized furniture - such as triple bunk-beds for his children, pictured bottom right, that turn into desks - to make best use of the space.

Video shows the moment a group of girls broke out into a fight in Austin, Texas recently. Police intervened and sprayed pepper spray, but that didn't stop the women from continuing to punch and rip out each other's hair. At one point, a young man got down on one knee to pose with the women fighting in the background. The clip ends with a few of the women being led from the scene in handcuffs.

With examples from far and wide, MailOnline Travel has rounded up a catalogue of situations almost guaranteed to make you chuckle. Pictured clockwise from top left: a lady failing to get the hang of a digital camera; an extremely daring man fiddling with a power cable; a car towing a boat into the sea, the wrong way; a man using a chair to make the task of tying his shoelaces more (not less) arduous; a car parked in a trolley bay and a woman who has switched her equipment between a dog and a toddler.

The leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in Charleston was arrested after he tried to snatch a Confederate flag away from a protester on live television. Muhiyidin Elamin Moye (main, and inset mugshot) tried to grab a Confederate flag from another man in South Carolina on Wednesday, only to be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Members of the Secessionist party were protesting outside the Sottile Theatre, where Brittany 'Bree' Newsome, who temporarily removed the Confederate flag from the state house in 2015 (bottom right), was scheduled to give a talk.

Lal Ding, eight, from Baltimore, Maryland, was born with a 'radial club hand' (pictured, top right). It caused his forearm to be shortened, his right hand to be bent at a 90 degree angle, and left him with no thumb. In the surgery, the first of its kind surgery performed in the US, doctors used bones from his foot to straighten his wrist and give Lal back his mobility (pictured, bottom right).

Maria, 51, was given a new breed of anti-ageing haircut. Her wrinkles appeared to have been gently smoothed away, her cheekbones were more pronounced and her face looked slimmer. Her jawline seemed firmer, her skin plumper and creamier and her eyes were now sparkling.

Michael Dominguez, 32, from Glendale, Arizona, documents his weight loss journey on Wednesday night's episode of the TLC series My 600lb Life. The father-of-two is dependent on his family because of his size, and he moves his wife Roni and their children to Houston so he can work with a weight loss surgeon. However, when they arrive at their new home, Roni is appalled by the living conditions and refuses to let their kids live there.

A collection of photos showcases the hilarious and often threatening warnings left by people who do not want you to ring their doorbell. In many instances overworked mothers pleaded with visitors not to ring the bell as they have finally managed to get their baby to settle. However, for other households ringing the doorbell is practically impossible with signs asking guests to connect the wires to ring the bell.

At first glance, these sets of photographs might appear to show the same person. In fact they capture children who bear an uncanny resemblance to a parent at the same age. The album compiled by Bored Panda includes (clockwise from top left) a father and son who share the same startled expression, a man who went to great lengths to emulate his father's wardrobe and pose in a picture taken at the same age, a woman who recreated a baby photo after having her own baby girl, and a woman who travelled to Stonehenge to mock-up a picture of her mother taken in the same place.

Smokey was filmed blocking the road into the Glen Garriff Conservation Park in Harrismith, South Africa. Footage shows him walking over to lion manager Mike, apparently looking for attention. The lion refuses to move until Mike starts cuddling him and stroking his mane. He then stops again at the gate, with Mike seen gently trying to coax him back into the park.

Photographer Mafalda Rakos, 23, spent four years interviewing her subjects, collecting their memories, diaries, artworks and portraits, in a bid to show how anorexia, bulimia and other disorders affect their bodies and minds. One of the protagonists in the photo essay (left), identified only as U, said she is preoccupied with herself and food all the time and avoids others, making her feel like she is 'beneath a glass cover'. A particularly heartbreaking photo (bottom right) takes the viewer inside the panicked mind of a restrictive eater suddenly confronted with a plate of pasta at a friend's house. Another subject, who has suffered from anorexia and bulimia for several years, posed to show the burn marks she gets on her stomach from using hot-water bottles (upper right).

In months, Millie Bobby Brown (pictured left with her sister and right with her parents Robert and Kelly Brown) has gone from being an unknown to an international star with 1.25 million followers on Instagram, fans queuing to meet her and dancing on stage at the Emmys. Comparisons have been made with Harry Potter star Emma Watson. But her success was by no means guaranteed. The third child of Robert, an estate agent, and Kelly Brown, Millie was born in Marbella shortly after her parents moved to Spain. Pictured inset, Millie in Netflix's Stranger Things.

Joyce Thornton met her husband at 16, was engaged by 18, married by 20 and then had three children. At 21, her granddaughter Victoria Cobbold is yet to decide on a career and shows no sign of settling down whatsoever. She sees the life her grandmother led at her age as quaint, but most definitely not for her.

Hilarious video footage shows the tattooed and shirtless man crouching before the pile of bricks and shouting out Kung Fu cries before slamming his elbow down on the bricks. He lunges forward and slams his elbow down onto the pile - but instead of breaking them in half as he intended, he falls back in pain onto the ground and the bricks collapse, intact. The footage - filmed in Prague according to the uploader -  was uploaded to video sharing site Liveleak.

This is the moment an endangered whale swims up to a sightseeing boat and lets a tourist steal a kiss. The close encounter was filmed in Magdalena Bay, off the western Mexican state of Baja California Sur by a surprised onlooker on a neighbouring boat. The area is a popular destination for tourists wanting to see grey whales in their breeding grounds during the winter months.

The footage shows water overflowing into the 'glory hole' at Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California. The lake overflowed into the bell-mouth spillway as water levels rose to 443ft, the second highest level on record. The so-called 'glory hole' is designed to stop water from spilling over the Monticello Dam, with water draining into the funnel instead.

From Angkor Wat in Cambodia to Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (inset), a Swiss couple has filmed their spell-binding six-month journey through nine Asian countries. The adventurous pair then transformed thousands of pictures into a dizzying two-minute jaunt through Indonesian temple doors, over the Great Wall of China (top left), sailing along Vietnam's Halong Bay (top right) and gazing across the rice fields of Guilin in China. Also featured in the visual journey is Swedagon Pagoda, Myanmar (bottom right) and the streets of Pingyao, China (bottom left).