UK - Forget, if you can, the crowns and carriages. Dismiss from your mind the page boys and pageantry. Ignore the robes and royalty that fill your television screens. For although we call the state opening of parliament colloquially "the Queen's speech", it is not really about her at all. The formal opening of the political year is more about the government and parliament asserting their rights over the monarch than it is about the sovereign reminding us of her centrality to our constitution.

USA - Wealthy members of Congress are living the high life at taxpayer expense, while most of the rest of the country continues to suffer through one of the worst economic periods in our lifetimes. According to an analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics earlier this year, more than half of the members of Congress are millionaires. This is the first time that this has ever happened in US history. In addition, the same study found that a hundred members of Congress are actually worth at least five million dollars. We are supposed to be a government “of the people”, but instead Congress is rapidly becoming a millionaire’s club. Once upon a time, members of Congress were actually considered to be “public servants”. If you tried to make that claim today, people would laugh at you.

UK - Doctors could be allowed to experiment on dying patients with novel treatments under a new bill brought by Lord Saatchi which looks set to become law. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, promised to back the Medical Innovations Bill if it was supported by the public. It allows doctors to try out innovative new techniques or drugs on patients, without the fear of prosecution, when all else has failed and they are nearing the end of their life. Since the death of his wife, Josephine Hart, to ovarian cancer, Lord Saatchi has campaigned to change the law. A public consultation which has just closed showed overwhelming support for the proposal. It will be presented to the House of Lords on Thursday.

DUBLIN, IRELAND - Almost 800 babies and children were buried in a mass grave in Ireland near a home for unmarried mothers run by nuns, according to new research Wednesday which throws more light on the Irish Catholic Church's troubled past. Death records suggest 796 children, from newborns to eight-year-olds, were deposited in a grave near a Catholic-run home for unmarried mothers during the 35 years it operated from 1925 to 1961. The recently discovered death records for St Mary's show the 796 children died from malnutrition and infectious diseases, such as measles and TB.

USA - In early April, the shocking news that breast milk carries many times the allowable amount of Glyphosate, also called Roundup, came out on the web. Glyphosate is a poison that defoliates plants, but back in the late 1990s, farmers began planting soybeans that resisted the chemical, bouncing back from a dowse of Glyphosate like they had just enjoyed a spring rain, while the weeds around them died. The Frankenstein soybeans were followed by releases of genetically modified corn, cotton, canola and sugar beets. Now, many crops carry the gene.

USA - Seismographs have picked up a swarm of earthquakes in the northwestern corner of Yellowstone National Park, including dozens early Tuesday. The University of Utah Seismograph Station reported five small earthquakes including those with magnitudes of 3.4, 2.7 and 3.2 in a 20-minute period starting at 3:33am in an area 16 to 18 miles south of Gardiner. Earthquake information specialist Paul Roberson said there were another 20 to 30 small quakes Tuesday morning that hadn't yet been posted on the university's website. Seismographs recorded 31 quakes in the same area south of Gardiner on Saturday, while another 23 were reported last Wednesday and Thursday in an area between 18 and 19 miles east-southeast of West Yellowstone.

ALASKA, USA - An Alaska volcano that has been spewing ash and lava for years began erupting with new intensity this week, pushing a plume of smoke and ash as high as 24,000 feet (7,315 meters) and prompting scientists to issue their highest volcanic alert in five years, authorities said on Tuesday. The eruption was intense enough for Alaska Volcano Observatory scientists to issue their first red alert warning since 2009, when the state's Mount Redoubt had a series of eruptions that spewed ash 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). "This means it can erupt for weeks or even months," observatory research geologist Michelle Coombs said of the warning. "I don't think we will be at red for that long, but we are expecting it to go for a while based on its past." Coombs said affected areas are uninhabited except for some hunting destinations.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Finally! After seven weeks of counting, and intense, soulful preparations, the nation of Israel is poised to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai on the glorious festival of Shavuot. But what does it really mean, to "receive the Torah?"

