Top News Stories –

Finding Dory breaks US box office record –
Finding Dory has taken $136.2m (£93.3m) on its opening weekend – making it the most successful launch for an animated film in US box office history. The sequel to Finding Nemo has unseated Shrek the Third – which took $121.6m (£83.1m) on its release in 2007. It is also the second most successful opening weekend of 2016, behind Marv el’s Captain America: Civil War. Ellen DeGeneres voices the lead character in Finding Dory. [BBC]
Ellen DeGeneres (and others)

Video of the Day –

Why Don’t We Ever See Baby Pigeons? | Dolan Life Mysteries

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan (2015–present)
  • A minibus carrying private security guards explodes in Kabul resulting in the death of at least 12 people and injuring several others. (Reuters and NBC News)
• Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
  • A suicide bombing strikes Camp Taji, killing four Iraqi Army soldiers. (Radio New Zealand)

Business and economy

• The U.S. Supreme Court reversed an appeals court ruling that would have narrowly interpreted the auto salesman’s exemption from overtime pay rules mandated by statute under rules promulgated by theU.S. Labor Department, remanding the matter for further consideration. (slip opinion).

International relations

• According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of people displaced by conflicts in the world is at its highest level ever recorded, with an estimated 65.3 million people either being refugees, internally displaced or asylum seekers. (BBC)

Law and crime

• Human rights in Bahrain
  • Bahraini authorities strip Isa Qassim, the kingdom’s most influential Shia cleric, of his citizenship after they accused him of promoting “sectarianism and violence”. (BBC)
• According to an environmental report by Global Witness, 2015 was the deadliest year ever for environmental activists, with the reported deaths of 185 activists, as a result of falling commodity prices prompting forceful land grabs by mining and foresting companies. (Deutsche Welle)
• Gun politics in the United States
  • The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review assault weapons bans in Connecticut and New York, as it did last December concerning Chicago, Illinois, city law. Five other states and Washington, D.C. have similar restrictions. (AP via Fox News)

Politics and elections

• Croatian MPs vote to dissolve the Parliament, setting the stage for snap election, which are expected to take place in early September. This comes as Croatia is facing an escalating political crisis following thelast election in November 2015. (Al Jazeera)
• 2014–16 Venezuelan protests
  • Per Venezuela’s National Electoral Council’s ruling, citizens across the country queue up for fingerprint validation of 1,850,000 signatures on referendum to recall President Nicolás Maduro. The oppositionDemocratic Unity Roundtable must validate 197,000 signatures (1 percent of registered voters) by Friday, in this first step of the recall referendum process. (Reuters) (TeleSUR)

Science and technology

• Solar Impulse 2, a plane powered only by the sun, leaves New York on the 15th leg of its round-the-world journey, a 90-hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe. (Reuters) (Business Standard)

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