Chemical Scare, Fresh Water Discovery, & an Explosive Whale

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Adam Rogers
May 26, 2026

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The risk of a catastrophic explosion at a damaged chemical tank in Garden Grove, California, has been eliminated, authorities said Monday. About 50,000 residents remain under evacuation orders as officials describe the risk to public safety as "ongoing."
The tank, at a facility owned by GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, holds 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, a chemical that can cause serious respiratory and neurological problems if inhaled. It overheated on Thursday and began venting vapors, and Firefighters have been spraying it with water for days in an attempt to cool it. Garden Grove sits next to Anaheim, home to Disneyland, which was not under evacuation orders.
Garden Grove residents filed a class-action lawsuit against GKN on Saturday, arguing that property values will be permanently impacted. The company paid $900,000 in 2025 to settle prior regulatory violations involving recordkeeping and emissions.

Scientists have documented and sampled a vast freshwater system beneath the Atlantic seafloor for the first time in history by drilling into the seabed off the coast of New England to confirm what researchers had theorized for decades.
The team found a layer of sediment roughly 200 meters below the seafloor saturated with “freshened” water — seawater with dramatically reduced salinity. The water's age, total volume, and origin remain unknown. It may have been trapped when sea levels were roughly 100 meters lower than today, or beneath an ice sheet during glacial periods 450,000 or 20,000 years ago. Microbial communities almost certainly live within it, though researchers have little idea what they are or how they survive.
About half the world's population experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, and climate change is expected to worsen the crisis. If similar systems exist globally, they could potentially serve as new sources of drinking water.

A man opened fire on a White House security checkpoint Saturday evening before being shot and killed by Secret Service officers. A bystander caught in the crossfire remained in serious but stable condition Sunday with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. President Trump was in the White House at the time.
The suspect, identified as Nasire Best, 21, of Dundalk, Maryland, had a prior run-in with law enforcement near the White House. He was arrested last July for attempting to enter White House grounds, claiming to be Jesus Christ, and refused officers' commands to stop.
It was the third shooting near Trump in one month, following the armed attack at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April and a shooting near the Washington Monument earlier this month. Trump used the incident to promote his proposed $1 billion White House ballroom project, calling it proof of the need for a "most safe and secure space of its kind ever built in Washington.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services said that visa holders seeking green cards must return to their home country to apply, reversing a decades-old practice that allowed people a year to apply from inside the US. (More)

A family member tackled and held down an armed boy on Friday, stopping a planned shooting at a nearby Illinois elementary school. (More)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is resigning effective June 30 to care for her husband, who was recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. (More)

Iran said Monday a peace deal to end its war with the US and Israel was not imminent, even as Rubio said an agreement could come "today.” (More)

The UK broke its all-time May temperature record over the bank holiday weekend, hitting 94.6F at Kew Gardens, topping a record that had stood since 1922. (More)

Seven people have been trapped for five days in a flooded Laos cave after landslides blocked the entrance. Divers from the 2018 Thai cave rescue are now leading the effort to free them. (More)

US stock markets closed higher on Friday (S&P +0.37%, Nasdaq +0.19%, Dow +0.58%) as the Dow posted another record-high close. (More)

Gold rose 1.1% to $4,559 an ounce on Monday as US-Iran peace talks weakened the dollar and eased inflation fears. (More)

Toshifumi Suzuki, the businessman who built 7-Eleven into a global chain of more than 80,000 stores, died May 18 at his Tokyo home of heart failure. He was 93. (More)

Felix Rosenqvist won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday by the closest margin in race history (0.0233 seconds), passing David Malukas on the outside in the final 50 feet. (More)

The NCAA released its 64-team baseball tournament, which begins May 29, with the College World Series running June 12-22 in Omaha. (More)

The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to $100 million over Memorial Day weekend, the lowest Star Wars opening ever. (More)

A new brain scan study found forgiveness doesn't erase painful memories but rewrites them, making past hurts feel less upsetting by folding new context into the original memory. (More)

The WHO warned that the Ebola outbreak in Congo is outpacing response efforts, with 220 suspected deaths so far, as attacks on health facilities in the outbreak's center are hampering the response. (More)

Google overhauled its search bar this week, demoting blue links in favor of AI-generated answers, the biggest change in 25 years. (More)

America’s most stolen cars by state.

What to do with a dead, highly explosive whale?

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