Eruption

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

After days of silence during which long-held resentment toward Abercrombie & Fitch Co. began to boil over, Chief Executive Michael S. Jeffries tried to stem a backlash against the teen-focused retailer. Jeffries, in a statement Thursday, discussed criticism that the company lacks women's XL and XXL sizes in favor of catering toward young, good-looking customers. "A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers," he said in the statement.

Guatemala's capital was under a state of emergency and its airport closed Friday after the Pacaya volcano spewed black ash for miles in the southern part of the country. Television reporter Anibal Archila who had been covering the eruption was found dead by colleagues after being caught in a blizzard of rocks and debris. More than 65 people were injured and hundreds of homes damaged, according to news reports. Officials said three children between the ages of 7 and 12 were missing.

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano may generate lava flows, explosions of "growing intensity" and ash that could reach miles away, the National Center for Disaster Prevention said Monday. Officials were preparing evacuation routes and shelters for thousands of people who live in the shadow of Popocatepetl, located 40 miles southeast of Mexico City. Officials have created a 7.5-mile restricted zone around the cone of the volcano. Popo, as the volcano is known, has displayed a "notable increase in activity levels" in the last few days, including tremors and explosive eruptions, according to a statement from the federal government.

Sakurajima Volcano in southern Japan erupted for the 51st time this year, spewing forth stones that broke windshields and punctured car roofs for miles around, television news reports said Monday. As many as 50 car windshields were reported shattered and several roofs punctured Sunday when stones thrown 13,000 feet into the air rained down on southern Kyushu, about 500 miles southwest of Tokyo. Ash from the eruption also dusted the area, the reports said.

Mt. Mihara subsided Sunday after a fiery eruption that forced 11,000 people to flee a small island, but hundreds of miles away another volcano erupted and sent a large boulder flying into a hotel, injuring five people. Officials said Mt. Sakurajima hurled a boulder 6 1/2 feet in diameter into a one-story concrete hotel on Sakurajima island, about 620 miles southwest of Tokyo. Officials said the eruption was not linked with that of Mt.

The eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in central Colombia may be the worst such disaster in more than 80 years, a geological expert said here Thursday. Up to 20,000 people were feared dead in Colombia. If this death toll is confirmed, the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz was the worst volcanic disaster in South American history, Ian Merter of London's Geological Museum said. It would be the worst in the world since 1902 when Mt.

Mt. St. Helens has begun its 20th eruptive episode in six years, scientists said Saturday, but thick clouds prevented them from seeing whether magma has reached the surface of the rumbling volcano's lava dome. Commercial and private pilots flying near the southwest Washington volcano Friday night reported seeing several steam or ash bursts, rising to heights of between 18,000 and 20,000 feet above sea level.

Ecuador officials say a volcano is erupting in the Galapagos Islands and could harm unique wildlife. Galapagos National Park officials said La Cumbre volcano began spewing lava, gas and smoke on uninhabited Fernandina Island after four years of inactivity. They said the eruption is not a threat to people living on nearby Isabela Island. But lava flowing to the sea probably will affect marine and terrestrial iguanas, wolves and other fauna. The Galapagos are home to unique species that became the basis for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

A rare underwater volcano in the South Pacific erupted only 130 feet beneath a San Diego-based research ship Sunday, enveloping the vessel in a swirling tumult of murky water, gas bubbles and hot volcanic rocks. The eruption of the MacDonald Seamount 650 miles southeast of Tahiti sent gas-infused rocks clattering and clanging against the steel hull of the Melville and transformed the greenish ocean water into a churning, boiling dark brown, according to an account by scientists aboard the ship.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - For decades this rural basin has battled over the Klamath River's most precious resource: water that sustains fish, irrigates farms and powers the hydroelectric dams that block one of the largest salmon runs on the West Coast. Now, one of the nation's fiercest water wars is on the verge of erupting again. New water rights have given a group of Oregon Indian tribes an upper hand just as the region plunges into a severe drought . Farmers and wildlife refuges could be soon cut off by the Klamath Tribes, which in March were granted the Upper Klamath Basin's oldest water rights to the lake and tributaries that feed the mighty river flowing from arid southern Oregon to the foggy redwoods of the Northern California coast.

