Anchorage protester jailed on suspicion of defacing military base sign during Trump-Putin summit

A protester remained jailed in Anchorage on Monday after his arrest Friday on accusations he painted a defamatory message about President Donald Trump on a sign at a military gate.

James Garrett Hermansen, 31, was one of hundreds who took part in peaceful protests and demonstrations during Friday's landmark meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage. The summit concluded with no comprehensive deal to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

The two leaders met at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson after flying in separately from Washington, D.C., and Moscow.

Hermansen was one of about two dozen pro-Ukraine protesters who gathered outside the base's Government Hill gate before the leaders landed. He was playing songs at the gathering on a guitar covered in stickers, including one that read, "This machine saves lives."

—Anchorage Daily News

Newsmax to pay $67 million to settle Dominion case on 2020 vote

WASHINGTON — Newsmax agreed to pay $67 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. alleging that the conservative media outlet spread lies about its voting machines during the 2020 presidential election.

The news network will stagger the payments over three fiscal years, including the current one, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Newsmax.

Newsmax and Dominion Voting didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dominion sued Newsmax in 2021 accusing the news network of spreading false claims that Joe Biden’s presidential win against Donald Trump was rigged and that the voting-machine company participated in the fraud. Newsmax has denied that it defamed the company.

—Bloomberg News

It’s hot on Florida reefs and not just the water. Rare coral sex a hopeful sign

Beneath a cloak of darkness, illuminated only by glow sticks and red-filtered flashlights, researchers waited underwater off Key Largo hoping to witness one of the rarest events of sex in the sea.

It’s a delicate spectacle called the coral spawn — a once-a-year phenomenon when Florida’s reef-building coral colonies simultaneously release tiny bundles of eggs and sperm. They float to the surface in a scene that can look like a shaken snow globe.

The spawn, which typically takes place over a few days and lasts less than 20 minutes, is triggered by subtle environmental cues — moon phase, tides and water temperatures — that healthy reefs once responded to in consistent synchronization. But in recent years, climate change has disrupted the reproductive rhythm.

A mass bleaching in 2023 fueled by record coastal water temperatures devastated Florida’s reefs, leading to what Coral Restoration Foundation scientists call an “asynchronous stress spawn” where corals released undeveloped eggs and sperm too soon — as if in a last-ditch effort to reproduce before dying. But that happened so early that breeding was largely a bust.

—Miami Herald

Hamas issues 'positive response' to latest Gaza ceasefire proposal

TEL AVIV, Israel — The militant Palestinian organization Hamas has presented international mediators with what it called a "positive response" to a new proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The proposal was submitted by Egypt and Qatar, a Hamas official said on Monday. No details were initially released on the content of the plan for a ceasefire.

The indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas — in which the United States, Egypt and Qatar are mediating — stalled again at the end of July.

Israel and the U.S. claim that Hamas derailed the negotiations with excessive demands.

—dpa