The second blast ripped through the plant about 2 p.m., sending a steel column high into the air. That prompted Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick, the top county official, to order a mandatory evacuation of Port Neches and neighboring Groves, Nederland and part of Port Arthur. Monk said TPC would form an investigation team to determine what led to the explosions. “We’re staying focused on the safety of our emergency response personnel folks in and around in the community as well as trying to protect the environment,” Monk said at a news conference. Firefighters have not been able to fully assess the damage at the plant, he said. Branick, who lives near the plant, said at the news conference that he was awakened at his home by the initial blast, which blew in his front and back doors, “damaging them pretty significantly.”💥🔥

Mexico on Wednesday rejected “interventionism” after U.S. President Donald Trump said he will designate the Latin American nation’s cartels as terrorist organizations, while a former U.S. official warned of unintended outcomes from such a move, Reuters report. Designating groups as foreign terrorist organizations is aimed at disrupting their finances through the imposition of U.S. sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, on them and individuals and entities that support them. Trump said in comments broadcast on Tuesday that Mexico’s cartels “will” be designated. A growing chorus of conservative voices in the United States has called for Mexican cartels to be classified as terrorist groups after the killing in Mexico earlier this month of nine American mothers and children with dual Mexican nationality.

Thieves smashed display cases and grabbed priceless jewels from an eastern German museum in the early hours of Monday in a lightning raid on one of Europe’s greatest collections of treasures, police said. Security camera footage showed two men breaking in through a grilled window, police said. The alarm sounded just before 5 a.m. local time and officers were there five minutes later. But the burglars had escaped. The haul was worth up to $1.2 billion, Bild newspaper reported earlier, without giving a source. It said a nearby electricity junction box had been set on fire, cutting the power supply to the whole area before the heist. #fuck_lucky