California lawmakers on Thursday approved one of the toughest mandatory vaccination requirements in the nation, moving to end exemptions from state immunization laws based on religious or other personal beliefs. MORE

This could eventually jeopardize Britain’s hold on the Falkland Islands.

…Morales Solá the new strategic partners have only one thing in common: they are not classic democracies; they don’t tolerate opposition; deny freedom of expression and threaten political minorities and social dissidents. One of them in the name of the Communist Party and the other in name of Soviet nostalgia. “This can only be explained because of Kirchnerite melancholy for the seventies when China and Russia were the strongholds of the international left”. MORE

New Zealand dropped to a bone-chilling -20 degrees overnight for the first time in more than 90 years.

The country is covered in a white blanket of snow as most parts of both the North and South Island plummeted below freezing sub zero temperatures on Monday night.

Pukaki in the South Island experienced the most biting conditions as it plummeted to -20 degrees – close to the country’s coldest day on record in 1903 where it dropped to a bitter -25.6 degrees in Ranfurly – 270 km south of Pukaki. MORE

Infidelity is common in France, but no one in the country seems to mind.

In Aziz Ansari’s new book on romance in the digital age, “Modern Romance,” the comedian/actor points to a 2014 study by the French Institute of Public Opinion, which found that 55% of French men and 32% of French women had admitted to cheating on their spouse or significant other.

Fortunately for the men, only 47% of the French see infidelity as “morally unacceptable,” according to a Pew Research study Ansari cites. MORE

The severe weather that pounded the Midwest and spawned tornadoes shifted Tuesday to the East Coast, where tornado warnings were issued as storms hit and even caused a state of emergency. MORE

In the absolutely amazing videos, we see a pond on a golf course in Canada exploding in gas bubbles in a scene that looks more like a volcano preparing to erupt than something we’d expect to be seeing at the 2nd hole. The Winnipeg Sun said it “looked like a vision from hell, if hell was a golf course” … we’re witnessing methane bubbling up out of the ground, just the latest such eruption around the planet, as we quickly race towards hell on Earth.

My pick for the right woman on the right dollar bill

If we are to put some women on our paper currency then it should be on a $100 bill. Leave Hamilton alone. He’s too great an American and was the one who saved the treasury. Grant was mostly a military man.
My choice for that woman, would be Betsy Ross. To me she’s the first lady of our founding nation and part of the family.
My second pick would be Amila Earhart. A pioneer in woman’s role in aviation.

Using the hashtag #CNN10s, plenty of people weighed in with suggestions that ranged passionate and thoughtful to comedic and improbable. MORE

At least 650 bodies have been brought here since Saturday. Many lie in storage. But an oppressive heat wave — and the frequent power outages from electricity grids trying to keep up with demand — means the morgue is unable to properly maintain the temperature at the overcrowded facility.

A handwritten sign outside says the morgue is filled to capacity. Other bodies lie outside. MORE

Balking at European Union rules, Hungary will temporarily not take back any asylum seekers who registered in Hungary but moved elsewhere in Europe before their requests were resolved, the government said Tuesday. MORE

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members in 2014 and saw the lowest number of baptisms since 1947.

Total membership in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination was just under 15.5 million last year, according to an annual report by Lifeway Christian Resources, the denomination’s publishing arm. That’s down from 15.7 million in 2013. It also marks the eighth straight year of declining membership. Continue reading →

Several hundred residents in Alaska were told to leave their homes on Tuesday as swiftly growing wildfires up and down the drought-stricken U.S. West Coast closed highways and destroyed buildings, officials said.

Blazes near the tiny northeast Alaska communities of Nulato and Tanana along the Yukon River prompted authorities to call for evacuations of several hundred people, a forestry official said. Farther upstream, another blaze of over 18,000 acres (7,300 hectares) threatened a major roadway linking Anchorage and Fairbanks. MORE

Pope Francis asked forgiveness on Monday for the Roman Catholic Church’s “non-Christian and inhumane” treatment in the past of the Waldensians, a tiny Protestant movement the Vatican tried to exterminate in the 15th century.

Francis made his plea during the first ever visit by a pope to a Waldensian temple on the second day of a trip to Italy’s northern Piedmont region, the center of the Waldensian Church, which has only about 30,000 followers worldwide. MORE

21 large fires burn across 6 states as firefighters work to put out fires, even enlisting prisoners to help. VIDEO