MicroWave

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will no longer track the cost of climate change-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heat waves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

NOAA falls under the U.S. Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

The agency said its National Centers for Environmental Information would no longer update its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database beyond 2024, and that its information — going as far back as 1980 — would be archived.

Laura Loomer lamented that the new pope ‘is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis,’ adding that it’s ‘GROSS’ that he now leads the Catholic Church

It didn’t take long for right-wing media figures and MAGA provocateurs to cry out in rage over the election of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV after it was revealed that he’d publicly criticized JD Vance and expressed sympathy for immigrants and George Floyd.

Despite feeling national pride over the fact that the Chicago-born Prevost has become the first American pope in history, conservative pundits and Trump loyalists fumed over the “WOKE MARXIST POPE” and complained that he is “worse than Francis,” referencing the previous pontiff known for his progressive values.

Even before the “dark horse” American cardinal was elected the 267th pope, former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon warned about Prevost’s views, claiming that he would be a poor choice for the MAGA movement.

A group of investors sued UnitedHealthcare Group on Wednesday, accusing the company of misleading them after the killing of its CEO, Brian Thompson.

The class action lawsuit — filed in the Southern District of New York — accuses the health insurance company of not initially adjusting their 2025 net earning outlook to factor in how Thompson’s killing would affect their operations.

…

The group, which is seeking unspecified damages, argued that the public backlash prevented the company from pursuing “the aggressive, anti-consumer tactics that it would need to achieve” its earnings goals.

Trump's officials are quietly concerned about his "blatant criminal behavior." What took them so long?

It is time to stop examining the chaos and time to do something about it.

I have a source inside the Trump regime who feels, in their own words, “a little disillusioned.” This person says they signed on to the Trump team because of “DEI going too far” and because “woke culture was dividing the country,” but is now concerned about the “blatant criminal behavior” of Donald Trump. Really? His last administration didn’t show you that? Well, OK.

This source first approached me by saying, “I can provide you bonafides to show you I’m serious.” That impressed me because I didn’t think many people inside the Trump regime knew what bonafides were, let alone how to be serious.

This source’s concerns about Trump are indeed legitimate, and deserve to be heard. “Not all of us are buying everything he says,” this person told me. “We understand the problem, but we see no solution. You guys in the press, with very few exceptions, are not trustworthy. Congress can’t be trusted and the judiciary so far hasn’t been able to stop him.”

During a Senate hearing to review the FBI’s FY2026 budget request, Director Kash Patel was forced to admit that, despite the law requiring it, he had no such request ready to review.

This surprising development came during an awkward back-and-forth with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking Democrat and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees and approves budget requests.

Senator Murray reminded the FBI Director that the budget request was legally required “last week,” and after the director responded, she surprisedly added, “And your answer is you just understand you’re not going to follow the law?”

A former Real Housewife whose tagline was “some people think I’m too much, they’re absolutely right” is officially a board member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

In a post on his Truth Social site Monday, President Donald Trump announced five appointees to the board, and one was “Real Housewives of New Jersey” Season 7 and 8 alum Sigalit “Siggy” Flicker.

The Israeli-born former matchmaker is a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and has a connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Robert Prevost has become the first clergyman from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic church, ending the Vatican’s longstanding opposition to the idea of a US pontiff.

The 69-year-old from Chicago has taken the papal name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening.

The announcement, which followed white smoke billowing from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, prompted raucous celebration and delight among the 50,000 pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square.

The U.S. is increasing its espionage in Greenland as part of Donald Trump’s campaign to take control of the island.

Donald Trump’s quest to conquer Greenland is becoming increasingly serious.

The intelligence community directed intelligence agency chiefs to conduct a spy campaign on the Denmark-controlled island territory last week, issuing a “collection emphasis message” for information pertaining to Greenland’s independence movement, as well as an examination of local attitudes regarding “American resource extraction,” reported The Wall Street Journal. It also tasked agencies to identify individuals living in Greenland and Denmark who support the Trump administration’s goals for the island.

Gabbard was not happy to hear that the news of the initiative had gotten out. “The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified information,” Gabbard told the Journal in a statement. “They are breaking the law and undermining our nation’s security and democracy.”

United States has pushed some nations facing tariffs imposed by Donald Trump to approve Elon Musk's Starlink, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing State Department cables.

The cables show how U.S. embassies and the department pushed countries to clear hurdles for satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name, the Post reported.

The documents do not show that the Trump administration has demanded favors for Starlink in exchange for lower tariffs, the newspaper reported. But they indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for Musk's satellite firm, it reported.

Ten days after an equipment malfunction left about a dozen planes flying blind for 90 seconds in the crowded skies over New Jersey, worried pilots and air traffic controllers are imploring the Federal Aviation Administration to fix the system's aging infrastructure.

The "shell-shocked" controllers who guide planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport work in constant fear of radar systems' going down or losing radio contact with pilots as they're approaching one of the busiest airports in the country, a recently retired controller told NBC News.

Both of those failures happened at once on April 28.

Study finds human-caused climate change made four-day rainfall across central Mississippi valley 40% more likely

The four-day historic storm that caused death and destruction across the central Mississippi valley in early April was made significantly more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels, rapid analysis by a coalition of leading climate scientists has found.

Record quantities of rain were dumped across eight southern and midwestern states between 3 and 6 April, causing widespread catastrophic flooding that killed at least 15 people, inundated crops, wrecked homes, swept away vehicles and caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of households.

The floods were caused by rainfall made about 9% more intense and 40% more likely by human-caused climate change, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study found. Uncertainty in models means the role of the climate crisis was probably even higher.

Major corporations are best placed to benefit from Trump polices at the expense of independent farmers

The winners and losers of Trump’s first tariff war strongly suggest that bankruptcies and farm consolidation could surge during his second term, with major corporations best placed to benefit from his polices at the expense of independent farmers.

New analysis by the non-profit research advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW), shared exclusively with the Guardian, shows that Trump’s first-term tariffs were particularly devastating for farmers in the MAGA rural heartlands.

Farm bankruptcies surged by 24% from 2018 to 2019 – the highest number in almost a decade – as retaliatory tariffs cost US farmers a staggering $27bn.