Light News Dump

Trump asked to meet Vladimir Putin on sidelines of upcoming G20 meeting, Russian
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-meet-vladimir-putin-g20-meeting-1423780


Dow plunges 600 points as China hits U.S. with $60B in tariffs in response to Trump — "I love collecting Big Tarrifs!” Trump tweeted over the weekend, challenging Beijing to strike a trade deal.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/dow-falls-almost-500-points-china-retaliates-slapping-tariffs-60b-n1004881

Trump properties face $2.1 million annual fines for building emissions equivalent to 5,800 cars, De Blasio Says
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-properties-emissions-new-york-1423758

But after two years in the White House, the Trump administration has decided to execute a plan to purge 200,000 applications for VA healthcare caused by known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment process and enrollment system — problems that had already been documented by the Office of the Inspector General in 2015 and 2017. In purging this massive backlog of applications, the VA is declaring the applications to be incomplete due to errors by the applicants, despite the OIG findings and in violation of the promise Trump made to fix the system. This purge has the dual effect of letting the VA avoid the work of processing the applications and absolving the agency of any responsibility for veterans’ delayed access to health and disability benefits.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/trump-administration-breaks-campaign-promise-purges-200-000-va-healthcare-applications

Kamala Harris: Americans should be worried after Pence touts plan to stop judges from blocking immigration policies
https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-americans-should-be-deeply-troubled-after-mike-pence-touts-plan-1423478

California jury hits Monsanto with $2 billion judgment in cancer lawsuit
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/california-jury-hits-monsanto-2-billion-judgment-cancer-lawsuit-n1005191

$1.2 trillion in stock market value lost so far from trade war sell-off with more expected
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/1point2-trillion-in-stock-market-value-lost-so-far-from-trade-war-sell-off-with-more-expected.html

Mariana Trench: Deepest-ever sub dive finds plastic bag. An American explorer has found plastic waste on the seafloor while breaking the record for the deepest ever dive. Victor Vescovo descended nearly 11km (seven miles) to the deepest place in the ocean - the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench. He spent four hours exploring the bottom of the trench in his submersible, built to withstand the immense pressure of the deep. He found sea creatures, but also found a plastic bag and sweet wrappers. It is the third time humans have reached the ocean's extreme depths.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48230157

Police in Israel have arrested a man suspected of poisoning nearly half of the rare vulture population in the Golan Heights
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48259957

Federal Judge Blocks ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Coast Guardsman’s Release from Jail Ahead of Trial
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/federal-judge-overturns-white-nationalist-coast-guardsmans-release-from-jail-ahead-of-trial/

Scientists have established firm links between the warming of deep waters in the Gulf of Maine and the reduction of food for the North Atlantic right whale, the world’s second-most endangered marine mammal. The researchers, led by Nick Record of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay, showed the warmer water in eastern gulf has sharply reduced the numbers of the whales’ favorite prey, the copepod Calanus finmarchicus, a tiny flealike creature they scoop up by the millions with their sieve-like baleen. The copepods that supply the eastern gulf typically sink into deepwater basins and hibernate over the winter, but the rapid warming of these basins since 2010 has triggered winter population declines of as much as 90 percent.
https://www.pressherald.com/2019/05/13/warmer-gulf-choking-off-right-whale-food-supply-researchers-find/

Pregnant Women Are Still Struggling To Keep Their Jobs — A Supreme Court ruling was supposed to help, but a new report shows that employers are getting away with discrimination.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pregnant-women-struggle-keep-jobs_n_5cd5d1dee4b0796a95dbdd15

Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime? It’s a widely held perception, but a new analysis finds no evidence to support it

Trump urges Americans not to buy from American companies because of his own tariffs
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-urges-americans-not-to-buy-from-american-companies-because-of-his-own-tariffs-a0fb2418adbe/

One month ago, Foxconn said its innovation centers weren’t empty — they still are
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18565408/foxconn-wisconsin-innovation-centers-factories-empty-tax-subsidy