USA - “We will not obey.” That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage. “We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.” “While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states. And that means the possibility of Christians – people of faith – engaging in acts of civil disobedience.

USA - Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training exercise in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians. Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them will drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training.

USA - Plans for a 17-city Army Special Operations exercise in Texas stirred some ultra-right-wing fears of a government takeover in the Lone Star State, but local law enforcement say they've long been aware of the drill. Operation Jade Helm will bring a coalition of forces, including the Green Berets, SEALS, and special operations commands from the Air Force and Marines to Texas for two months of "realistic military training" in a simulated "hostile" territory between July and September this summer.

USA - The US Supreme Court hears arguments today on whether Americans have a right to same-sex marriage, so two of our stories below deal with this important topic. The family is at the heart of our society; tinkering with it will almost certainly lead to momentous cultural and political changes.

ISRAEL - Sleeping in the arms of their loving parents, these are among more than two dozen babies recently born to surrogate mothers for gay Israeli couples who are being airlifted out of Nepal to safety. The infants - some of whom were prematurely born - were evacuated from the country on Monday following Saturday's devastating earthquake, which has so far claimed more than 4,300 lives. The plane had previously delivered doctors to Nepal to aid rescue efforts. Later in the day, five more infants landed safely in Tel Aviv with their Israeli families. Some were seen resting peacefully in their carriers, while others were clutched tightly to their parents' chests. Reports have said 33 youngsters will be rescued in total.

USA - Less than a day after a donation fund was set up for the Oregon bakers who the state recommended be fined $135,000 for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, the crowdfunding website, GoFundMe, has shut it down. “The campaign entitled ‘Sweet Cakes by Melissa’ involves formal charges. As such, our team has determined that it was in violation of GoFundMe’s Terms and Conditions,” a spokesman for GoFundMe told The Daily Signal in a statement. The fundraising page was launched Friday after an Oregon administrative law judge announced the fine. Supporters of Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Sandy, Oregon, raised more than $109,000 before the page was removed.

USA - Less than 48 hours after the crowdfunding website GoFundMe shut down a campaign setup for Sweet Cakes by Melissa, GoFundMe yanked a similar fundraiser for a 70-year-old Washington florist facing seven-figure financial penalties for violating her state’s anti-discrimination law. The campaign, created for Barronelle Stutzman, a Christian florist who refused to make flower arrangements for a gay couple’s wedding, had been operating on GoFundMe for over two months. It wasn’t until GoFundMe removed the Sweet Cakes by Melissa campaign — meant for Aaron and Melissa Klein, the Oregon-based bakers who were fined $135,000 for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding — that it closed the account for Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers. Before it was shut down, Stutzman’s GoFundMe page had raised more than $174,000 in donations.

USA - Homosexual activists have painted Christian bakers, florists, and photographers as veritable hatemongers for refusing to participate in a same-sex “wedding” on religious grounds – but it is not only Christianity that teaches that homosexuality is immoral. In a new video, Steven Crowder discovered numerous Muslim bakeries refused to bake a cake for a homosexual “marriage” – and Crowder is calling homosexuals out for not being equally aggressive toward the Religion of Peace. Crowder called out the mainstream media for focusing all its attention on Christians when Muslims were more likely to refuse to participate in same-sex nuptials. “For Christians it only took one lawsuit, yet the media never acknowledges the giant, burqua’d elephant in the room,” Crowder said.

IRAN - The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Monday accused Saudi Arabia of treachery against the Islamic world and compared the kingdom to Israel, the official IRNA news agency reported. "Today, the treacherous Saudis are following in Israel's footsteps," General Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying. "Saudi Arabia is shamelessly and disgracefully bombing and mass killing a nation that is fighting against the arrogant system," or world powers, he said. He was apparently referring to Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been waging a monthlong air campaign against Iran-supported rebels, known as Houthis. Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are longtime regional rivals. They back opposite sides in Syria's civil war and are fiercely divided on a host of regional issues.

CHINA - China is drafting plans for bond purchases to boost liquidity and shore up the country's $2.6 trillion edifice of local government debt, becoming last of the world's big economic powers to resort to quantitative easing. The news propelled the Chinese stock market to a seven-year high on Monday, helped by fevered talk of a merger between Sinopec and PetroChina, the country's two oil giants.

USA - On Saturday night, the city of Baltimore resembled a warzone as protests over the death of Freddie Gray turned wildly violent. One eyewitness reported watching the streets around him and his friend "turn into madness" as they left a baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. Car windows were smashed, stores were robbed, chairs were thrown and large numbers of random bystanders were attacked.

GREECE - Europe's creditor powers have ruled out another "big" bail-out programme for Greece as the country edges ever-closer to an unprecedented default on its international lenders. Conservative estimates of Greece's parlous finances expect the government to run out of cash by mid-May. In the absence of fresh bail-out money, there is a 50 percent chance of "some form of Greek sovereign default," according to Stephanie Flanders of JP Morgan Asset Management. "Carefully handled, a partial default does not have to cause lasting damage to Greece or European markets. Nor does it have to lead to a Greek exit from the eurozone," said Ms Flanders. "But at a minimum, investors should be prepared for a messy few months for Greek financial markets."

USA - The US and Japan agreed to a major update in their military relationship Monday, one that is expected to lead to a greater global presence for Japan's military while strengthening ties between the two nations on cyber, space and industrial programs, according to a senior US defense official. The new US-Japan defense guidelines were agreed upon in New York City on Monday during the 2+2 talks between Japan and the US, where US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry are meeting with Japanese Defense Minister General Nakatani and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida. The senior defense official, who spoke to reporters ahead of the signing, called the agreement a "very big event" that redefines how Japan operates as a military partner around the globe.

USA - Two days after a bakery in Oregon was ordered to pay $135,000 in damages to a lesbian couple, to whom it refused service, fundraising efforts are underway to help the couple at the centre of the controversy pay off the fine. According the Oregon Bureau of Labour and Industries, Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the Oregon-based Sweet Cakes by Melissa, violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws when they refused to make a wedding cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer in 2013. The couple claimed that their refusal of services was in accordance with their religious beliefs towards gay marriage, a stance that led to widespread criticism of the bakery and the ensuing lawsuit.

NEPAL - Nepal’s devastating earthquake was the disaster experts knew was coming. Just a week ago, about 50 earthquake and social scientists from around the world came to Kathmandu, Nepal, to figure out how to get this poor, congested, overdeveloped, shoddily built area to prepare better for the big one, a repeat of the 1934 temblor that leveled this city. They knew they were racing the clock, but they didn’t know when what they feared would strike. “It was sort of a nightmare waiting to happen,” said seismologist James Jackson, head of the earth sciences department at the University of Cambridge in England. “Physically and geologically what happened is exactly what we thought would happen.” But he didn’t expect the massive quake that struck Saturday to happen so soon.