Mark Memmott

The wildfire blazing in northeast Arizona is now the second-largest in state history and there's no end in sight, The Arizona Republic reports this morning.

According to the Republic, the Wallow Fire is "growing by the hour, leapt farther north Tuesday and has now consumed about 389,000 acres."

Ominously, the newspaper adds that it is "at zero percent containment." Its headline says there is "no end in sight."

Since he withdrew from The Players Championship on May 12 after playing just nine holes, this news won't be a huge surprise to golf fans:

"Tiger Woods announced Tuesday that he will miss the 2011 U.S. Open." (TigerWoods.com)

The U.S. and its allies are increasingly finding that one of the keys to building the Afghan Army is teaching its soldiers and officers to read and write, says the American general in charge of that training.

We do like the shows that volcanoes sometimes put on, as regular Two-Way readers know.

So we can't resist the photos and videos coming out of Chile, where the Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle volcano range has been erupting in recent days and lightning storms in the clouds of ash have been quite electrifying (pun intended).

President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are holding a joint news conference this hour at the White House.

Merkel will be awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom today and is to be honored with a State Dinner at the White House this evening. Earlier today, she and the president "hailed the relationship between their nations as the cornerstone of efforts to promote peace and prosperity around the world," The Associated Press writes.