"The NFL season doesn't start until September, but Justine Lindsay is making history in the off-season as the league's first openly transgender cheerleader… Lindsay, 29, announced that she had made the Carolina Panthers TopCats team earlier this year in an Instagram post."
"Astronomers have detected a mysterious, repeating fast radio burst emanating from a dwarf galaxy located 3 billion light-years away… The cosmic object is distinctive when compared with other detections of radio bursts in recent years, according to new research."
"Researchers in the United Kingdom have found that an ancient Greek inscription on a 2,000-year-old marble tablet is actually something resembling a yearbook for a graduating class, according to a new translation… The inscription sat in the National Museums Scotland collection for over 130 years without being properly looked at until researchers discovered the document, according to Peter Liddel of the University of Manchester."
"Bison produce very lean meat, but they are wild animals that can be difficult to raise on a farm. Cattle are very docile, but their meat can be high in fat and not very healthy… That's why proponents of a crossbreed — called beefalo — say they have what should be the future of U.S. meat production." Or, ya know, we could stop feeding cattle corn which leads to higher fat content (and it's why they're fed corn in the fed lots before slaughter). But that battle won't be won at the producer level, but at the slaughter house level. Just a reminder, Americans needed to be sold on "marbled beef" because it was cheaper and faster to produce. Fat is believed to hold more flavor. And it's also why pork and chicken are becoming fatty.
"Health care sharing ministries are faith-based organizations whose members agree to share medical expenses. The ministries grew in popularity before the Affordable Care Act's mandate for having insurance coverage was repealed, because they offered a cheaper alternative to insurance. But they are not insurance, are largely not regulated as such and don't necessarily cover members' medical bills. Massachusetts is the lone state that requires ministries to regularly report data, and only about half of claims submitted to ministries there were deemed eligible for payment. This spring, the Colorado legislature passed similar requirements that await the governor's signature."
More on that rectal cancer study… "In a very small trial done by doctors at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, patients took a drug called dostarlimab for six months. The trial resulted in every single one of their tumors disappearing. The trial group included just 18 people, and there's still more to be learned about how the treatment worked. But some scientists say these kinds of results have never been seen in the history of cancer research."
"Moderna says its new vaccine candidate, which fights both the original COVID-19 strain and the now-dominant omicron variant, shows a "superior neutralizing antibody response" against the coronavirus compared to its original vaccine… The 'bivalent' vaccine — meaning it targets two different antigens — is Moderna's leading candidate to have an effective booster ready for fall of 2022, the company said."
"Mortgage rates are back on the upswing, after a brief decline in May, and the housing market is still suffering from a lack of listings. As a result, mortgage demand continues to drop… Total mortgage application volume fell 6.5% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Demand hit the lowest level in 22 years."
"While wealthier shoppers continue to splurge, low-income shoppers have pulled back faster than expected in the past two months. They’re focusing on necessities while turning to cheaper items or less expensive stores. And they’re buying only a little at a time."
"Budget airline Ryanair says it's forcing South African travelers to the U.K. to do a test in the Afrikaans language to prove their nationality in an apparent effort to weed out those with phony passports… Afrikaans is one of South Africa's 11 official languages and is the first language of about 13% of the country's population. It's a Dutch-based language developed by many of the country's white settlers who came from the Netherlands and is associated with South Africa's apartheid regime of white minority rule that ended in 1994."
"Russia’s war in Ukraine and the energy and food crises it worsened will severely drag down global economic growth and push up inflation this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday."
"U.S. gas prices hit a new record on Monday, with a gallon of regular gas costing an average of $4.865 (not adjusting for inflation), according to the most recent data from AAA… The highest average price — $6.34 — is in California, but 10 states have now surpassed the $5 mark… The higher prices hit hard in the past week, when Americans hit roads and highways for the Memorial Day holiday travel."
"Former Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein is facing two indecent assault charges in the United Kingdom against a woman in 1996… The UK's Crown Prosecution Service said on Wednesday it had authorized London's Metropolitan Police to charge the 70-year-old following a review of evidence gathered by the force in its investigation."
