The Republic of Ireland will hold a referendum on whether to change its laws against blasphemy. It is expected that the vote will be held on the same day as the Presidential election, which is likely to take place in October. The move is part of a commitment made in the programme for government. The previous Fine Gael-Labour coalition, which governed from 2011 to 2016, had promised a vote on the law.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she favors a U.S.-Russian summit, seeking to push global diplomacy forward after a tumultuous meeting of Group of Seven leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t invited to the G-7 summit in Canada, although U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he be readmitted. In an echo of Cold War meetings on neutral ground, Austria is encouraging the U.S. to hold a summit in Vienna, a White House official said last week.

Boris Johnson has warned of a Brexit “meltdown” and branded the Treasury the “heart of remain” in unguarded comments at a private dinner. At the gathering of the Conservative Way Forward, a Thatcherite campaign group, he said exit talks were approaching a “moment of truth”. The foreign secretary said he believed Brexit will happen and would be “irreversible” but the “risk is that it will not be the one we want”.

The purity of street cocaine across Europe is at its highest level in a decade and the number of people seeking treatment for use of the drug is on the rise, a EU report has found. In an annual overview of drug trends across the continent, the EU drugs agency, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), found that although the price of cocaine had remained stable, an increase in purity, first seen in 2010, continued in 2016.

In the states, Tesla already operates a massive Gigafactory in Nevada, where it makes batteries for both its vehicles and home energy products. It also operates an assembly plant in Fremont, California where it makes the Model S, Model X and Model 3. Musk also reflected on past challenges in Tesla factories, explaining as he has in the past that the company has had mixed luck with automation:

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Monday issued new review guidelines for its lucrative App Store platform, after it moved to block plans by Steam, the biggest distributor of PC-based video games, to extend its reach into iPhones and iPads. Apple uses the guidelines to decide which apps can appear in the App Store. Apple now explicitly says apps cannot host anything that looks like an app store within an app or give users the ability to “browse, select, or purchase software not already owned or licensed b...

The 20th century was a remarkably productive one for physics. First, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity helped us view gravity not as a force but as a distortion of space. Then Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg gave us quantum mechanics — and a fresh understanding of the subatomic world. In the middle of the century, two new forces were discovered deep within the atom (the strong and weak nuclear forces). Finally, in the century's last decades, we got t...

A fascinating paper about sex differences in the human brain was published last week in the scientific journal Cerebral Cortex. It’s the largest single-sample study of structural and functional sex differences in the human brain ever undertaken, involving over 5,000 participants (2,466 male and 2,750 female). The study has been attracting attention for more than a year (see this preview in Science, for instance), but only now has it been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Steam users below the age of 16 could soon require parental permission in order to maintain full access to the platform. Changes to the JavaScript of the platform’s sign-up page were issued last night, with code referring to ‘parental consent dialog’ and ‘parental email’. The changes are thought to be as a result of changes mandated by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, which apply to the storage of data by European Union companies, as well as companies whose customers res...

Milwaukee County wants to collect spare pocket change from airport travelers to help the homeless. James Mathy, the Milwaukee County housing administrator, told Wisconsin Public Radiothat containers near security checkpoints at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee will accept change donations to support rental assistance and employment aid for people struggling with homelessness.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed optimism about upcoming talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, state-run media said Thursday, in the first local report hinting at his attitude toward the planned Pyongyang-Washington summit.

A massive sinkhole has opened up on a New Zealand farm, with a volcanologist saying it is the biggest he has ever seen in the country. The crack was discovered at Earthquake Flat, 15 kilometres south-east of Rotorua on New Zealand's North Island. Vulcanologist Brad Scott visited the farm where it was discovered and said it would have taken decades for the underground cavity to grow, but was spurred on by recent heavy rain.

Prof Stephen Hawking's final research paper suggests that our Universe may be one of many similar to our own. The theory resolves a cosmic paradox of the late physicist's own making. It also points a way forward for astronomers to find evidence of the existence of parallel universes.

The Simpsons is making TV history on Sunday, April 29 when the Fox animated series airs its 636th episode, beating Gunsmoke's record of scripted episodes. However, Gunsmoke and Law & Order are both still tied for the longest-running US primetime live-action series with 20 seasons produced. In "Forgive and Regret," the 636th episode of The Simpsons, Grandpa Simpson (Dan Castellaneta) makes a deathbed confession to Homer (also Castellaneta), but after recovering, Grandpa realize...

Due to advances in artificial intelligence, it’s now possible to convincingly map anyone’s face onto the body of another person in a video. As Vox’s Aja Romano has explained, this technique is becoming more common in pornography: An actress’s head can be mapped onto a porn actress’s body. These “deepfakes” can be generated with free software, and they’re different from the photoshopping of the past. This is live action — and uncannily real.