National / International News

By a wide margin, Los Angeles elects its first Jewish mayor, Eric Garcetti, a 42-year-old three-term city councilman.

A man has died and two are injured after police responded to a reported machete attack in south-east London.

Up to 20 people are to lose their jobs at Britvic in Belfast after the soft drinks company announced it was to close its factory.

Researchers suggest students in Scotland could be "squeezed out" if there is a yes vote on independence and the free tuition system continues.

EU leaders say they are committed to tackling tax evasion and will push for global action to curb banking secrecy.

US Secretary of State John Kerry says Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran are perpetuating President Bashar al-Assad's "campaign of terror" in Syria.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's rugby player son Rohitha is investigated for allegedly assaulting a referee.

There are boos and walk-outs for Ryan Gosling's film Only God Forgives at Cannes, but it still earns some five-star reviews.

The sergeant has been accused of secretly videotaping at least a dozen female cadets, sometimes when they were showering. The New York Times report follows a series of accounts in recent weeks about alleged sexual assaults within the military.

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Jockey Eddie Ahern is banned for 10 years after being found guilty of corruption by the BHA, while Neil Clement receives a 15-year ban.

In the lead-up to Memorial Day this year, Marketplace and ProPublica have been investigating predatory lending to soldiers and their families. Now, we’ll host a live online discussion of the issues facing indebted military members, and the military units they serve in.

The Military Lending Act (implemented in 2007) was supposed to protect military members from exorbitant interest on small-dollar loans. It set a 36 percent APR cap and banned payday and title loans -- short-term high-cost cash loans that often got soldiers and their families into a deepening cycle of debt. And consumer advocates, as well as the military itself, credit the MLA with significantly reducing the availability of these types of predatory loans.

But, we looked at military bases in Georgia and elsewhere in the country, where storefront lenders still cluster just outside the gates -- title-pawn, pawn shops, and installment, all lending ‘to the military.’ We found national chains of non-bank finance companies are either restructuring their lending products to exploit gaps in the Military Lending Act -- extending the term of the loan, for instance -- or flagrantly violating the law. The plight of severely indebted soldiers continues to impact the military -- threatening soldier’s security clearances, taking up officers’ time and threatening the readiness of the force.

Help us answer a few questions in our next live chat (revisit our previous discussion on installment lending here):

• Are you a military member, or do you know a military member, who has gotten into financial trouble from predatory lending?
• Are soldiers paid enough to cover their living expenses, as well as financial emergencies?
• Why don’t more military members use the zero-interest emergency loans available from the Army and other services, to avoid predatory lenders?
• Do you think the Military Lending Act has made a difference in predatory lending to military members?
• Why are military members so vulnerable to predatory lenders -- outside the gates of bases, or online?
• Should members of the military be given more consumer protections from predatory payday and title lenders than the rest of the civilian population?
• Should the Military Lending Act (or similar loan bans and APR caps) be extended to all Americans?

Join us back here for a live discussion this Friday, May 24, at 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET, with Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman and ProPublica's Paul Kiel.

We encourage you to leave questions in advance in the comments below. You can also tweet in questions to @MarketplaceAPM or Mitchell @entrepreneurguy with the hashtag #MilitaryLending.

While studying microorganisms on humans is not new, tracking fungi is. In a census of sorts, scientists checked the skin of healthy volunteers. They found an expansive ecosystem of silent inhabitants.

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Fungi live all over the human body but their favourite spots are the heel, under toenails and between the toes, according to a US study.

An eyewitness to an attack in Woolwich in which a man was killed has described seeing a man pulling out a handgun.

Abrupt climate change in Africa helped trigger technological and cultural advances in early modern humans, according to new research.

Giovanni Visconti wins his second Giro d'Italia stage in four days as Italy's Vincenzo Nibali maintains the overall lead.

The damage from the Oklahoma tornado could reach $2bn (£1.3bn), the Oklahoma Insurance Department warns, although many tenants may have no insurance cover.

Five men are charged by police following the discovery of a cannabis factory in south Down.

In 2011, police detained Ai Weiwei for 81 days. Now, he's released a song that's turned the experience into a heavy metal protest song, along with a dystopian nightmare video. The lyrics are explicit and angry. Ai says his music is for the many political prisoners who remain jailed.

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A man killed in an attack in Woolwich was a serving soldier, according to the local MP.