Forty soldiers in Army Ranger training were hospitalized on Wednesday after they were struck by lightning. “The students were learning lightning protection protocols at the time of the incident.”

On Sunday, paramedics took seven football fans to the hospital after lightning struck a parking lot outside of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

A lightning strike in Venice Beach, Los Angeles yesterday killed a 20-year-old man and injured 13 others, one critically. Firefighters believe lightning struck the ocean and spread through the water, ABC reports.

Rocky Mountain National Park's public information officer Kyle Patterson reports that lightning strikes at the park have killed two people in two days, injuring several more.

Storm chaser Scott Sheppard was filming footage of a storm near Fairburn, South Dakota when he was struck by lightning. Watching the clip is an exercise in look-through-the-cracks-of-your-fingers anticipation. Do not be fooled by the rainbow in the video.

Three generations of a German family were reportedly struck down by a single lightning bolt on Tuesday when the electrical charge shot down a tree and across their lawn as they were heading inside to avoid the rain.

After purchasing three Mega Millions tickets on Thursday night, Bill Isles was promptly struck in the head by a stray bolt of lightning. He is living proof that we should all avoid planes, sharks, and vending machines like the plague.

A 54-year-old man from New Jersey was electrocuted to death on Sunday after lightning struck the tree next to which he was standing. The last thing Stephen Rooney told his family before he wandered away from a barbecue to smoke a cigar, MSNBC reports, was, "Don't worry guys, lightning never strikes twice." He was referring to an incident from 48 years earlier, when Rooney's father was killed by a bolt of lightning while fishing. So what can we learn from this tragedy? That lightning doesn't care about truisms! It's lightning. It strikes wherever it wants to strike. [MSNBC]

Last week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie quietly used his line-item veto powers at the last minute to cut about $1 billion in Democratic spending from the state budget, items which state Senate President Stephen Sweeney says were conditional to his support for the deal. Sweeney, in response, has been calling Christie a "mean old bastard," "rotten bastard," "bully" and "punk" whom he wants to "punch... in his head." This must be doing serious damage to New Jersey's reputation as the most polite state in the union.

It seems that Zeus, mighty god of thunder and lightning, or Thor or somebody, is upset about the Casey Anthony murder trial. Mere hours after Anthony was told she'd soon be out of jail, lightning struck a makeshift memorial set up for Anthony's late daughter Caylee.

A freak bolt of lightning hit a school in northwest Uganda, killing a teacher and 22 students and injuring 51 more, all between the ages of 7 and 16. The building had no lightning rod to ground strikes.

This video of an Emirates flight getting hit by huge tendrils of lightning on its way in to land at Heathrow Airport was taken last month, so it's a bit too early to add to our list of this week's scary airplane "incidents." (Also, no one aboard was hurt, and the jet landed "with not even a scratch.") Even so, it makes us glad that you fly on the inside of a plane, and not standing on top. Update: The video has been taken down, but you can see it here. [via Daily Mail]

I'm going to break character for a second and tell you something about myself: I was just struck by lightning. A nearby lightning strike sent a power surge through my outlet, into my computer and up my arm.

What a crazy storm last night, no? Just ask the 54-year-old man who was struck by lightning in Crown Heights. A witness said, "His feet were smoking and he was bleeding from the mouth." He was revived and is recovering.

Remember that time some guy was driving down the road in the middle of a thunderstorm, happened to be recording it, and caught a bolt of lightning striking an 18-wheeler across the median on tape? No? Well, here it is.

Lightning does strike twice! (Har har.) In this video, a huge bolt touches down just feet from a woman and, while she frantically reacts—she may actually be louder than the thunder—the lightning comes back for seconds. Video inside.

God has been terribly angry over the last 24 hours, lightning-wise. First He destroyed his son, the Giant Jesus of Ohio. Now another lightning bolt has "struck the ship capturing oil from [the] blown-out BP well." C'mon, God. [AP]

Jack Black most certainly brought the lightning to the premiere of Tropic Thunder in Westwood on Monday night. Black felt that his electrifying jacket helped with the comedic forecast for the evening: 95% chance of awesomeness, with a high likelihood that you'll be laughing so hard you'll shoot Diet Coke out of your nostrils. Black got the idea for the jacket after walking by a Spencer's Gifts at a local mall. Black said, "I saw this cool black light poster and I thought it would make for an even sweeter jacket. It may be a bit distracting during the movie, though."

I had a vegan dinner with Moby the other night during that big electrical storm and he ended up holding my rather large dog in his lap half the time ...