Dave Proch/daveproch.comThe Pentagon is challenging the building of islands by China on the reefs of the South China Sea, a disputed area.
A grand jury indicted the six Baltimore police officers in whose custody Freddie Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury on most of the charges the prosecutor was seeking—but Marilyn Mosby dropped charges of "false imprisonment," based on the legality of the knife police said they found in Gray's possession. In the meantime, protests followed the shooting of two unarmed black men in Olympia, Washington accused of shoplifting beer—they survived, and the investigation into the shooting was handed over to an outside Critical Incident Team.
The city of Charlotte, North Carolina, settled a lawsuit filed by the mother of Jonathan Ferrell, fatally shot by a police officer in 2013 while seeking assistance after a car accident, for $2.25 million, and says the payment is not an admission of guilt.
The president of the Boy Scouts of America called on the organization to lift its ban on gay leaders.
The pipeline that ruptured along the coast of California near Santa Barbara was operating at about two-thirds capacity.
A three year expedition around the world by the Tara Oceans Consortium to collect genetic information from plankton uncovered thousands of new viruses living in the ocean. Researchers from the University of California in Santa Barbara, meanwhile, have confirmed some species of octopus can see with their skin.
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