THE FESTIVAL OF SHAVUOT: Intimately connected to the land of Israel, Shavuot is the festival of the bringing of the first-fruits to the Holy Temple. Shavuot is also the anniversary of the Sinai revelation and the receiving of Torah by Israel, and since the destruction of the Holy Temple the emphasis of Shavuot has been Torah study. Ultimately, Torah study and the bringing of the first-fruits are both expressions of the centrality of Torah in our lives. When we build the Holy Temple we best exemplify the fulfillment of Torah in this world by the bringing of the first-fruits.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - The Temple Mount became Jewish again, at least for one day, on Tuesday. Temple organizations reported that about 400 Jews had ascended to the Mount in the morning hours, and that police allowed them in without undue delays. Most of the gates to the Mount were closed, and Muslim worshippers, who often harass Jews on the Mount, are not being allowed in. This is happening because police and the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet) have received intelligence about “malicious intentions” and Islamist incitement calling on Arabs to riot and prevent the Jews from entering.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - The Women in Green (WIG) movement has asked for the Israeli police's response to its request to hold a rally on the night of Tisha B'Av, the traditional Jewish day of mourning for the First and Second Temples and other Jewish tragedies, in which prayers are to be said and the Book of Lamentations to be read on the Temple Mount.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - On Wednesday May 28, 2014, Jerusalem Day was celebrated in Israel and in Jewish communities throughout the free world. Bible believing Christians also commemorate the day. The date is marked by the Hebrew lunar calendar, and celebrates the day when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) liberated the Old City of Jerusalem (June 7, 1967), and its holiest shrines, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, the only remnant of the Holy Temple.

ISRAEL - It is hard to reconcile what has been happening at the Temple Mount over the last several months. My common sense is having difficulty tolerating the reality that has become a permanent fixture: Muslims inciting and rioting, Jews forcibly kept outside, and the police, thrust in the middle, showing manifest weakness. The Muslims must understand that the gates to the Temple Mount can be closed to them as well. The Waqf must understand that its powers of authority can be taken away, and the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which has clear ties to Hamas, must stay away altogether. The movement for a Jewish Temple Mount, however, must also realize that insisting on exercising the right to pray there now, at this juncture, is not only unattainable, but also a hindrance to the far more humble and basic goal of restoring the freedom of access and movement for all Jews on the Temple Mount.

LOS ANGELES, USA - No, it's not your imagination: The Los Angeles area is feeling more earthquakes this year. After a relatively quiet period of seismic activity in the Los Angeles area, the last five months have been marked by five earthquakes larger than 4.0. That hasn't occurred since 1994, the year of the destructive Northridge earthquake that produced 53 such temblors.

UK - A key figure implicated in the Islamic “Trojan Horse” plot to take over secular state schools in Birmingham is a registered Ofsted inspector, it has emerged. Tahir Alam, chairman of governors at Park View School in the city, has been registered as an education inspector since 2010, it was revealed. He was appointed to the role three years after publishing a detailed blueprint that appeared to advocate the introduction of Islamic practices in schools, including covering up girls, gender segregation in some activities and the end of multicultural worship. Mr Alam has previously branded the alleged Trojan Horse revelations as a “witch-hunt”. The disclosure is the latest twist in the ongoing investigation over a Muslim plot to infiltrate a series of schools in Birmingham.

UK - London's vast foreign exchange market faces Government regulation for the first time under plans due to be unveiled by the Treasury within the next two weeks. Treasury officials are working with the international Financial Stability Board (FSB) to draw up a set of regulations designed to “clean up” the £3 trillion-a-day global market, which is already subject to regulatory investigations following allegations of manipulation. Despite being one of the biggest financial markets in the world, used daily by companies to move money between jurisdictions and currencies, the foreign exchange market has largely escaped official regulation. Prices for transactions are usually set by traders involved in the deals.