There are few things more beautiful – or terrifying – than the menacing flash of lightning bolts within a volcanic ash cloud. MORE

Pizza-loving Pope Francis has been told to cut down and exercise more, reports said Thursday as the pontiff made the latest in a string of allusions to feeling weary.

The 78-year-old pontiff is visibly chubbier these days than he was when he lived in Argentina and was known for a frugal lifestyle and walking as much as he could. MORE

On May 13, 2014, the French foreign minister publicly said THREE TIMES, “We have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.” In his first announcement, he said, “The planet also means very concretely OUR VERY SURVIVAL. We are, all of you know it, on the edge of a climatic ABYSS. In face, we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.” MORE

In ”The Inferno,” Dante tells of his imagined journey into hell, his entry into a ”kingdom of eternal night” where he hears the voices of the damned rise ”in a bestial moan” and sees sinners stung by wasps, burnt by falling fire and frozen in a sheet of ice.

For 700 years the poem has provided vivid inspiration to painters and preachers, who have kept alive a popular vision of perdition as a physical place of fire and brimstone, extraordinary torments and monsters. Many artists added their own ideas, such as Hieronymus Bosch, who in the 15th century painted a highly original vision of hell, a tableau of violence and excruciating tortures. MORE

The Philippines issued warnings of possible landslides and storm surges, with typhoon Maysak set to strike eastern coastal areas, where many resorts are located, over the Easter weekend. Maysak, initially a top-rated category 5 typhoon, has weakened to category 4 as it lost strength over the water. MORE

“An alleged supporter of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) welcomed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by chanting “Welcome, O Messenger of God,” a phrase commonly used to refer to the Prophet Muhammad, in the latest in a series of similar remarks attributing divine qualities to Erdoğan.” MORE

This winter hasn’t been all that dry. But it’s been hot. Most regions of Oregon received normal or near-normal precipitation this winter. Normally, that would set the state up for a summer of healthy streamflows and fully stocked reservoirs. However, warm weather during the winter months meant most of that precipitation fell as rain. Mountains that normally would be piled high with snow remained bare. MORE

An Israeli committee has approved controversial plans for eventual construction of 2,200 Palestinian homes in occupied east Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said Wednesday, in the largest such project since 1967. NGO Ir Amim described the plan to develop the Arab Al-Sawahra neighbourhood as the largest…MORE

Gov. Jerry Brown, standing on a patch of brown grass in the Sierra Nevada that is usually covered with several feet of snow at this time of year, on Wednesday announced the first mandatory water restrictions in California history.

“It’s a different world,” he said. “We have to act differently.”

Brown was on hand Wednesday as state officials took stock of historically abysmal levels of snowpack in the Sierra Nevada amid the state’s grinding drought. It was the first time that a governor attended the measuring event, which has taken place at Lake Tahoe since 1942. MORE

Not often NASA and the Church are on the same page but this freak BLOOD MOON seems to have done it! THE SKY will turn a deep blood red across the planet this Easter as a rare celestial event ‘foretold in the Bible’ unfolds. On Saturday evening – just as Passover draws to a close – an eery blood colour will engulf the moon. It is the third of four successive total ‘blood-red’ lunar eclipses, each followed by six full moons – an extremely rare ‘Tetrad’. MORE

The Rev. Ann Kansfield will be the first female and the first openly gay chaplain in New York City’s fire squad. MORE

Two renegade Catholic bishops plan to consecrate a new generation of bishops to spread their ultra-traditionalist movement called “The Resistance” in defiance of the Vatican, one of them said at a remote monastery in Brazil.

French Bishop Jean-Michel Faure, himself consecrated only two weeks ago by the Holocaust-denying British Bishop Richard Williamson, said the new group rejected Pope Francis and what it called his “new religion” and would not engage in a dialogue with Rome until the Vatican turned back the clock. MORE

A thousand year-old medieval potion made out of onions, garlic, wine and oxgall – bile from a cow’s stomach – can kill hospital superbugs, say scientists.

The potent 10th century brew – used by Anglo Saxons to treat a stye – destroyed 90 per cent of the bacteria on scraps of skin taken from mice with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus).

Interestingly the ingredients had little effect unless they were all brought together into the concoction, the study by Nottingham University researchers found. Continue reading →