Many tributaries and major rivers in the midwest are forecasted to surpass major flood levels over the next week. Because of extremely heavy rainfall and snow in the last week, the surge is moving down rivers throughout the midwest. So far, three deaths associated with the flooding have been reported.

Poor Vermont! Even though it's America's 47th least-horrible state and a magical place of ice cream and cows, Tropical Storm Irene has been abusing it mercilessly. Severe flooding has submerged homes under brownish water, destroyed charming bridges, and taken a life. This video shows the Brattleboro farmer's market as it appeared on Sunday: like a river with broken tents floating in it.

Floods that swept through Australia this month have caused incredible destruction. But one man made the best of a terrible situation and filmed this eerie trip through a flooded McDonald's via canoe in Brisbane, Australia.

[Tents are set up at a camp organized by the Pakistan Army for Pakistani families displaced by floods in the Sindh province in southern Pakistan. Pic via AP.]

With the Facebook Fugitive back in jail, what runaway rapscallion should we cheer for next? How about this two-ton hippopotamus, which escaped from a zoo and now wanders Montenegro with a pair of armed bodyguards.