A Chicago-bound United Airlines flight that took off from Rome on June 21 didn’t get very far before a disruptive passenger—insistent that flight attendants give him more nuts and snacks—forced a detour. The plane landed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to off-load the passenger, who was arrested.
Curators and scientists at Australia’s Museum Victoria are feeling fortunate to have their hands on a 21 foot-long basking shark that died in a fishing net two days ago. Although they would prefer the endangered shark “alive and in the sea,” the museum’s senior collections manager told the Guardian, “this is a fantastic opportunity and is also why we are so glad the skipper of the vessel is donating rather than discarding the shark.”
Citizens across the US have been urging lawmakers in South Carolina to “take down the confederate flag—now” with more impassioned insistence than ever since the June 17 murders of nine black church-goers in Charleston. The victims were killed by a white supremacist who waved the confederate flag, a symbol of the southern US states during the Civil War.
The organizers of the 2020 summer Olympic Games in Tokyo are considering eight proposals for new athletic events: Baseball (and softball), bowling, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, squash, surfing, and wushu—also known as kung fu.
No need to read all 180 pages of Pope Francis’s encyclical (PDF), which was leaked earlier this week and formally released today. The main ideas about climate change, echoing concerns expressed in previous papal encyclicals, are also available in neat, 140-character excerpts via @Pontifex on Twitter.
A 75 year-old businessman from Oman has been diagnosed with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Thailand, the Thai health ministry announced today. Upon arriving in Bangkok recently for a medical appointment concerning a heart condition, the man was screened for MERS—standard procedure for many travelers entering Thailand these days.
What to watch for today
The European Space Observatory recently announced that astronomers, using the observatory’s Very Large Telescope, have spotted what they think is one of the brightest young galaxies in the universe. In a press release, the ESO says the astronomers “peer[ed] back into the ancient Universe, to a period known as reionisation, approximately 800 million years after the Big Bang…to produce the widest survey of very distant galaxies ever attempted.”
Yesterday, two days after a flood wrecked Tbilisi and set the city’s zoo animals on the loose, zoo officials reported that all 18 of their missing lions and tigers had been accounted for: Eight lions, seven tigers, and two jaguars were definitely dead, said a spokesman, and one jaguar was presumed dead. Today, that report was proved tragically inaccurate after an escaped white tiger killed a man who was helping with cleanup efforts in the Georgian capital.
In hopes of keeping young people content in the small town of Folkestone, England, billionaire Roger De Haan has commissioned construction of a local skateboarding park. It’s not the kind of building you’d expect to find in an old town on the English Channel.
A wildfire that began two days ago near Anchorage, Alaska, has blazed through nearly 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares) of land. The fire started near the town of Willow, a hotspot for dog sledding and part of the Iditarod trail. More than 500 sled dogs have been rescued from kennels and homes in the area.
John Ellis Bush, more widely known as Jeb (or now Jeb!), formally announced his 2016 US presidential election bid at a rally in Miami this afternoon. The former Florida governor, whose father and brother served as the 41st and 43rd presidents, is one of about a dozen candidates seeking to represent the Republican party in the national election.
In a deliberately fiery demonstration of their country’s commitment to protecting its territorial waters, police in Palau recently dragged four Vietnamese fishing boats out to sea and set them on fire.
Canada’s supreme court has struck down a law that restricted medical marijuana users from purchasing or consuming the substance in any form except dried leaves. Under the law, which allows people with prescriptions to buy, grow, and smoke marijuana in its original form only, extracting resins or other active chemicals from the plant for cooking or external application could lead to criminal charges—as Owen Smith, who worked for a medical marijuana dispensary in Victoria, was reminded when police arrested him in possession of marijuana cookies, teas, and oils in 2009.
Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that makes iPhones for Apple, is reportedly in talks about shifting some iPhone production from mainland China to new factories in India.
Torrential rains triggered a handful of mudslides above vulnerable villages in rural Nepal last night. More than 20 people were killed, according to the Associated Press; the Nepali Times is reporting a death toll of 56.
Residents of Trinidad and Tobago who sat down last night to watch the sitcom Mike and Molly may have been surprised when the show was pre-empted by the British comedian John Oliver. Oliver, who has often criticized FIFA’s leadership on his own show, Last Week Tonight, had purchased four minutes of airtime on TV6, the nation’s largest private television broadcaster, to mock the disgraced former FIFA vice president Jack Warner.
The process for deciding which country will host the 2026 World Cup was supposed to get underway soon, with the United States, Mexico, and Canada among the expected bidders. A decision was supposed to be made by May 2017, but that deadline is now in doubt, after FIFA was forced to halt the bidding process while it deals with the biggest corruption scandal in its history.
Ten trekkers who stripped and posed naked at the top of Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu on May 30 have been accused of angering sacred spirits and causing the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Malaysia a week later. Local police have identified five of the accused and and arrested at least two to prevent them from leaving the country.
In a recent audit of the US Transportation Security Administration’s methods for screening airport employees, the Department of Homeland Security found that the TSA was unaware of a whopping 73 workers with alleged links to terrorism, according to the DHS itself.
The mosquito is the deadliest animal in the world. Now, in addition to malaria, dengue, and other ills, mosquitoes are probably responsible for spreading a new disease.
If someone was born to American parents in Jerusalem, can her American passport say she was born in Israel? It’s been a matter of contention for over a decade, but now the US Supreme Court has decided that the answer is no.
Global warming probably didn’t slow down during this century after all, according to newly published research by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The revelation undercuts a favorite argument of politicians who are skeptical of climate change—that the earth has experienced a “hiatus” in warming since 1998.
