WHAT'S BREWING
POPE FRANCIS ISSUES SWEEPING SEXUAL ABUSE REFORMS Pope Francis announced sweeping changes to the way the Roman Catholic Church deals with cases of sexual abuse of minors, abolishing the rule of “pontifical secrecy” that previously covered them. [Reuters]
JUDGE OKS NEARLY $25 BILLION FOR PG&E FIRE VICTIMS A federal bankruptcy judge approved two Pacific Gas & Electric settlements totaling $24.5 billion to help pay the losses suffered by homeowners, businesses and insurers in the aftermath of catastrophic Northern California wildfires that sent the nation’s largest utility into a financial morass. [AP]
JERSEY CITY MAYOR WANTS OUSTER OF OFFICIAL WHO DEFENDED STORE ASSAULT Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop is calling on a school official who referred to Jewish people as “brutes” in an angry Facebook post to resign. Jersey City Board of Education trustee Joan Terrell-Paige's Facebook comment appeared to justify last week’s deadly assault on a Jewish market carried out by two shooters in the New Jersey town. [HuffPost]
NEW ZEALAND SCALES DOWN SEARCH FOR TWO MISSING AFTER ERUPTION New Zealand police said they would be scaling down search operations for two people still missing after a volcanic eruption last week, admitting the bodies may never be found. [Reuters]
GOVERNMENT FORCED SEX WORKERS OFFLINE LAST YEAR. NOW, IT WANTS TO SURVEY THE DAMAGE. Congress rarely passes major legislation with a bipartisan vote, but last year both parties agreed that sex work should no longer be promoted online. Experts and sex workers themselves warned that punishing sites that host prostitution ads would force the industry into dangerous shadows, but Congress ignored them. [HuffPost]
A GUIDE TO THE MEMES THAT DEFINED A DECADE Over the the last 10 years, arguably the world’s largest cultural shift came in the form of the internet. It drastically shifted how we exist on this planet. Everything from how we talk and eat to how we travel and shop has been impacted. Hell, 10 years ago this sentence ― “Can you Venmo me for the Uber and Seamless last night?” ― would have been nonsense. [HuffPost] | 
