At least seven people have been killed and dozens more are injured after a powerful fuel tank explosion outside a maternity and children's hospital in Mexico.

Four babies and three adults were killed in the blast in Mexico City today, according to the latest tally. Some are still feared trapped under the rubble of the collapsed building.

Rescue workers have been scouring through ruined sections of concrete and twisted metal for survivors. 'For the moment there are seven people dead, four of them babies, two women and a man,' an official in the Mexico City mayor's office told AFP.

Passers-by rushed into the building after the blast and made their way to the nursery section, rescuing eight babies, it has been reported.

Dozens were evacuated after the truck exploded outside the hospital with many of the injuries caused by broken glass.

The city's mayor Angel Mancera had told Milenio television earlier that a woman and two men were among the dead.

He told the Televisa network that at least 54 people were injured, 22 of them children.

Most of the injuries were relatively minor, he said, many caused by flying glass.

One of Russia's largest academic libraries, which contains millions of unique historic documents, has gone up in flames in Moscow. A part of the building's roof collapsed before dozens of fire fighters managed to contain the blaze.The fire erupted at around 10 pm local time (7 pm GMT) on the third floor of the Academic Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) in Moscow. According to the Emergency Situations Ministry, some 2,000 square meters were engulfed in flames, prompting the roof to cave in.

According to preliminary data, the cause of the fire could be a malfunction of the electrical system, a law-enforcement source told RIA Novosti news agency. "A short circuit in the electrical system is currently being regarded as a primary lead," he said Saturday.

На юго-западе Москвы сгорела библиотека ИНИОН РАН. https://t.co/vm2LCuZiHx pic.twitter.com/qBO8AH2xxb

- Петр Петров (@VolschebnikNNT4) January 31, 2015

A total of 147 rescue workers and 38 pieces of fire-fighting equipment were used to contain the fire shortly after midnight, the ministry said.

A special prosecutor says she won't pursue charges against two Santa Fe police officers who shot a 26-year-old man in the cheek in August 2013 as he tried to flee in an SUV that his mother had reported stolen.

A Santa Fe County grand jury, in a rare finding in an officer-involved shooting, determined last year after reviewing evidence in the case that the shooting was not justified.

But Roswell District Attorney Janetta Hicks announced Thursday in a letter to New Mexico State Police that she will not prosecute Officers John DeBaca and Stephen Fonte. First District Attorney Angela "Spence" Pacheco had asked Hicks to serve as a special prosecutor in the case after the local grand jury's October finding.


Tom Clark, who represents the injured man, Roberto Mendez, said he was in shock when he learned that Hicks had declined to prosecute the case. "This means that the grand jury doesn't mean anything," Clark said. "I would have liked to see justice out of the criminal justice system," he said, adding that he plans to file a lawsuit against the city. In September, Clark filed a tort claim notice informing the city of his client's intention to sue.

Hicks' announcement comes at a time when police use of force is under heightened scrutiny around the country. Earlier this month, District Attorney Kari Brandenburg of Albuquerque filed murder charges against two Albuquerque officers who had fatally shot James Boyd, a 38-year-old mentally ill homeless man who had been camping illegally on a mountainside in March 2014. Brandenburg said she was deviating from her past practice of presenting evidence in officer-involved shooting cases in secret grand jury proceedings because she wanted transparency in how the widely publicized incident is handled by the criminal justice system.


Hicks' letter says that after she reviewed evidence of the Santa Fe officers' actions, she determined that "a reasonable person in the same circumstances would be in fear of death or great bodily harm to himself or others and might use deadly force."

Protesters who attend a planned anti-Islam event outside Clonskeagh Mosque on Sunday are welcome to come in for a cup of tea, the Islamic Cultural Centre has said.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie today, Summayah Kenna, spokesperson for the centre, said they had been informed by members of their community about plans for a protest. "Like any protest we can't and we will not object," she said. "Everybody has a right to protest. All we can ask is that it goes off peacefully."

Plans for the protest have been circulating online, and it is said the event has been organised by an Irish anti-Islam group. A counter-event has also been organised by Anti-Imperialist Front Ireland.

Just when it seemed that the crackdown on free speech in France could not get worse, French police today questioned a second grader on suspicion of "defending terrorism."

BFMTV says that administrators at a primary school in Nice reported the child to police on 21 January after the boy allegedly said that he "felt he was on the side of the terrorists."

