Katherine Johnson to be honored by her alma mater (Washington Post)
Pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson will be honoroed with a bronze statue and a scholarship named after her at West Virginia State University, her alma mater. Johnson, who was played by Taraji P. Henson in the movie “Hidden Figures,” was instrumental in figuring out the calculations needed to bring Apollo astronauts home.
Trump heads to the G7 Summit, where five of the seven members were just hit by U.S. sanctions (Bloomberg)
When President Donald Trump travels to Quebec for the G7 summit on Friday and Saturday, he will join representatives from five other members of the group, which recently lost their exemptions to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom all initially had exemptions from the tariffs (the last four through their membership in the European Union), but Trump announced on May 31 that those exemptions would end on June 1. The seventh member, Japan, never got an exemption.
Mafia turncoat claims that a stolen Carvaggio was cut into pieces before it was sold (New York Times)
Caravaggio's “Nativity” was stolen in October 1969 from above the altar of a church. It was stolen “without leaving a milligram of paint behind," and then vanished without a trace. For years, art historians and investigators have tried to track it down, but with no luck. Now a mafia turncoat is claiming that his boss had a Swiss art dealer cut the priceless canvas into pieces and sell it. Some experts are skeptical, but the new testimony has reopened interest in the case.
An asteroid collided with Earth on Saturday (CNET)
Don't worry, it didn't destroy all life as we know it. Asteroid 2018 LA was small enough (just six feet across) that it burned up in the atmosphere before it hit the ground. But it did give scientists at NASA the opportunity to test their asteroid-tracking capabilities and predict where it may have hit.
Trump tweets that he can pardon himself, but has no need to do so (CNN)
President Trump tweeted Monday morning: “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!” On Sunday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani had said that the president could "probably" pardon himself.
A volcano erupted in Guatemala, and at least 25 people have died so far (BBC)
At least 25 people have died so far after the volcano dubbed “Volcan de Fuego” (literally: Volcano of Fire) erupted just 20 miles from Guatemala's capital. Many others are still missing.
Congress will meet this week to discuss immigration (NPR)
Before they went on break for Memorial Day, members of Congress promised that they would try to come up with a plan for voting on immigration by the end of June. On Thursday, they'll begin a series of closed door meetings to determine just what that will look like.
