The fight to allow same-sex marriage and gay clergy has defined much of the last half-century for major mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. Within these theologically moderate-to-progressive Protestant groups, the decades of wrestling over whether to reaffirm or overturn longstanding anti-LGBTQ+ church policies sowed deep divisions. It’s caused hurt feelings, broken relationships, disciplinary church trials and schisms. The United Methodist Church stripped out its bans and related social teachings over the past two weeks. It is the last of the major mainline church bodies to go through this process.

Dick Rutan, along with copilot Jeana Yeager, completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history: the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling. A decorated Vietnam War pilot, Rutan died Friday evening at a hospital in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He was 85. His friend Bill Whittle says he died on his own terms, declining a second night of oxygen after suffering a severe lung infection. “He played an airplane like someone plays a grand piano,” said Burt Rutan of his brother, who was often described as has having a velvet arm because of his smooth flying style.

A top U.N. official says hard-hit northern Gaza is now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory. Cindy McCain, the American director of the U.N. World Food Program, is the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine. She says a cease-fire and a greatly increased flow of aid through land and sea routes is essential to confronting the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people. McCain spoke to NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview to air Sunday.