News

The Washington Post reports: Ice is melting in unprecedented ways as summer approaches in the Arctic. In recent days, observations have revealed a record-challenging melt event over the Greenland ice sheet, while the extent of ice over the Arctic Ocean has never been this low in mid-June during the age of weather satellites. Greenland saw temperatures soar up to 40 …

Courthouse News reports: The Dallas City Council approved a $650,000 settlement Wednesday of a free-speech lawsuit filed by a pornography convention organizer that was kicked out the city-owned convention center three years ago on moral grounds. The 15-member council unanimously approved the settlement without debate. Interim City Attorney Christopher J. Caso told the council before the vote that “it is …

The Daily Beast reports: After Dean Obeidallah wrote a Daily Beast article condemning President Trump’s approach to white supremacist terror in 2017, the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer website falsely accused Obeidallah of being behind an ISIS attack. Now The Daily Stormer’s founder is being forced to pay him millions for the smear. Obeidallah, a comedian and radio host, sued …

Newsweek reports: Scientists have discovered a huge, mysterious mass of material beneath a large crater on the Moon. The mass is five times bigger than Hawaii’s Big Island and is located hundreds of miles beneath the lunar surface. Researchers led by Peter James from Baylor University, Texas, were studying the structure of the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This is an impact …

Agence France-Presse reports: Canada will ban single-use plastics from 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday, declaring it a “global challenge” to phase out the bottles, straws and plastic bags clogging the world’s oceans. “I am very pleased to announce that as early as 2021 Canada will ban harmful, single-use plastics from coast to coast,” Trudeau said, arguing Canada has …

Global News reports: The federal government has passed legislation that bans whale and dolphin captivity in Canada. The bill will phase out the practice of keeping captive whales, dolphins and porpoises, but grandfathers in those that are already being held at two facilities in the country. Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont., and the Vancouver Aquarium in B.C. are the only …

The New York Times reports: “Hadestown,” a pulsing, poetic contemporary riff on an ancient Greek myth, won the Tony Award for best new musical Sunday night, triumphing over film adaptations, a musical comedy and a jukebox show. The win, coming at a time when Broadway is enjoying a long-running box office boom, marks the sixth year in a row that …

CNN reports: Hillary Clinton’s youngest brother Tony Rodham died Friday night, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate announced Saturday on Twitter. Rodham, 64, is survived by wife Megan Madden and his three children: Zachary, Simon and Fiona. He was previously married to former Sen. Barbara Boxer’s daughter, Nicole Boxer. Rodham worked for the Democratic National Committee during the 1992 presidential election …

The Christian Post reports: The Northeastern part of the United States, once known as a bulwark of Puritans and other strict Christian sects, now dominates the top 10 list of the most “post-Christian” cities, according to a report by the Barna Group. To fit Barna’s label of “post-Christian,” a respondent had to meet at least 13 of 16 listed criteria, …

Reuters reports: Wells Fargo & Co will pay at least $386 million to settle class-action claims by customers who said the bank signed them up for auto insurance they did not want or need when they took out car loans. The settlement was disclosed in filings on Thursday with the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, and requires a …

NPR reports: More than three-quarters of Americans say they believe Roe v. Wade should be upheld, but a strong majority say they would like to see restrictions added to the ruling too, according to a new poll. An NPR/Marist poll released Friday found that 77 percent of respondents said the Supreme Court should uphold the landmark decision that established a …

ABC News reports: An unidentified man is in federal custody after he asked about buying grenades and discussed possibly detonating them in Times Square, according to law enforcement sources. The man was intercepted by federal and local officials, and he posed no imminent threat. He was detected both inquiring about obtaining grenades and discussing using them in Times Square, the …

The Christian Post reports: Despite opposition from traditionalists, Pope Francis has officially approved a change to the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:13 that replaces “lead us not into temptation” with “do not let us fall into temptation.” Pope Francis first signaled support for amending the “lead us not into temptation” part of the Lord’s Prayer in 2017, arguing that it …

Via press release from Christian Newswire: Cathio, an organization founded to serve Catholics through an easy-to-use payment solution that responds to the needs of the Catholic community, announced the launch of its platform and its leadership team today. “Cathio’s platform is designed to enable all sectors of the Catholic economy to benefit from lower costs and transparent payments,” said Cathio …

The New York Times reports: New York lawmakers on Tuesday passed a ban on cat declawing, putting the state on the cusp of being the first to outlaw the procedure. The bill, which had been fought for several years by some veterinary groups, would outlaw several types of declawing surgeries except in cases of medical necessity, and forbid any such …

The Associated Press reports: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday he will summon lawmakers back to the state Capitol to consider a package of gun-control legislation, saying last week’s mass shooting in Virginia Beach calls for “votes and laws, not thoughts and prayers.” Northam, a Democrat confronted with a Republican-controlled General Assembly in the middle of an election year, also …

Axios reports: China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a travel advisory, warning citizens against traveling to the U.S., effective until December 31, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. “Noting the frequent occurrence of shootings, robberies and theft in the United States recently, the ministry warned Chinese tourists to fully assess the risks of traveling there,” the news agency …

Politico reports: The Justice Department has decided not to charge Julian Assange for his role in exposing some of the CIA’s most secret spying tools, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the case. It’s a move that has surprised national security experts and some former officials, given prosecutors’ recent decision to aggressively go after the …

NBC News reports: Julian Assange has been left in a state of “extreme stress, chronic anxiety” and “constant panic” after spending seven years holed up in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, a leading United Nations expert who visited the WikiLeaks co-founder in prison said Thursday. Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, told NBC News he blames the United States, United …

Vanity Fair reports: On Sunday, May 19, New York Times finance editor David Enrich got a request from a producer at MSNBC to appear on Rachel Maddow’s show the following night. Enrich had a red-hot front-page story for Monday’s paper, about anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank flagging suspicious transactions involving Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, and Maddow wanted to bring …