The boiling river has cooled down, at least for now. However, earthquake activity in and around the Yellowstone supervolcano is reportedly increasing. The boiling of the Shoshone River for four days in March wasn’t the only recent geothermal event in the river to pique the attention of geologists.

Recent activity in and around the area of the river near Yellowstone has reportedly released enough hydrogen sulfide into the water to create a dead zone spanning one and a half miles. The stretch of river is now completely devoid of fish due to what Burkhardt referred to as a “chemical barrier,” which is blocking fish from entering.

Some believe this to be a very bad sign.

This will also have implications on the extent of the volcano’s impact when it erupts. Researchers with the USGS say that the last time the volcano erupted was some 640,000 years ago. They also say that this supervolcano has the potential to spew more than 240 cubic miles of magma across Montana, Idaho and Wyoming with global effects. Scientists do believe that it will erupt again one day, but do not know when.

Since Yellowstone is located in a seismic active zone, little tremors occur often. However, seismologists believe that one day there will be a strong earthquake, like the 7.3 that hit the area in 1959. When measuring the reservoir, scientists discovered that it is tilted from northwest to southeast.

It is measured as 55 miles by 20 miles on each side and is about 6 miles deep, which scientists say is roughly the same size as it was when it last erupted thousands of years ago. Scientists believe that when the volcano erupts, the reservoir will be emptied. It will then take a long time to refill.

The president's intervention in the UK's forthcoming EU referendum on 23 June has been hotly debated and sparked claims of "hypocrisy" from those who want to leave the EU.

However, in his newspaper piece President Obama recognised that ultimately the matter was for British voters to decide for themselves. But he also said: "The outcome of your decision is a matter of deep interest to the United States. The tens of thousands of Americans who rest in Europe's cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are."

But writing in the Sun, Vote Leave's Boris Johnson said President Obama's view was "a breathtaking example of the principle do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do". BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said a Brexit-supporting cabinet minister had stressed that Obama's view "was not the settled view in the USA. The Republicans don't agree and there is disquiet at his blatant meddling in UK politics".

The Fed just issued a terrifying warning to the biggest bank in the country. The Fed has admitted that we just can’t take another hit without incurring an epic disaster. And by “admitted” I mean they’ve issued a chilling warning to JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in America.

Here’s the long and the short of it: Every year, large banks must create a contingency plan that explains what they’ll do if they begin to go under. The biggest bank in the country has such a lackluster, half-baked plan that the Fed called them out on it for 19 pages and warns that their nonchalance could be responsible for the financial instability of the entire country.

Some denizens of America’s great cities probably wouldn’t mind a visit from the Pied Piper right about now. Several major US cities — including Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington, DC — have seen significant surges in rat complaints from their residents in recent months, according to city data reviewed by USA TODAY.

Grousing about rats has long been city-dweller sport, but the long-tailed, sharp-toothed nuisances have now become so populous and so aggressive that some cities are getting creative in their efforts to stay ahead of the rodents even as some frustrated city residents are increasingly taking matters into their own hands.

In Chicago, which historically notches more rat complaints than any other city, residents' reports of rodent activity rose by about 70% in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period last year.

The state-sanctioned seizure is just the latest in a number of worrying developments to come out of increasingly hardline Turkey, which is in advanced talks with the EU over visa-free travel for its 80 million citizens. Included in the seizures are Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches, one of which is over 1,700 years old.

The order to seize the churches was made on March 25 by Erdogan's council of ministers, according to the website World Watch Monitor. They claim it was made on the grounds that authorities intend to rebuild and restore the historical centre of the city, which has been partially destroyed by 10 months of urban conflict between government forces and militants from the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

But the seizures have outraged worshippers at the churches, who fear a government coup against their religion, and are now threatening to take legal action against the decision. Ahmet Guvener, pastor of Diyarbakir Protestant Church, said: "The government didn't take over these pieces of property in order to protect them. They did so to acquire them." And the Diyarbakir Bar Association - which represents Christians worshipping at one of the churches, has now officially filed an appeal against the government's action.

Hard-right Jerusalem city council member Arieh King said he hoped that the Temple Mount would soon be free of what he termed “the abomination” currently at the site, while Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, head of the Temple Institute and a former Knesset candidate for the banned Kach party said the event was preparation for when the Temple Mount would be “flattened and cleaned” and the Temple rebuilt.

The model ceremony included the various ancient Temple rites prescribed by the Torah and Jewish law, including the slaughtering of a lamb by Cohanim, priests, in the white robes used in Temple times, the sprinkling of the blood and the burning of fats and other parts of the lamb on a model altar, and the blowing of trumpets by the Cohanim. It was conducted just next to the Beit Orot yeshiva on the Mount of Olives in full view of the Temple Mount.

