News

The BBC reports: Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo have been announced as the hosts of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The International Olympic Committee voted for Italy’s joint bid ahead of Stockholm, Sweden, to stage the event. Skating sports and ice hockey will be held in Milan, while most alpine skiing events will take place in the resort of Cortina. …

NPR reports: Dirty words make it to the U.S. Supreme Court only occasionally. One of those occasions came Monday, in a case involving a clothing line named “FUCT.” The issue is whether the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office acted unconstitutionally when it refused to grant trademark protection to the brand name. And, for the justices, the immediate problem was how …

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will propose on Monday eliminating all $1.6 trillion of student debt held in the United States, a significant escalation of the policy fight in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary two days before the candidates’ first debate in Miami. Sanders is proposing the federal government pay to wipe clean the student debt held …

The Associated Press reports: Major airlines from around the world on Friday began rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz following Iran’s shooting down of a U.S. military surveillance drone there, as America warned commercial airliners could be mistakenly attacked. The Federal Aviation Administration warned of a “potential for miscalculation or misidentification” in the region after …

CNBC reports: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a 40-foot cross commemorating World War I can continue to stand on public ground because it does not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The case concerned a giant, early 20th century Latin cross that stands in a Maryland intersection in the suburbs of the nation’s capital. The project was …

USA Today reports: You don’t need bells and whistles when you have a voice like Freddie Mercury’s. That’s what singer/producer Dave Clark realized in 1985, when he met the larger-than-life Queen front man at London’s Abbey Road Studios to record “Time,” the title track from his sci-fi rock musical. Mercury sang a version of the song for the show’s concept …

CBS News reports: On Monday, the New York Senate passed the “Green Light Bill,” which is designed to give undocumented immigrants the right to a driver’s license. Last week, the Assembly passed the bill, which had the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. CBS New York reports Cuomo signed the bill into law overnight, making New York the 13th state in …

The Associated Press reports: German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared unsteady and was visibly shaking Tuesday as she greeted the new Ukrainian leader in the hot sun in Berlin, saying later that she clearly hadn’t drunk enough water. Merkel’s whole body visibly shook and she pursed her lips as she tried to contain the situation as she stood with Ukrainian President …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday it is moving to rewrite testing rules to allow for the eventual return of civil supersonic air travel. At an event in Paris on Monday, Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell said the agency is working to “enable the return of civil supersonic travel, while ensuring the environmental impacts are …

Just in from the United Nations: “The World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights” estimates that the next 30 years will see the global population add an extra 2 billion people to today’s figure of 7.7 billion, and, by the end of the century, the planet will have to sustain around 11 billion. India is expected to show the highest population increase …

The New York Times reports: Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, died in an Egyptian courtroom on Monday, Egyptian state television reported. Mr. Morsi, 67, won Egypt’s first free presidential election in 2012. The military dissolved Parliament later that year and ousted Mr. Morsi in 2013. He was on trial on espionage charges when he fainted and died, Egyptian …

From the Hollywood Reporter: Gloria Vanderbilt, who was thrust into the spotlight as a child heiress before going on to establish herself as an actress, artist, author, fashion icon and socialite, has died. She was 95. Vanderbilt, whose life included a nasty battle for her custody when she was 10, a string of high-profile relationships that began when she was …

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 …