"The International Skating Union is raising the minimum age for athletes in its most high-profile competitions from 15 to 17. The move comes months after Russia's Kamila Valieva was caught in a storm of controversy at the Beijing Winter Olympics when she was just 15 years old."
"A 66-year-old British man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Iraq after he was found guilty of stealing antiquities while on an archaeological tour of the country, his lawyer has said… Fitton's family, who say they fear the retired geologist might die while serving his sentence, said they were "shattered" by Monday's verdict and have urged the UK government to seek his release."
"A U.S. woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to operating an all-female military group for ISIS in Syria… Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, who became the leader of the ISIS battalion known as Khatiba Nusaybah, taught women how to use AK-47s and explosive devices, according to the U.S. Justice Department."
"U.S. authorities moved Monday to seize two luxury jets — a $60 million Gulfstream and a $350 million aircraft believed to be one of the world's most expensive private airplanes — after linking both to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich."
"The skull is the symbol of the Wagner Group — a private Russian mercenary force believed to be financed by an oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. The group is fighting alongside the Russian army in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. And it's widely believed that at least some of the "little green men" — well-trained fighters who wore fatigues without insignia or markings — who took over part of eastern Ukraine in 2014 were Wagner Group soldiers."
"Organizers of a Republican-backed Michigan petition to enact voter restrictions to combat would-be voter fraud missed the state’s filing deadline on Wednesday after discovering tens of thousands of fraudulent signatures… Organizers had planned to submit the petition to the state by Wednesday’s deadline but abruptly backed down after discovering that around 20,000 signatures were fraudulent. Organizer Jamie Roe insisted that the effort had gathered 435,000 signatures, more than the 340,047 required, but said the group did not submit the petition out of an 'abundance of caution.'" And then they tried to blame their signature gatherers, like those who faked signatures on some of the gubernatorial races did. Yeah. It's your volunteers' fault.
"The FBI has seized the electronic data of a retired four-star general who authorities say made false statements and withheld 'incriminating' documents about his role in an illegal foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar."
"In Massachusetts, the Anti-Defamation League counted 388 reported hate, extremism, antisemitism and terror incidents in 2021. Five years earlier, it tallied only 123 reported incidents. Much of this activity is graffiti or leafleting or other acts of racist propaganda. But some of it is violence… Investigators last summer found antisemitic and racist writings taken from the internet in the home of Nathan Allen after he murdered two Black people in Winthrop."
"In Pvt. Melzer’s case, the American military allegedly came close to suffering a homegrown attack, which would have been the ultimate blowback of an 18-year undercover-informant operation. Joshua Sutter’s role as the chief American proselytizer of Melzer’s satanic ideology is complicated by the fact that Sutter was also enjoying life on the FBI payroll, while publishing thousands of words of blood-curdling propaganda that radicalized a growing movement of dangerous extremists."
"The leader of the far-right Proud Boys group and four associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack that was intended to block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election, the Justice Department said on Monday… A federal grand jury in Washington also charged them with conspiring to prevent an officer from discharging any duties."
"The Justice Department is racking up convictions in its investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, charging more than 800 people with crimes related to the deadly assault, securing three guilty pleas on the rare charge of seditious conspiracy and winning the cooperation of insiders from far-right groups… But even as its investigation has heated up and fanned further out in recent months, the department has been hammered by lawmakers and political progressives who say it hasn't gone far enough."
"An armed man was arrested near Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home after making threats against the Supreme Court justice, according to a court spokesperson… The man was arrested at about 1:50 a.m. ET Wednesday, the spokesperson said. He was transported to Montgomery County Police 2nd District. Montgomery County police say the man arrested is from California."
"At the Supreme Court, nothing is as usual this term after the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion in the biggest abortion case in nearly a half-century… Normally at this time of year, the justices would be exchanging hundreds of pages of draft opinions and working with each other to resolve differences and reach consensus in the most challenging cases of the term. Instead, the court is riven with distrust among the law clerks, staff and, most of all, the justices themselves."
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