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The coronavirus pandemic has caused a nationwide coin shortage, according to the Federal Reserve. Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday the shutdowns caused by the pandemic have raised concerns about circulation of coins, which the Fed's 12 regional banks are in charge of supplying to commercial banks. “With the partial closure of the economy, the flow of funds through the economy has stopped,” Powell said during a virtual hearing with the House Financial Services Committee. “We are working with the Mint and the Reserve Banks and as the economy re-opens we are starting to see money move around again.” Reserve Banks and Federal Reserve coin distribution locations began temporarily allocating coin inventories sent to banks across the nation June 15, the Reserve said in a statement. "The COVID‐19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the supply chain and normal circulation patterns for U.S. coin," the statement said. "In the past few months, coin deposits from depository...

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation, a decision that state and federal officials have warned could throw Oklahoma into chaos. The court's 5-4 decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, means that Oklahoma prosecutors lack the authority to pursue criminal cases against American Indian defendants in parts of Oklahoma that include most of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city. “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever. ... Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word,” Gorsuch wrote in a decision joined by the court's liberal members. .... The case the justices decided Thursday involved...

NEW YORK — A few fun facts about Kanye West: He's running for president in 2024, he recited color psychology to wife Kim Kardashian West as she sat in a morning bath Thursday, and he was fired at 16 for shoplifting at the Gap where he worked. West, with Kim in tow, let loose with those pearls and more during a surprise 35-minute appearance before a crowd of about 500 at Fast Company's Innovation Festival. Accompanied on stage by Steven Smith, lead designer of West's shoe brand Yeezy, West dug into the nuts and bolts of the fashion industry. He said he plans to make his manufacturing entirely eco-friendly, moving it all to South and North America in the next two years, including at his 4,000-acre ranch in Cody, Wyoming. West added that moving Yeezy manufacturing to the U.S. will create more jobs. "When I run for president in 2024, we would've created so many jobs that I'm not going to run, I'm going to walk," he said. The rapper also joined his wife, Rihanna and other...

Transgender women should be entitled to womb transplant to enable them to have their own babies, according to a leading British surgeon. Two years ago a woman in Brazil became the first mother to give birth to her child using a womb transplanted from a deceased donor to a woman. It was a major breakthrough in fertility medicine when the little girl was born healthy and weighing 5.6lbs. It comes just four years after the world’s first womb transplant baby from a live donor was born in Sweden in 2014. Surgeon Christopher Inglefield, founder of the London Transgender Clinic, says a successful uterus implant into a trans-female is now achievable. He says the procedure ‘essentially identical’ to that of ‘cis-women’ - aka females born in that gender. Mr Inglefield, a specialist in gender confirmation surgery as well as facial and body feminisation, said: “This pioneering birth is extremely important for any trans female who would like to carry her own child. “Because once the...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-particles-baltic/sensors-detect-rise-in-nuclear-particles-on-baltic-sea-global-body-says-idUSKBN23X2TN Dust off your geiger counters, eurofags

The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a plan Friday that would allow the city’s police force to be dissolved in the wake of George Floyd’s death. While the council supports the move, the final say would lie with Minnesota voters in November. Floyd, a Black man, was killed after a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck in a parking lot for nearly eight minutes, sparking protests against police brutality all over the world. The city’s police force, like countless others around the country, has come under heavy scrutiny by activists and critics who say too much public funding is going to law enforcement agencies instead of schools and social programs that strengthen the community. Several city council members emphasized that the council’s decision to push forward with the proposal was just one step in a larger effort to address systemic racism. “This is a precondition to the change people are asking for,” city council member Steve Fletcher said. City...