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  • Monday's vote in the British parliament on same-sex marriage has only deepened the rift between Premier David Cameron, with his inner circle and the core Conservative Party members. Tory activists have been defecting from the party for some time now and the party leadership was able to secure the vote in parliament only thanks to support from their bitter rivals, the Labour party. This loss of control over the party comes against the background of a surge in popularity for the UK Independence Party which, to some extent, positions itself as a true conservative force.

  • Half-inch long cracks around a nozzle on one of the tanks of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant have been discovered. Radioactive water may have leaked into Lake Michigan.

  • The radical Islamic movement Taliban is going to seize power in Afghanistan after NATO troops pull out in 2014, said the Afghan Defence Ministry official, General Zaher Azimi, in a statement.

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Reality Check
  • David Cameron's woes are continuing this week with plans to legalize same-sex marriage to be debated in Parliament today and tomorrow. The issue is hugely divisive, not least within the Tory Party which seems to have been in open rebellion in the last couple of weeks over everything from the E.U. to the next election. And on Sunday 34 current and former local party chairmen delivered a letter to Downing Street opposing the policy as "flawed, un-Conservative and costing us dearly in votes and membership". Gay marriage is causing a heated row across the political and public spheres.

  • A white-tailed deer crashed through the windshield of a public bus in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It was filmed by a surveillance camera. (VIDEO)

  • In a harsh rebuttal to George Soros, the President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research Hans-Werner Sinn accused the speculator of “playing with fire” and stated that “Germany will not accept Eurobonds” in spite of the pressure from the investing community.

Society
  • A Spanish restaurant offers its customers to pay for the meal by doing an hour’s work. The initiative launched by Terrassa city council in Catalonia and 30 local charities is aimed at helping those finding themselves in troubles during the recession in the country to regain and strengthen their self-esteem, says Xavier Casas, the manager of a restaurant participating in the project.

  • A British businessman has had his prostate removed after he discovered he was carrying a “faulty” gene that increased his chances to get prostate cancer.

  • The question has been swirling ever since Francis laid his hands Sunday on the head of a young man after celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square. The young man heaved deeply a half-dozen times, convulsed and shook, and then slumped in his wheelchair as Francis prayed over him.

Latest

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been stranded at Ecuadorian embassy in London for almost 12 months, claims he received unclassified UK intelligence “chatter” that speculated he had been framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape charges.

The US Department of State has released a report that points to the rise of discrimination against Jewish and Muslim people around the world.

Prisoners at the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba who have been on hunger strike since February 6th are now being force-fed via tubes. According to Dr.William Hopkins, a consulting psychiatrist at Freedom of Torture, such a method is worse than torture and might even kill the inmates.

US President Barack Obama will hold his first summit with President Xi Jinping of China in California next month, with Sino-US relations rattled by alleged Chinese cyber spying and tensions in the Pacific. Only time will tell whether this is an attempt to bring about a rapprochement between the two countries or if this will simply accentuate their contradictions.

Monday's vote in the British parliament on same-sex marriage has only deepened the rift between Premier David Cameron, with his inner circle and the core Conservative Party members. Tory activists have been defecting from the party for some time now and the party leadership was able to secure the vote in parliament only thanks to support from their bitter rivals, the Labour party. This loss of control over the party comes against the background of a surge in popularity for the UK Independence Party which, to some extent, positions itself as a true conservative force.

Giving the brain a slight zap may actually be good for solving equations and puzzling fractions, according to a new study. Researchers at Oxford University in the United Kingdom took 25 volunteers and made them do math exercises with either a shock or artificial zap.

A report from a watchdog group about the IRS’ singling out conservative organizations was already known weeks beforehand by two aides to President Obama, according to a spokesperson.

This year, on May 21st, Russia marks Polar Explorer Day for the first time. The daring North and South Pole explorers have written quite a few pages of heroic accomplishments in the country’s history. But experts believe this is also a professional holiday of the residents of the Far North, geologists and oceanologists, the military and drillers. These people total almost 2 million in Russia.

Shirtless, pregnant and sitting on a skateboard, is what a new ad depicts, with a teenage boy having a swollen belly. The Chicago Department of Public Health has this image all over the city, on trains, buses, billboards, and places where teens congregate in order to get their message across to young males, females, and their families.

Half-inch long cracks around a nozzle on one of the tanks of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant have been discovered. Radioactive water may have leaked into Lake Michigan.

Advocacy groups, journalists, and watchdog organizations caught wind of the in-depth look the Justice Department took on one Fox News reporter. Associations who keep an eye on protecting the First Amendment were flabbergasted to find out how far the government had actually looked into James Rosen’s records.

The chief of Azerbaijan's state broadcaster have claimed Azerbaijan’s points for Russia were not taken into account, which casts doubts on the accuracy of the final votes in the Eurovision Song Contest, mass media reports.

The Jumbo crocodile named Cassius Clay has celebrated his 110th birthday on a farm in the Northern Region, Australia, reports The NT News. To mark the event keepers of the giant reptile gave him a 20kg cake made of chicken. The treat was topped with candles.

A British businessman has had his prostate removed after he discovered he was carrying a “faulty” gene that increased his chances to get prostate cancer.

The firing of short-range missiles by North Korea in the past few days may not break the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, since short-range missiles have not been banned so far. This came in a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Vasily Bogoyavlensky, an academician at the Russian Academy of Sciences, has talked to the Voice of Russia about the following topics: the percentage of untapped hydrocarbon resources on the outer continental shelf, how much higher the cost is of extracting natural resources on the outer continental shelf compared to extracting from the continent itself and why the extraction of shale gas could be more damaging to the environment than the extraction of natural gas?

Five old copper coins found on the Wessel Islands off Australia’s north coast could change the continent’s history. The coins, identified as originating in the territory of the present-day Tanzania and dated back to as far back as the 900s, have cast doubts on the accepted viewpoint that Australia was discovered by Dutch explorers in the early 17th century.