Two gay men filed class-actions claims against Spark Networks Inc in California courts in 2013 alleging that ChristianMingle.com and several other sites in the company’s portfolio of niche dating services excluded users looking to meet singles of the same sex. ChristianMingle, billed as the largest online community for Christian singles, required new users to specify whether they’re a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man.

The lead plaintiffs, two gay men who tried using it, claimed that the limited options violated California’s anti-discrimination law. Known as the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the state law requires “business establishments” to offer “full and equal accommodations” to people regardless of their sexual orientation.

In stark contrast, Britain's premier index the FTSE 100 has left its continental counterparts in the dust. The London index held steady in today's trading, following two days of strong gains that have taken the index to its highest level since April. Meanwhile, Germany's DAX and France's CAC remain down around six per cent from Thursday's close before the referendum.

But the biggest concern is Italy where markets are still down 11 per cent amid fears over the stability of the country's banks and knock-on effects on the economy. The Italian banks index is down by a whopping 26 per cent - or only just above record lows seen in 2012. Italian authorities are struggling to restore confidence amid around £270 billion of bad loans sitting in their banks' books.

The government suffered another setback yesterday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out allowing Italian policymakers to pump tens of millions of euros into the banking system to help stabilise it. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: "Under current EU state aid rules any attempts to help banks must involve a bail-in process that doesn’t involve using taxpayers’ money."

"Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has tried to argue that the Brexit uncertainty has destabilised Italy’s already fragile banks. The reality is the problems of Italy’s banks predate last week’s Brexit vote, and he knows it."

On Monday, King checked in with him to see what has changed in the past six years. “We have certainly not become less greedy or less stupid,” Hawking replied. Hawking gave a quick recap of what the world looks like in 2016, saying: “Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding, they have gotten worse since then.”

“The population has grown by half a billion since our last interview, with no end in sight. At this rate, it will be eleven billion by 2100. Air pollution has increased by 8 percent over the past five years. More than 80 percent of inhabitants of urban areas are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution,” he said. Despite the grim outlook for our civilization, Hawking said pollution, what he felt was the biggest problem facing humanity, had still not been addressed.

But that isn’t the only thing Hawking is concerned about. When asked about the dangers of artificial intelligence, Hawking explained that increases in technology may be coming at a steep cost, saying: “Governments seem to be engaged in an AI arms race, designing planes and weapons with intelligent technologies. The funding for projects directly beneficial to the human race, such as improved medical screening seems a somewhat lower priority.”

Believing that this was a possible "data glitch", some investigation work was done. Surprisingly, there is no "data glitch". The website has been intentionally changed to paint blanks for 24 hours a day. If geologists believe there is an equipment malfunction, then a simple message could be displayed on each of the website pages. But why paint blanks?

As of this writing, all of the Pacific Northwest Volcanoes spectrograph data is not viewable by the public. This includes Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens, Mount Hood, Three Sisters, Newberry, and Crater Lake. What is happening at these volcanoes? Why are all of the spectrographs in the Tectonic and ETS groupings also painting blanks? Why has there been an intentional blanking without a description or comment of this condition from the geologists?

His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault urged quick negotiations on Britain’s exit from the union, saying that the pressure would be “very strong” on British Prime Minister David Cameron at an EU summit on Tuesday to speed up the process.

Cameron, who on Friday announced his resignation by October in the wake of the referendum, said it should be his successor who leads the complex negotiations under Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty which sets out a two-year timeframe to leave. Steinmeier called the European Union “a successful project of peace and stability” and said that there was a “strong desire” within the bloc to defend and strengthen it.

“I think it is absolutely clear that we are in a situation in which neither hysteria nor paralysis are permissible,” he said. “We must not rush headlong into hectic action, pretending we had all the answers. But we must also not fall into depression or inaction after the British decision.”

The speech, delivered on a factory floor in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday, outlined Trump's promise to restore millions of lost factory jobs by backing away from decades of US trade policy. The approach, which represents a significant break from years of Republican Party advocacy for unencumbered trade between nations, drew immediate condemnation from Democrats as well as GOP business leaders, who questioned the impact on the price of consumer goods, as well as the country's place in the global economy

In his 35-minute speech, Trump directly targeted Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, blaming her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs. And he threatened to exit the more than 2-decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement and vowed to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement among 12 Pacific Rim nations that has yet to take effect.

"This wave of globalization has wiped out totally, totally our middle class," Trump said, standing in front of pallets of recycled aluminum cans on a factory floor. "It doesn't have to be this way. We can turn it around, and we can turn it around fast."

Mr Farage also predicted how Britain “will not be the last member state to leave the EU” as he accused top Brussels chiefs of being “in denial” about the state of the crisis-riddled bloc. Recalling how he began his efforts to lead Britain out the EU by taking a seat in the European Parliament, Mr Farage said: “Isn’t it funny, when I came here 17-years-ago and said I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the EU you all laughed at me.

“Well, you’re not laughing now.

“You as a political project are in denial. You are in denial that your currency is failing, you are in denial that Mrs Merkel’s call last year for as many people as possible to cross the Mediterranean has led to massive decisions within countries. But the main reason the UK voted out was that you have by stealth and by deception without ever telling the truth to the people of Europe continued to impose on them a political union. I will make one prediction this morning: the United Kingdom will not be the last member state to leave the European Union."