BEIRUT - Security forces for the Shiite-led Iraqi government raided a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on Tuesday, igniting violence around the country that left at least 36 people dead. The unrest led two Sunni officials to resign from the government and risked pushing the country's Sunni provinces into an open revolt against Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite. The situation looked to be the gravest moment for Iraq since the last U.S. combat troops left in December 2011. The violence Tuesday started in the Sunni town of Hawija, where shooting erupted during the raid.

A brush fire forced the evacuation of about 200 homes in Monrovia on Saturday as firefighters worked to keep flames from spreading into the San Gabriel Mountains. The wildfire had charred 170 acres of brush and grass on the edge of residential areas in northwest Monrovia, sending up clouds of smoke visible across a wide area of the Southland. By Saturday night its growth had slowed, although fire officials were on the watch for downwinds that can develop in the area. The blaze was 10% contained.

Today, 19 months after her death, we may finally have a good idea of what killed Paula Rojeski. According to a lawsuit and public autopsy records, the causes included her doing business with the 1-800-GET-THIN folks and the slicing of her aorta during weight-loss surgery at one of their affiliated surgical centers. There was also regulatory indifference on a truly majestic scale. Rojeski, 55, died Sept. 8, 2011, shortly after surgery to implant a Lap-Band at Valley Surgical Center in West Hills, which her family's lawyer says is affiliated with 1-800-GET-THIN and the two brothers behind it, Julian and Michael Omidi.

The surprise box office success of the uplifting Jackie Robinson biographical film "42" suggests that audiences are ready for a PG-13-rated movie filled with coarse, racially charged language. It also raises questions about whether children should see it, and at what age. In the picture, which grossed $27.5 million over the weekend, a variety of slurs are directed at the ballplayer, the first African American major leaguer, who began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Most pointedly, he is called the N-word many times.

Early Thursday morning, solar observers watched as a dark spot on the sun erupted with an enormous flash of light, causing the biggest solar flare of 2013. Solar flares themselves don't last long, but this one was powerful enough to cause a bubble of solar material called a CME (coronal mass ejection) to come bursting off the sun. Up to billions of tons of that solar material is now hurtling through space at the mind-bending speed of more than 600 miles per second, and it is heading directly toward Earth.

Ashes, gases and tons of rocks shot from Mt. Etna and showered tourists near the snow-covered summit of Europe's tallest volcano Friday, killing an 8-year-old French boy and his mother, Italian officials reported. The eruption injured seven others in the group of 30 French, Italian and German tourists, but none was in serious condition, said police in this city on Sicily's eastern coast. Rescue workers had to drive over snow-covered trails to reach the group.

Two Southern California sisters were among 150 vacationers caught in a sudden volcanic eruption in Nicaragua, and one of them suffered a broken arm, according to accounts provided Wednesday by the sisters and the Holland America line. At least half of the tourists who experienced the April 23 eruption, some suffering cuts and bruises, were reported to be from California. They were on a one-day land tour off the cruise ship Veendam, which was docked at San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

As the Myanmar government urged calm, Muslim shops reportedly sat shuttered Monday in the capital of Yangon, a sign of continued unease after the re-eruption of deadly religious violence in the country. Riots in the central city of Meiktila, reportedly triggered by an argument between Buddhists and a Muslim shop owner, are estimated to have killed at least 32 people last week. Mosques were burned and homes destroyed as mobs attacked Muslims. The violence spread beyond Meiktila through the week and into the weekend, displacing thousands of people.

Unrest erupted Tuesday in the Maldives after its former president was arrested, the latest turn in a disputed case that his backers say is meant to stop him from campaigning for reelection. Police said Mohamed Nasheed was taken into custody Tuesday on charges of illegally arresting a chief judge during his presidency and that a hearing was scheduled for Wednesday. Nasheed had holed up last month in the Indian Embassy to avoid arrest, spending a week and a half in the building before leaving.