International regulators are slowly but surely fixing reins to what for years has been a relatively untethered cryptocurrency boom – attempting to add a degree of predictability and security to assets that have at times been prone to wild valuation swings, theft and illicit transactions.

In the past several months alone, bitcoin, among the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market, has lost more than half of its value, with the price of one coin dropping from nearly $20,000 to fewer than $7,000. The downturn is believed to be weighing on the fledgling digital investments as a whole, with other mainstream cryptocurrency options such as Ethereum suffering similar losses as lesser-known upstarts such as VeChain waver but to a much smaller degree.

Read more at US News.

Publicly owned lands in the United States contain many of the country's most iconic natural areas as well as a wealth of natural resources. But these taxpayer-owned assets are on the verge of being given away for a fraction of their true value in an effort to prop up the uneconomical mining and drilling operations of some fossil-fuel companies, who clearly have the Department of the Interior's ear.

Interior is required by law to earn "fair market value" for the use and development of public natural resources, including coal, oil and natural gas. Royalties are a significant source of revenue for the federal treasury and for states with mineral production, which receive a share of federal royalties.

Read more at US News.

Uber has been granted a short-term licence to operate in London following a court hearing.

Transport for London (TfL) refused to renew the licence when it expired last September, saying the US taxi app was not a "fit and proper" operator.

Uber has now been awarded a licence but it has been put on probation for 15 months.

Read more at BBC News.

French butchers have written to the government asking for protection against militant vegans, accusing them of trying to shut down the country's traditional meat-eating culture.

Shops have been stoned or defaced with anti-meat graffiti and stickers, the French Federation of Butchers says.

Over the last few months, 15 shops were splashed with fake blood.

Federation chief Jean-Francois Guihard said in the letter that such attacks were a form of terrorism.

Read more at BBC News.

A six-year-old child in the US state of Indiana found a loaded handgun in a couch at Ikea and fired it, police say.

The weapon had fallen into cushions as a shopper sat down to test the sofa at the store in a suburb of the state capital, Indianapolis.

Nobody was hurt in Monday's incident and no arrests have been made. Ikea said it had expressed "sincerest apologies" to the child's family.

Police say the gun-owner did not notice he had dropped his firearm.

Read more at BBC News.

Former Air Canada Altitude Super Elite traveler Eric Wong is elite no more. And he’s suing Air Canada because of it.

Wong, an IT consultant who frequently travels across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia for his job, has consistently flown enough to earn top elite status with Air Canada since 2012, a status conferred on travelers who annually fly more than 100,000 miles with the airline. Wong also is a points and miles enthusiast who participated in Air Canada’s “Earn Your Wings” promotion, which helped him earn collectible badges, bonus miles and additional perks that made him a high-profile Air Canada passenger.

Read more at The Points Guy.

As the Kilauea volcano continues to spew lava onto the Big Island of Hawaii, more instances of unique aspects of volcanic activity emerge such as the recently seen “lava balls.”

These balls of lava, also known as lava boats or lava bergs, can be seen in a new video that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) tweeted on Saturday. The time-lapse video shows lava flowing from Fissure 8 and on the stream of lava are accumulated cooled chunks that float on top, hence the term lava boats or lava balls. Sometimes these orbs will break off from larger portions cooled-off molten rock and other times they’ll form when lava cools on the surface as it flows. The problem with lava balls is that they can accumulate to divert the flow of lava.

Read more at Inverse.

Men with prostate cancer face difficult choices. Among them: If they decide to have their prostate removed, how should it be done?

The traditional open surgery, in which a surgeon operates through a long skin incision...

Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

WTF?! There has been plenty of talk about 4K gaming monitors recently, especially with the arrival of 3840 x 2160 144Hz models from Acer and Asus, but most PC owners still consider high refresh rate 1440p products to be the sweet-spot for playing games. However, a recent report claims some people who own QHD monitors might actually be using a 4K panel without realizing it.

Citing sources close to panel manufacturers, German website Prad.de writes that the costs of producing a 27-inch 4K 3840 x 2160 panel is often lower, or at least the same price as, creating a 27-inch 2560 x 1440 QHD panel. As such, some companies have reportedly been producing monitors that use 4K panels despite being advertised as 1440p. This is said to happen often when panel supplies are low, or monitor demand is high.

Read more at Tech Spot.