The Passover Sacrifice is one of the religious commandments of the Torah obliging Jews to sacrifice a lamb on the Temple Mount on the day before the Passover pilgrimage holiday and eat on the first night of the festival. The organizers, the Joint Staff of Temple Organizations, emphasized that the event on Monday was a simulation and not supposed to represent the actual sacrifice.

Speaking before the ceremony began, King, who heads the United Jerusalem faction in the Jerusalem Municipal Council decried the current situation in which said that Jews were still prevented by the government from going to the Temple Mount and performing the Passover sacrifice. “We’re here opposite the Temple Mount,” he continued. “We can see the abomination upon it and we need to wish that even in our days we won’t see it anymore and we’ll see there the altar, the Cohanim and Levi’im and we’ll see ourselves there.”

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, another leader of the religious hard-right sector, was also in attendance, and underlined what he said was the importance of realizing that prayers for the rebuilding of the Temple which appear frequently in Jewish are practical. “When we talk of the Temple we’re talking about something practical and not something imaginary,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “In order to feel how practical this is we are doing this Passover sacrifice ceremony. All Jews, every day for 2,000 years, pray three times a day that this will be practical.”

Felix Ngole, a 38-year-old in his second year of study for a master's degree in social work at the University of Sheffield in South Yorkshire was told that he is no longer a student at the university after a committee ruled he "may have caused offense to some individuals" by issuing a Facebook post last September quoting Leviticus on the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality.

Ngole's post came in defense of Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who became the center of a media firestorm last year when she refused to allow her office to issue same-sex marriage licenses with her name and title on them because of her religious objection to same-sex marriage.

Although Ngole's Facebook page is private and can only be seen by his friends, his post was brought to the attention of administrators at the university months later. Ngole's future at the university was then subjected to the "Fitness to Practice" committee, which ruled that his conservative Christian beliefs about marriage would negatively impact his "ability to carry out a role as a social worker" and that his post "transgressed boundaries which are not deemed appropriate for someone entering the social work profession."

At this point, dozens of subdivisions have been flooded and major sections of Interstate 10 and Interstate 45 are under water near downtown. Authorities are telling us that water is getting to areas that it has never been before, and Fire Department spokesman Jay Evans announced that the water is already 10 to 15 feet deep in some areas. But even though some parts of Houston have already gotten close to 20 inches of rain within the last 24 hours, there is more rain in the forecast, so this crisis is far from over.

The giant storm that has caused all of this rain was a complete surprise to many residents of Houston. A lot of people woke up on Monday morning to discover that their neighborhoods now resembled Waterworld. If this flooding was just an isolated incident, it wouldn’t really be that big of a deal. But the truth is that this flooding in Houston continues a very disturbing pattern that began in early October of last year. Since the end of September, the US has been hit by 8 historic floods, which works out to an average of more than one a month.

As "David" woos her with compliments, flowers and romantic walks in the park, Li fails to realise he is a foreign spy. The cartoons depict a scenario where Li gives David secret internal documents from her government office before they are both arrested. In the final image, Li is shown sitting handcuffed before two policemen who tell her she has a "shallow understanding of secrecy for a state employee".

China's state secrets law is notoriously broad, covering everything from industry data to the exact birth dates of state leaders. Information can also be labelled a state secret retroactively. President Xi Jinping has overseen a sweeping revamp of the security apparatus, aimed at combating threats both at home and abroad.

Along with the main text in the letter, there was also a note next to the tickbox for male/female explaining that the national recording system only gives two options for gender but to help their child choose a gender they most identified with.

It read: 'We recognise that not all children and young people identify with the gender they were assigned at birth or may identify as a gender other than male or female, however the current systems (set nationally) only record gender as male or female. Please support your child to choose the gender they most identify with. Or if they have another gender identity please leave this blank and discuss with your child's school.'

Parents have criticised the move claiming children should be allowed to 'enjoy their innocence'. They also described it as a 'dangerous approach' since four-year-olds do not yet have an adult view of the world or fully understand gender roles. “Schools should be teaching kids to read and write, not prompting them to consider gender swaps” said Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.

The controversy comes just three months after the council sent a 'profoundly confusing' gender survey to pupils at Blatchington Mill School, in Hove, with 25 options to choose from. As well as traditional options of 'girl' and 'boy', children aged 13 to 18 were also invited to select from a list that included 'genderqueer', 'tri-gender', 'gender fluid' and 'intersex'.