U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has extended his congratulations to the people of Iceland on the occasion of the country’s 82nd National Day.

A wide-ranging program of events will be held in Reykjavík on Iceland’s National Day, June 17.

An Icelandic Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched shortly before 4 p.m. today following a serious traffic accident in Reykholt, Borgarfjörður.

New renderings have been unveiled of Iceland’s proposed National Arena, a multi-purpose indoor sports and events venue designed to meet modern standards and provide facilities for Iceland’s national teams, sports clubs, and the general public.

Three defendants in the so-called Gufunes case have filed applications for permission to appeal their convictions to the Supreme Court of Iceland.

State Mediator Ástráður Haraldsson says negotiations between Icelandair and its pilots remain difficult, following a meeting that concluded shortly before 3 p.m. today.

Yesterday, the rescue vessel Sveinbjörn Sveinsson, the seventh in a series of new rescue ships commissioned by the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (Landsbjörg), arrived at its home port in Vopnafjörður.

A beluga whale was recently spotted swimming in Reyðarfjörður in East Iceland. Belugas are rare visitors to Icelandic waters.

The aviation color code for Bárðarbunga remains yellow while uncertainty continues regarding developments at the volcano. According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, a yellow alert indicates that a volcano is showing signs of elevated activity above its normal background level.

Pleasant weather is expected to continue tomorrow in the same areas that enjoyed sunshine today, particularly in South and West Iceland.

Three Icelandair flights have been canceled so far today due to a shortage of pilots, amid growing claims from the airline that pilots have resumed informal labor actions.

The main trial of Ming Ting Mancel begins today at the Reykjavík District Court. Mancel is charged with causing the death of her daughter in collaboration with her husband at the Edition Hotel in Reykjavík in June of last year.

Residents of Grindavík and their supporters have called for a peaceful demonstration outside Alþingi, the Icelandic Parliament, building at 12:00 noon today.

“As you can see, the real exchange rate measured by wages swings wildly, prices swing enormously, wages swing a great deal, everything that shapes production costs, the exchange rate of the Iceandic Króna ISK, and so on,” said Vilhjálmur Hilmarsson, economist for the trade union Viska, at a VR breakfast meeting this morning.

China’s ambassador to Iceland, He Rulong, visited the Arctic Observatory research station at Kárhóll in Þingeyjarsveit in May.

The warmest day of the summer so far could arrive tomorrow, Friday, if current forecasts hold.

The French Embassy in Iceland held a ceremony yesterday to honor the memory of the many French sailors who lost their lives off the coast of Iceland.

At the beginning of the year, there were 77,226 immigrants living in Iceland, accounting for 19.6% of the country's population.

The former owners of a house on Austurvegur in Grindavík say they repeatedly asked the real estate company Þórkatla for permission to retrieve a hot tub that stood on a deck outside the house before it was demolished. Their requests were denied, however, and the hot tub was destroyed along with the house.

American daredevil and BASE jumper Jack Propeck posted an astonishing video on Instagram yesterday showing himself jumping off Skógafoss waterfall with a parachute.

“This has, of course, been and remains a very difficult dispute. That is simply the reality,” said Ástráður Haraldsson, Iceland’s State Mediator, regarding the labor dispute between Icelandair and the Icelandic Pilots’ Association (FÍA).

“I was diagnosed with smoldering myeloma two years ago, and that prompted me to get involved in advocacy and research related to the disease. This project in Iceland is a result of that,” says Eric Blackburn, an American veteran who served in the Gulf War during 1990 and 1991 following Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

Icelandair carried 464,000 passengers in May, a 4% increase compared with the same month last year. Of those passengers, 30% were traveling to Iceland, 19% from Iceland, 45% were connecting passengers, and 5% traveled on domestic routes.

Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir believes that Iceland’s membership in the European Union would have no impact on the 1951 bilateral defense agreement between Iceland and the United States.

The Icelandic Coast Guard, in close coordination with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ Defence Office and NATO military commands, is closely monitoring the movements of a Russian military vessel currently sailing outside Iceland’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters but within the country’s exclusive economic zone, specifically in the waters between Iceland and Greenland.

The State Mediator has summoned representatives of both parties in the labor dispute between Icelandair pilots and the airline to a meeting at the mediator’s offices at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow, Monday. This was confirmed by State Mediator Ástráður Haraldsson in an interview with mbl.is.

A new study by an international team of geoscientists suggests that volcanic activity on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula is being driven primarily by the long-term accumulation of stress along the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, rather than by earthquake swarms marking the path of magma forcing its way through the Earth’s crust.

Bubbi Morthens filled Reykjavík’s Laugardalshöll arena twice over the weekend, while many more watched via livestream. Yet it nearly came to pass that his 70th birthday concerts would not happen at all.

Icelandair pilots are currently reviewing the proposals presented by the airline at a mediation meeting held the night before last. State Mediator Ástráður Haraldsson says he does not expect any significant developments in the dispute before next week.

A full schedule of events will take place in Reykjavík’s harbor area on Fishermen’s Day tomorrow, Sunday. A ceremony honoring seafarers will be held at Harpa Concert Hall, and the TM Family Run will begin at 10 a.m.

Eyjólfur Ármannsson, Iceland’s Minister of Infrastructure, and Jón Gunnar Jónsson, Director General of the Icelandic Transport Authority, underwent a traditional “seafarer’s baptism” earlier today ahead of Seamen’s Day, which will be celebrated on Sunday.

Earlier this week, a deed of gift transferring part of the Miðfell estate in Þingvallasveit to the Icelandic state was formally signed.