Mr Farage called for a “grown up and sensible” future relationship between Britain and the EU as he warned European politicians from acting in anger by trying to punish the UK for quitting. In a dig at the packed chamber of European politicians, he said: “I know that virtually none of you have done a proper job in your lives.” But he said there must be a “pragmatic” approach to agreeing a trade deal.

He said: “If you were to cut off your noses to spite your face the consequences would be far worse for you than it would be for us”. Mr Farage warned “German car workers risk losing their jobs” if the EU fails to negotiate a deal with Britain. He said: “Let’s create between us a sensible tariff free deal. The UK will be your friend… we will be your best friends in the world”. But he urged the EU to “let us go off and fulfil our global ambitions and future” now that Britain has left the bloc.

The EU’s chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini, will reportedly present a new foreign and security policy strategy later this week at the European Union summit in Brussels, according to Spiegel magazine. The document is the EU’s first major foreign and security policy strategy since its 2003 European Security Strategy. It comes as the bloc is facing uncertainty and decline after the British referendum on European Union membership.

“The purpose, even existence, of our union is being questioned,” Mogherini wrote in the foreword to the paper. “The crises within and beyond our borders are affecting directly our citizens’ lives,” it goes on, which is “even more true after the British referendum.”

The new strategy focuses on building up European “hard power” to achieve “strategic autonomy.” It’s designed “to cope with super-powers” and deal with “global policemen and lone warriors,” Mogherini’s foreword said, not mentioning specific countries. “In this fragile world, soft power is not enough: We must enhance our credibility in security and defense,” according to the draft strategy, which was also seen by the Wall Street Journal.

To deal with emerging challenges, the EU should stop relying on the US, and “take more responsibility for our own security.” The document goes even further by saying that despite NATO being there to protect its members from external attacks, “the Europeans must in future be better equipped, trained and organized to act alone, when necessary.”

Meanwhile, the Dow was down another 260 points on Monday as US markets continue to be shaken as well. Overall, approximately three trillion dollars of global stock market wealth has been lost over the last two trading days. That is an all-time record, and any doubt that we have entered a new global financial crisis has now been completely eliminated. But of course the biggest news on Monday was what happened to European banks. The Brexit vote has caused financial carnage for those institutions unlike anything that we have ever seen before.

I knew that things would be bad if the UK voted to leave the European Union, but I didn’t know that they would be this bad. Prior to all of this, a whole bunch of “too big to fail” banks all over Europe were already in the process of imploding, and now this chaotic financial environment may push several of them into full-blown collapse mode simultaneously.

But let there be no doubt about what has just happened. The collapse of Lehman Brothers was the “trigger event” that really accelerated the crisis of 2008, and now it appears as though the Brexit vote will be the “trigger event” that greatly accelerates the crisis of 2016. Global investors had already lost trillions over the past 12 months, and a full-blown financial implosion was going to happen no matter how the vote turned out, but thanks to British voters the fun and games have arrived early.

Unfortunately, only a very small fraction of the population understands just how bad things are going to get in the months ahead…

The first baby was born with a uterus transplant in September 2014 in Sweden. Since then, three other Swedish women also have given birth after receiving uterus transplants. All of their babies were born prematurely. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio currently are conducting a research study involving the first uterus transplants in the US. In March, they announced that their first transplant attempt failed.

These highly publicized experiments are leading to more questions about the ethics of the procedure. Doctors in several states recently told Scientific American that they are starting to receive requests from transgenders who were born male and now identify as women about becoming pregnant with a uterus transplant.

Last Thursday’s Brexit vote cast a bright light on the degree to which the effects of globalization and the impact of immigration, along with decades of overpromises and under-delivery by political leaders, have undermined the ability of those officials to lead. This collapse of confidence has created what amounts to a crisis in governing for which there seems no easy or quick answer.

The debris here is clear. The Brexit vote claimed Prime Minister David Cameron as its first victim. Having called the referendum and led the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union, he announced his intention to resign the morning after the vote. The results also now threaten the standing of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faces a likely leadership election after seeing more than two dozen members of his leadership team resign in the past two days.

Alastair Darling, a former chancellor of the exchequer, outlined the extent of the crisis here during an interview with the BBC’s “Today” program on Monday. “There is no government. There is no opposition. The people who got us into this mess — they’ve gone to ground,” he said “How has the United Kingdom come to this position? We have taken this decision and have no plan for the future.”

Britain’s political system faces months if not years of instability. Cameron originally recommended that a new prime minister be in place by early October. On Monday, the party committee overseeing the rules for the selection of a new Conservative Party leader to succeed Cameron accelerated that timetable, calling for a decision to be made by September 2.

Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and the leading voice in the campaign to leave the EU, is seen as the favorite to succeed Cameron. But he is a controversial figure and faces resistance inside the party. The selection of a new prime minister probably will be followed by an early election — almost four years ahead of the next scheduled election — because the next prime minister will need a public endorsement as they begin the process of negotiating a withdrawal from the EU.