Death Be Not Proud: Moved in part by the story of a young and terminally ill California woman who moved to Oregon to be able to commit assisted suicide, the California legislature has approved assisted suicide for the state.

In 2014 Brittany Maynard, dying of brain cancer, took her own life at her new home and her husband Dan Diaz carried on her fight for the approval of assisted suicide in California. Gov. Jerry Brown has not indicated whether he will sign the bill. If he does, California would join Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Vermont in allowing doctors to prescribe fatal medication in some terminal cases.

Nation: Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who faced down her own police department and street rioters at the same time after the death of a young man in police custody, says she will not run for re-election. Still dealing with a police-brutality scandal and the trial of six officers in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, Rawlings-Blake told reporters that, “The last thing I want is for every one of the decisions I make … to be questioned in the context of a political campaign.”

>The Justice department is dropping espionage charges against Temple University physics professor Xi Xiaoxing after checking their science facts and discovering that he was not giving secrets to China. Xi was accused of sending to China the schematics for what the FBI thought was a secret device used in semi-conductor research. Only after storming Xi’s home with guns drawn last May, and painting him as a spy, did the FBI consult experts and find that, oh well, it wasn’t what they thought.

HeartBeat: A new medical study finds that healthy blood pressure should be far lower than previously recommended. It’s “potentially lifesaving information,” according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Current wisdom is that pressure when the heart contracts should be 140 or 150, but the study says 120 is best. Nearly one third of adult Americans have high blood pressure. The study found that a blood pressure of 120 lowers the risk of heart attacks, heart failure, and strokes by a third as well as the risk of death by nearly a quarter.

World Disasters: Two explosions in a crowded restaurant in central India killed 82 people today. A cooking gas cylinder exploded in the restaurant filled with people having breakfast, setting off a secondary blast of explosive detonators stored nearby.

>Just days before the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia known as the Haj, a construction crane collapsed on top of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, yesterday, killing at least 107 worshippers inside. As many as 238 people were reported injured. The crane was toppled by strong winds.

The Dwindling Crowd: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry yesterday became the first Republican to drop out of the race for president. Broke and barely registering on the polltakers’ Richter scale, he had little choice but to end his run. Perry took a parting shot at Donald Trump, saying the ultimate Republican nominee “must make the case for the cause of conservatism more than the cause of their own celebrity.”

Veni, Vidi, Vinci: An unseeded Italian tennis player stunned Serena Williams at the US Open yesterday, ending Williams’ quest to win the Grand Slam of tennis tournaments this year.

Williams easily beat 32-year-old Roberta Vinci 2-6 in the first set and then lost 6-4, 6-4 in the following two. Vinci had been given odds of 300-1 against beating Williams. Flattering in defeat, Williams said,  “I thought she played the best tennis in her career. She played, literally, out of her mind.” Vinci faces fellow Italian Flavia Pennetta in the final.

The Undead: One of the world’s pressing questions is whether the character Jon Snow in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is really dead. Thrones fanatics now report that the actor Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow, has been seen in Northern Ireland filming a massive battle scene between the Umbers, the Boltons, and Wildlings. Evidently you just can’t have a good massacre without Jon Snow swinging his sword in the middle of it.