Scout’s Honor: The Mormon church is threatening to disconnect from the Boy Scouts of America after the organization ended it ban on gay Scout leaders. The Scouts had left a loophole for religiously affiliated chapters to choose leaders according to their beliefs, but the Latter Day Saints still object. A church statement said that despite welcoming scouts of every sexual orientation, “The admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America.”

Mormon sponsored chapters account for 17 percent of Boy Scout and Cub Scout membership.

KillBots: A group of hundreds of artificial intelligence researchers has signed an open letter warning of the dangers of autonomous weapons, technological killing devices that can find and destroy their targets without a human operator. They were joined by such luminaries as Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and physicist Stephen Hawking.

The letter says autonomous weapons will be a development in warfare as significant as gunpowder and could one day be as ubiquitous as the AK-47 rifle. “It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc.,” the letter says. “Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic group.”

Flunked Out: The dreaded SAT and ACT admission tests will no longer be required for admission to George Washington University, the school announced. The University’s dean of admissions told the Washington Post, “We had concerns that students who could be successful at GW felt discouraged from applying if their scores were not as strong as their high-school performance.” Wake Forest, DePaul and American University have also abandoned the tests. Some admissions officers believe the standardized tests tend to eliminate disadvantaged students who could still do well in college.

Also Ran: With Boston hesitating over the cost, the US Olympic Committee killed the city’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Facing a deadline to sign a contract yesterday, Mayor Kevin Walsh said at a press conference, “I cannot commit to putting the taxpayers at risk.” More than half of Boston’s residents were opposed to having the Olympics.

The USOC, which had designated Boston, now has to decide whether to submit a hasty bid from another city or pass on any attempt for the US to host the 2024 summer games.

Layover: New York’s LaGuardia Airport, often ranked one of the worst in the country, will be getting a $4 billion rebuild that will double its capacity to handle aircraft. Vice President Joe Biden, who once described LaGuardia as something out of a Third World country, was on hand for the announcement. He said, “I wish everything I said that was truthful but controversial would turn out this well.” The first new passenger area won’t be ready until at least 2019.

World: The son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi has been sentenced to death in absentia for war crimes committed during the 2011 revolution. Saif Qaddafi wasn’t in court because he’s being held by a rebel group that refuses to hand him over.

The Milwaukee Lion: Milwaukee authorities are on the hunt for a large catlike creature that has been slinking through back yards and under overpasses. A brief grainy video of the cat is too short for experts to determine whether it is a cougar or an African lion. The Milwaukee Zoo says all its big cats are accounted for. One theory is that it might be an African lion bought as a pet and released when it wasn’t so cute anymore.

-30-