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BRUSSELS, June 11 (Reuters) - The world experienced its second-warmest May since records began this year, a month in which climate change fuelled a record-breaking heatwave in Greenland, scientists said on Wednesday. Last month was Earth's second-warmest May on record - exceeded only by May 2024 - rounding out the northern hemisphere's second-hottest March-May spring on record, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin

But the lawmaker didn’t say whether he would vote against the rescissions package. A top House Republican appropriator opposes the Trump administration’s plans to claw back funding for public media — a potential problem for GOP leaders who need near-unity within their party to pass the White House’s request that Congress revoke billions of dollars it has already approved. Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, who leads the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security, on Monday joined with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) to urge the administration to reconsider its proposal to cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for...

Vice President JD Vance acknowledged the deepening feud between Elon Musk and President Trump but emphasized his hope that Musk could eventually reconcile with the Trump administration, praising Musk’s past efforts with DOGE and calling him a “transformational entrepreneur.” While defending Trump and dismissing Musk’s Epstein-related claims as baseless, Vance warned that Musk’s aggressive political stance could backfire, both for his companies and the broader national interest.It’s been pointed out by many spectators that the feud between the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and arguably the world’s most powerful man, Donald Trump, is not going to end well for any...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing anti-diversity and anti-transgender executive orders in grant funding requirements that LGBTQ+ organizations say are unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar said Monday that the federal government cannot force recipients to halt programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or acknowledge the existence of transgender people in order to receive grant funding. The order will remain in effect while the legal case continues, although government lawyers will likely appeal. The funding provisions “reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and...

Stephen K. Bannon, one of Elon Musk’s most vocal critics, said he was advising the president to cancel all of the tech billionaire’s contracts and launch several investigations into the world’s richest man. “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,” Mr. Bannon, the former top aide to President Trump who is now an influential ally and informal adviser, said in an interview. ...Mr. Bannon said the Trump administration should also investigate Mr. Musk’s drug use,...

- A drag queen storytime event planned for next week in Monterey is stirring controversy and sparking strong opinions across the community. The event, hosted by the Monterey Public Library in partnership with Monterey Peninsula Pride and Oscar’s Playground, is scheduled for June 11 and features a drag performer named Saint Sallos.

PBS stands accused of “grooming” children after Sesame Street, one of the nonprofit TV network’s premier programs, shared a social media post hailing LGBTQ Pride Month that drew an immediate response from a group of Congressional Republicans. The veteran children’s education and entertainment program went on social media to welcome the annual event built around an image of puppets holding hands, as Breitbart News reported. On both X and Instagram, the Sesame Street pages shared a graphic of multi-colored puppets reaching out so that they resembled the colors of an LGBTQ Pride flag. “On our street, everyone is welcome. Together,...

Every year, our nation sets aside the second Sunday in May to rightfully honor and pay tribute to the mothers in America. After all, if it weren’t for our mothers, none of us would be alive. This year, I was struck by the degree to which a growing portion of our society appears to believe that Mother’s Day should be updated to also include those who own pets; now referred to as “pet moms.” Yep, you read that right: some want pet owners honored right alongside actual mothers on Mother’s Day. Apparently, 60 percent of those who participated in a...

Artificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer’s first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems. Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, said he had carried out calculations akin to those of the US physicist Arthur Compton before the Trinity test and had found a 90% probability that a highly advanced AI would pose an existential threat. In a paper published by Tegmark and three of his students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), they recommend calculating the “Compton constant” – defined in the paper as the probability that an...

MAGA firebrand Steve Bannon called on President Donald Trump to condemn Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian airbases and “pull all support” after reports that the White House was not informed in advance of the offensive. More than 40 warplanes, including Russia’s Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, were reportedly damaged or destroyed across four airbases in Murmansk and Irkutsk, thousands of miles from Ukraine’s border. The operation, which Ukraine revealed it had been in planning for 18-months, came just one day before Monday’s peace talks were set to begin in Istanbul. Axios reported on Sunday that sources within the administration...

