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Mexico’s active Popocatepetl volcano has registered a massive explosion spewing ash and incandescent rock almost 4 kilometers high. Authorities have warned that winds could blow the ash cloud as far away as Mexico City.

Inhabitants of villages up to 25 kilometers from Popocatepetl (colloquially known as ‘Don Popo’) rushed out of their houses when the massive explosion reverberated through their homes.

Esther Matinez, resident of Amecameca municipality, told Mexican publication La Jornada that the blast was like a rocket explosion. Around 4.5 million people live within a 50-kilometer radius of the active volcano, 650,000 of whom are considered to be at high risk.

According to authorities in the state of Puebla, where the second-tallest volcano in Mexico is located, the incandescent fragments released in the blast fell as far as 2 kilometers from the crater. Director of Puebla’s Civil Protection department Jesus Morales said that burning rocks sparked small fires around the volcano.

“There were clouds at the time of the eruption so it was possible to observe the large shock wave accompanied by a plume of ash and incandescent material,” Morales said.

 

RT has the full article

In “Using the Abused,” NRA News Commentator Natalie Foster calls out anti-gun groups for only using domestic abuse to further their anti-gun agenda.

President Obama’s approval rating dropped eight points since May. CNN’s Chris Cuomo and John King report.

Floods in northern India wash away a whole apartment block. Read more…

The three-storey building in Uttarkashi was hit on Sunday night amid heavy flooding that has inundated large swathes of Uttarakhand state.

Dramatic footage filmed on a mobile phone and broadcast on local television showed the building collapsing and tumbling into the river.

Thomas Drake, who was prosecuted for allegedly disclosing National Security Agency secrets years before Edward Snowden surfaced, says the U.S. government has an “industrial-scale” surveillance system that “the Stasi in East German would have drooled over.” Drake speaks with Reuters defense correspondent Andrea Shalal-Esa.

Thousands of protesters tried to reclaim Taksim Square on Tuesday night, mocking the police and calling them to leave. Some engaged in direct confrontation, launching fireworks, throwing stones, and lighting fires. A van standing on the square was set alight in the process. Police fired back, bombarding the crowds with tear gas, and pushing them in the narrow streets with water canon. Scores of flag and flare-wielding protesters had to flee the square, some leaving for Gezi Park, where some tear gas was also reportedly fired.

(CNN) – Pope Francis said a “gay lobby” exists inside the Vatican, a surprising disclosure from a pope who has already delivered his share of stunners, and a resurrection of church conflicts that had bedeviled his predecessor’s papacy.

“In the Curia,” Francis said, referring to Catholicism’s central bureaucracy, “there are holy people. But there is also a stream of corruption.”

“The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there,” Francis continued. “We need to see what we can do.”

Hints that the Holy See contained a network of gay clergy surfaced last year in reports about a series of embarrassing leaks to Italian journalists.

 

CNN has the full article

Hundreds of officers were out on the streets to keep today’s action under control throughout London’s West End amid protests against the G8 summit.

Police scuffled with scores of anti-G8 demonstrators in central London and surrounded a building where protest organisers were meeting before a summit of world leaders in UK next week.

Scuffles broke out when police moved in to arrest individuals as a main group of around 30 to 50 activists, mostly dressed in black, banged on drums and blew whistles as they ran through the capital.