(April 6 — Eleven days prior to the April 17 station retrograde of Mars, North Carolina passes its restrictive bathroom bill, aimed at discriminating against transgender people under the guise of ‘protecting’ women and children.)
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April 16 — Japan and Ecuador earthquakes, measuring 7.1 and 7.8 on the Ricther scale, respectively.
April 17 — Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies votes overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment procedures against President Dilma Rousseff.
April 21 — Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 90th birthday.
April 21 — Prince dies of an overdose of prescription opioid pain medication.
April 25 — The U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio, agrees to pay $6 million to settle a wrongful death civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of Tamir Rice.
April 26 — Ukraine commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
April 30 — Father Daniel Berrigan, tireless human rights activist, dies just shy of his 95 birthday.
May 1 — Fort McMurray wildfire begins, burning at least 1,456,980 acres, making it possibly the most expensive disaster in Canadian history.
May 2 — Famed astrologer Jonathan Cainer dies of a suspected heart attack.
May 9 — Mercury visibly transits across the face of the Sun while in apparent retrograde motion.
May 12 — Researchers from Konkoly Observatory in Budapest reveal that (225088) 2007 OR10 is the third-largest dwarf planet in the solar system.
May 19 — EgyptAir Flight 804, traveling from Paris to Cairo, crashes into the Mediterranean Sea.
May 24 — A Pennsylvania Judge rules that Bill Cosby will have to stand trial on the felony sexual assault charges in relation to the case of Andrea Constand v. William H. Cosby, Jr.
May 26 — Donald Trump accumulates enough delegates to secure the Republican Party nomination for President.
May 27 — Barack Obama becomes the first sitting President of the United States to visit Hiroshima, the site of the first use of an atomic bomb by the U.S. during World War II. Obama calls for nations to reconsider the development of nuclear weapons and eventually eliminate them — against the backdrop of a $1 trillion plan to produce smaller nuclear weapons in the US.
June 2 — Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentences Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to 6 months — with only 3 served — after convicting Turner of sexual assault for raping an unconscious woman (he was caught in the act). The impact statement of victim Emily Doe, which she read to the court, was widely disseminated online and sparked tremendous outrage — including a petition to recall Judge Persky.
June 3 — Muhammad Ali, one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century, dies at age 74 of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
June 5 — Comedian John Oliver buys and then forgives $15 million in US medical debt to about 9,000 people, making it the biggest-ever giveaway in television history, and shedding light on the messy, shady world of debt collection and debt buying.
June 6 — Hillary Clinton attains the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic Party nomination, making her the presumptive nominee of the party until the official DNC vote. Pres. Obama endorses her on June 9.
June 12 — Gunman Omar Mateen opens fire in the Orlando, Florida, nightclub Pulse, killing 49 and injuring 53, making it the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in US history, and the deadliest action of violence against the LGBQT community in US history.
June 16 — US Senators stage a 15-hour filibuster over gun control on the floor of the Senate.
June 16 — UK Labor Party MP Jo Cox, known for campaigning in support of refugees and issues related to the Civil War in Syria, is killed by a man who allegedly shouted, “Britain first.”
June 22 — Representative John Lewis (D-Georgia) leads about 40 Democratic Reps in a sit-in on the floor of the US House, after the U.S. Senate failed to approve any of four gun control measures.
June 23 — The UK votes to leave the European Union in the “Brexit” vote, destabilizing financial markets and the EU in general; it emerges that many people, fueled by fear and frustration, did not fully understand what they were voting for, or think it would count.
June 23 — Massive flooding in West Virginia kills at least 23 and displaces hundreds in what the Weather Service is calling a “one in a thousand years” event.
June 27 — SCOTUS strikes down parts of a severely restrictive Texas anti-abortion law.
June 28 — Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and explosive belts stage a simultaneous attack at an international terminal of Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 44 and injuring 239.
June 30 — US Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter removes one of the final barriers to military service by lifting the Pentagon’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the armed forces.