ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 123

Hundreds of accused clergy left off church’s sex abuse lists

By Claudia Lauer and Meghan Hoyer Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to …

Shooting at Texas Church Leaves 2 Parishioners Dead, Officials Say

By Patrick McGee and Mihir Zaveri A gunman opened fire at a church in Texas on Sunday morning, killing two people with a shotgun before a member of the church’s volunteer security team fatally shot him, the authorities said. About 250 people were inside the auditorium of the West Freeway Church of Christ in White …

Christian Man Stabs Five Hasidic Jews As They Celebrate Hanukkah

By David G. McAfee A Christian man brought a machete to a rabbi’s house in New York and stabbed five people as they celebrated the seventh night of Hanukkah. His pastor has already defended him in court. Grafton Thomas was found with a bloody machete in his car, and blood and bleach on his clothes, after …

Trump’s Anti-Abortion and Anti-Immigration Policies May Share a Goal

By Reva Siegel AND Duncan Hosie As a candidate, Donald Trump promised to restrict abortion and immigration. As President, he has delivered on these promises. He has stacked the federal bench with conservative judges hostile to reproductive rights. He has emboldened states to pass strict abortion laws. Simultaneously, he has initiated sweeping changes to American immigration law and demonized immigrants. In the …

Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work

By Brad Plumer and Coral Davenport In just three years, the Trump administration has diminished the role of science in federal policymaking while halting or disrupting research projects nationwide, marking a transformation of the federal government whose effects, experts say, could reverberate for years. Political appointees have shut down government studies, reduced the influence of …

Waiting for Betelgeuse: What’s Up with the Tempestuous Star?

By David Dickinson Have you noticed that Orion the Hunter—one of the most iconic and familiar of the wintertime constellations—is looking a little… different as of late? The culprit is its upper shoulder star Alpha Orionis, aka Betelgeuse, which is looking markedly faint, the faintest it has been for the 21st century. When will this nearby …

Comedy Group’s Headquarters Nearly Firebombed Over Netflix Show with Gay Jesus

By Hemant Mehta As we posted about earlier this month, Netflix is airing a Portuguese-language satire called The First Temptation of Christ, by the comedy team Porta dos Fundos, in which Jesus is shown in a same-sex relationship. That description alone was enough to generation over a million signatures on a petition and incur the wrath of the …

Rev. Bud Heckman, interfaith leader, reaches settlement in United Methodist Church sexual harassment case

By Julie Zauzmer The Rev. Bud Heckman, who was facing a church trial that was set to be the first prominent #MeToo case in the United Methodist Church, admitted guilt and agreed to retire, the church said Thursday. Heckman was accused by four women, including his ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend and two young women who said …

Disgraced former cardinal McCarrick gave more than $600,000 in church funds to powerful clerics, records show

By Shawn Boburg, Robert O’Harrow Jr., and Chico Harlan Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in church money to powerful Catholic clerics over nearly two decades, according to financial records obtained by The Washington Post, while the Vatican failed to act on claims he had sexually harassed young men. Starting in …

A Young Mississippi Woman’s Journey Through A Pioneering Gene-Editing Experiment

By Rob Stein When Victoria Gray was just 3 months old, her family discovered something was terribly wrong. “My grandma was giving me a bath, and I was crying. So they took me to the emergency room to get me checked out,” Gray says. “That’s when they found out that I was having my first …