A 16-year-old transgender athlete who is the focus of a US sports row has won two golds and a silver at the California high school track and field championship. AB Hernandez was born a boy but has transitioned and now competes against girls. And the teenager's inclusion in the girls category in the high jump, long jump and triple jump became a national conversation. Critics, including parents, conservative activists and President Trump, had called for Hernandez to be barred from competing. In the city of Clovis on Saturday, she took part under a new rule change brought in by the...

In 1982, a peculiar commercial aired on televisions across Japan. An actress in a pink floral dress and an updo drops paint on her hand and futilely attempts to wipe it off with toilet paper. She looks into the camera and asks: “Everyone, if your hands get dirty, you wash them, right?” “It’s the same for your bottom, deserve to be washed, too.” ...43yrs later, Japan has overwhelmingly accepted Toto’s innovation. Washlet-style bidets, sold by Toto and a few smaller rivals, are a common feature in Japan’s offices and public restrooms and account for >80% of all household toilets, according...

The Medical Council of Canada has claimed that American doctors are now fleeing in droves due to Trump administration policies. NPR wrote: The Medical Council of Canada said in an email statement that the number of American doctors creating accounts on physiciansapply.ca, which is “typically the first step” to being licensed in Canada, has increased more than 750% over the past seven months compared with the same time period last year — from 71 applicants to 615. Separately, medical licensing organizations in Canada’s most populous provinces reported a rise in Americans either applying for or receiving Canadian licenses, with at...

The industry’s blame game will not end the US national health care nightmare. The shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was met by many people online with a morbid sense of inevitability. The often callous nature of the US health care system has long been a point of wide discussion, with evidence piling up that the way the country provides medical services is costly in both money and human life. The health industry’s executives — insurers, pharma, even hospitals — have become popular villains. The killing of a human being is morally repugnant — full stop. But many people still...

…Students outsourcing their assignments to AI and cheating their way through college has become so rampant, so quickly, that it has created a market for a product that helps professors ChatGPT-proof school. As it turns out, that product already exists. In fact, you’ve probably used it. You might even dread it. It’s called a blue book. … All of which explains how a paper company in Pennsylvania has unexpectedly found itself on the front lines of the classroom AI wars. Most blue books for sale in campus bookstores and on Amazon for 23 cents apiece are made by Roaring Spring...

Aven Thomas began medically transitioning from female to male in 2021, just months after then-President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing transgender people to serve openly in the U.S. military. The result was so gratifying for the U.S. Army specialist that he compared it to turning on a light in pitch darkness. “When you feel at your best,” he added, “you are able to perform your best.”

During the 12 months leading up to March, more than 6,000 US citizens have applied to either become British subjects or to live and work in the country indefinitely – the highest number since comparable records began in 2004, according to data released on Thursday by the UK’s Home Office. Over the period, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship – with more than 1,900 of the applications received between January and March, most of which has been during the beginning of Donald Trump’s second US presidency. The surge in applications at the start of 2025 made that the highest number...

I was asked this week how I can be a Christian and support Donald Trump throwing out thousands of illegal aliens. But one of the toughest things about being a Christian is trying to be a citizen. No — scratch that. I mean trying to be a good citizen. Saint Paul was a citizen, too, but I don’t think he cared a bit about the Roman Empire. He gave the impression that if the Gauls invaded tomorrow, he would just shrug his shoulders and try to baptize them, too. And although he was the polar opposite of Thomas Paine in...

Story highlights Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder of OpenAI, and the man behind ChatGPT fears the advanced version of AI can trigger wars between world powers, and so there is a need for bunkers to safeguard the scientists.

The administration is not only allowing more greenhouse gases. It is undermining the nation’s ability to understand and respond to a hotter planet.When the Trump administration declared two weeks ago that it would largely disregard the economic cost of climate change as it sets policies and regulations, it was just the latest step in a multipronged effort to erase global warming from the American agenda.But President Trump is doing more than just turning a blind eye to the fact that the planet is growing hotter. He is weakening the country’s capacity to understand global warming and to prepare for its...