I know this is a discussion, and not a vote, but I do like this suggestion from neliebly. Or, just shorten the current title, “Stuff I Must Share”.
At least when I click on the hamburger and get the category listing, “Mundane Point” is the first category. I hadn’t realized that news gets put in the same category, but then I don’t often read by category.
My opinion? “News and Stuff” sounds better than “News and Discussion.”
“Stuff I Must Share” is a good idea too.
Yes, the OP has a point. 
Yes, to the idea of a new forum.
And yes to this suggested name.
One minor argument against changing the names of any of the forums is that newbies might become confused when reading old posts and seeing forums referenced by their old names.
The obvious solution in the case of MPSIMS is to come up with a new and better name that has the same initials as the old one.
My Post: Stuff I Must Share
ETA: I’m all in favour of actually making a new forum. If we could have the stupid Barn one, or the Marketplace, or Thread Games, or Quarantine Zone, we can have this.
There’s another reason for a change now to add a new forum added for News/Current Affairs. It’s now possible with the new software to mute a forum if you’re not interested in that part of SDMB. That makes it more important that each forum contains a sensible subset of threads. It has always been odd that MPSIMS contains the silliest stuff AND some of the most serious stuff - dramatic breaking news. I’d like to be able to mute out the silly stuff from my main page, and just go look at MPSIMS occasionally when I have time. I think MPSIMS should stay just as it is for casual bantery type threads, and we should put News/Current Affairs in a new forum.
“Must have”? No.
“Might have”? Yes.
The point is, if you don’t know what the reason was/is, how do you know whether it was a good one, or whether it still applies?
This is all a general philosophical point about change, which may be of limited relevance in this particular thread.
Doing some searching, I find that there have been threads about re-naming MPSIMS before, but apparently our dear departed TubaDiva was resistant to the idea.
That doesn’t solve the underlying confusing issue that the designated contents of the forum make little sense. It contains the silly bantery threads, and the most serious threads for dramatic breaking news often involving death and destruction. You can’t come up with a name that will make sense to people when the contents of the forum fundamentally make no sense.
I like this suggestion.
It describes the contents better, while keeping a similar name and the same acronym.
“Meaningful” and “Pointless” are pretty much antonyms. So it’s a good suggestion in the sense that it’s an accurate description for a forum whose contents are illogical. It’s the “Trivial and Weighty” forum.
I would just shorten it to Stuff I Must Share. That should be good enough, and encompass everything.
“Well, This Happened”
To get creative: Because Stuff Happens.
That would be pronounced “nude.” Does that help?
The suggested changes are narrower than the original scope. For example, let’s say I saw an interesting car, or bird at my birdfeeder, and I wanna share. Does a forum called “News And Discussion” seem like the intuitive place for that?
If not, where do cars and birds go?
People get new pets, and want to share pictures. That’s not “news” and nothing is up for discussion. This would kill all of those threads.
The explosion in Beirut was neither mundane nor pointless. Not to put too fine a point on it; your opinions about it however almost certainly are. That’s what the forum title conveys.
But are they humble?
I could be wrong, but I think some of the early threads on 9/11 (while it was happening) were in MPSIMS.
Some good points being made here. My suggestion of “News and Discussion” as a forum title is admittedly dry and was just meant to prime the pump. I like some of the other ideas.
I’m also coming around to favoring starting a whole new section for newsy sorts of topics, and leaving “Mundane Pointless” alone to be what it is. I get that a lot of people like it that way. I just sort of thought, “What, another pigeonhole? Oy vey!” but maybe I’m the one who’s resistant to change.
There’s a lot of members out there, and it would surprise me if there weren’t a few who were merchant seamen or maritime lawyers who might have some relevant insight into how a million and a half dollars worth of ammonium nitrate ends up sitting in a warehouse on a dock for the better part of a decade without someone taking charge of it and trying to turn it into cash, but that’s more of a general question type of thing.
Maybe people who actually know something could do a Jeopardy thing over in GQ, and answer the questions that should have been asked, and the folks who just want to natter on about current events could continue to hang out in MPSIMS.