ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 114

William Barr: There’s a “Militant Secular Effort” to Suppress Religion

By Hemant Mehta During an interview with New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan yesterday, Attorney General William Barr did what he does best: lie. He claimed that there was a “militant secular effort” to suppress religion, despite failing to define whatever “militant” secularism means. “The problem today is not that religious people are trying to impose their views on non-religious people,” …

Telescope captures most detailed pictures yet of the sun

By Hannah Devlin The sun’s turbulent surface has been revealed in unprecedented detail in the first observations by the Inouye solar telescope in Hawaii. The striking images reveal a surprising level of structure hidden within the churning plasma exterior, bringing a previously hazy impression of the sun’s patchwork surface sharply into focus for the first …

How did the last Neanderthals live?

By Melissa Hogenboom Forty thousand years ago in Europe, we were not the only human species alive – there were at least three others. Many of us are familiar with one of these, the Neanderthals. Distinguished by their stocky frames and heavy brows, they were remarkably like us and lived in many pockets of Europe …

Catholic Leaders Promised Transparency About Child Abuse. They Haven’t Delivered.

By Lexi Churchill, Ellis Simani, and Topher Sanders It took 40 years and three bouts of cancer for Larry Giacalone to report his claim of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a Boston priest named Richard Donahue. Giacalone sued Donahue in 2017, alleging the priest molested him in 1976, when Giacalone was 12 and …

Liberty University’s Falwell throws support behind ‘Vexit’

By Jack Jenkins Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, has voiced his support for efforts to allow counties in Virginia unhappy with the state’s Democrat-controlled Legislature to join West Virginia. Standing alongside West Virginia’s Gov. Jim Justice in a roomful of whirring robotic factory machinery at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College in Martinsburg, …

Documents Show Government Funding of Anti-Choice Clinics a ‘Futile Project’

By Erin Heger Newly released federal grant applications for the Obria Group, a California-based anti-choice organization operating clinics nationally, show an inefficient distribution of Title X funds, including high patient costs and a six-figure salary for its medical director. The Obria Group, which operates 48 anti-choice clinics, or crisis pregnancy centers was awarded up to $5.1 …

The hottest exoplanet’s atmosphere is melting before our eyes

By Brandon Specktor When planning your next interstellar vacation, avoid planet KELT-9b. This hot Jupiter (so named because it is roughly three times the size of that planet and extremely hot) orbits its sun so closely that a year there lasts just one-and-a-half Earth days. Not only will your trip be over in a flash, …

Florida Vouchers Channel Millions to Anti-LGBTQ Religious Schools

By Trudy Ring A state-funded voucher program in Florida that helps students attend private schools sent $129 million to schools with anti-LGBTQ policies last year alone, an Orlando Sentinel investigation has found. The money went to pay tuition for 20,800 students at 156 private Christian schools with homophobic or transphobic stances, and “that means at least 14 …

Dozens of anti-LGBTQ state bills already proposed in 2020, advocates warn

By Julie Moreau Like most high school students, Aerin Geary does not typically pay attention to state legislation. However, the South Dakota teenager has been closely following House Bill 1057, a Republican proposal that would make it a felony for medical professionals to provide transgender health care to minors. “This bill makes me feel scared, since this …

Catholic church attempts to stop one of its own priests from suing it for child abuse

By Christopher Knaus The Catholic church is attempting to stop one of its own priests from suing it for child abuse because he took too long to come forward, prompting criticism that it has learned nothing from the royal commission. The Lismore diocese plans to seek a permanent stay in the New South Wales supreme …