"A police station is absolutely no place for an eight-year-old child," the boy's lawyer Sefen Guez Guez told BFMTV. He said that the incident showed that France was going through a state of "collective hysteria."

Guez Guez said that on 8 January, the day after two French gunmen attacked the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, the boy, whose name has been reported as Ahmed, was in class when he was asked if he was "Charlie."

"He answered, 'I am on the side of the terrorists, because I am against the caricatures of the prophet,'" the lawyer said.

A peculiar part of paperwork that's presented to new parents in New York City is raising eyebrows around the Big Apple. The new form, according to recent reports, asks parents to specify if a newborn's mother is male or female.

The New York Post first reported on Friday that an updated Department of Health (DOH) form handed to parents requesting a birth certificate removes the risk of misgendering new mommies.

The form [PDF], provided by the New York City DOH's Bureau of Vital Statistics, requires parents to answer if the "woman giving birth" is male or female, along with more run of the mill questions concerning legal names and Social Security Numbers.

"What is your DATE OF BIRTH, current AGE and SEX?" the form asks in the section labeled "Mother/Parent (Woman Giving Birth)."

A former Utah police officer, who changed his plea to no contest mid-trial, is facing life in prison for forcing a teenage girl to have sex with multiple teen boys over several years, starting when she was thirteen, the Deseret News is reporting.

Cody C. Smith, 40, of Logan, pleaded no contest Monday to two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, each charge carrying a sentences of 6 years to life in prison. Prosecutors have indicated they will seek consecutive sentences for Smith, who will ask the judge to have the sentences run concurrently, according to court records.

Following his plea, Smith requested release "to get his affairs in order," however District Judge Brian Cannell ordered Smith to be taken into custody immediately "due to the nature of the offenses."

According to the original arrest warrant, Smith took the 13-year-old girl to his home and forced her to "go upstairs and start to undress, kiss and have sex" with a 13-year-old boy. The boy reportedly told Smith he was "LDS and naive" but Smith kept entering the room to provide instructions, forcing them to have sex.

During a discussion on reports that national sorority organizations are advising University of Virginia sorority members to avoid all fraternity events during "bid week" out of sexual assault concerns, a Fox News contributor suggested that some female students who have been assaulted were "bad girls" who like to be "naughty."

The University of Virginia has been the subject of investigations for on-campus sexual assaults prior to, and in the wake of a mostly discredited Rolling Stone story that appeared in the music magazine last year.

Appearing on Fox's Outnumbered, former Clueless actress Stacey Dash shook her head while saying she found the ban "ridiculous," referring to the college women as "girls," in video captured by Media Matters of America.

A woman known as North Carolina's 'Bear Lady' may have been killed by a bear.

The remains of Kay Grayson, 67, were found in a well-known bear path just 100 yards from her isolated home in Tyrrell County on Monday.

Authorities could only find bones, hair and ripped clothing, which had likely been there for two weeks after she was reported missing.

I read a long article called "My Terrifying Night with Afghanistan's Only Female Warlord" last month. It was utter crap, and so similar to a lot of utter crap I've been reading about the women fighters of the Kurdish YPJ militia in Syria that I realized it's time somebody called foul on the offensive, ignorant crap going around about what the media likes to call "women warriors." I don't particularly enjoy the role of progressive scold, and it don't hardly come natural to me, but somebody's gotta do it.

What happens, in every case where writers and TV reporters with no background in military reporting try to describe "women warriors" is that they sexualize everything, ignore the real context, and betray a deep misogyny in every word they write or speak on camera. I mean, to the point that it's surprising, at least to me, because a lot of these people make a big deal about being progressive. I'm kinda shocked, actually, how crude their gender bias is. Nobody seems to be even trying to hide it.

Reporters seem to insist on trying to "humanize," i.e. feminize and sexualize, their subjects by asking them about boyfriends, marriage, and kids. You can see that sort of tilt in nearly every story about the magnificent fighters of the YPJ, the women's military force defending Kobane and other Kurdish Syrian cities against Islamic State. YPJ fighters dominate the mixed YPJ/G forces in Rojava (Kurdish North Syria); the overall commander of Kurdish resistance to the IS swine attacking Kobane is female, for example. But even well-meaning reporters insist on bringing the conversation back to boyfriends, marriage, and kids, like this generally good story by Australia's 60 Minutes, which drags in the question of boyfriends, etc., at the 8:49 point.