ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 181

Want to Buy a Ticket to the Space Station? NASA Says Soon You Can

By Kenneth Chang Becoming a NASA astronaut is far harder than getting into Harvard — of the thousands of hopeful spacewalkers who apply, NASA accepts only a handful. But now ordinary people — at least those with tens of millions of dollars to spend — can go to space. NASA announced on Friday that for …

Longtime Linden minister used oral sex in exorcism ritual, men claim

By Nick Muscavage A Presbyterian minister, who said he was following the Bible, used Native American exorcism rituals, gemstones and even oral sex to extract “evil spirits” from men undergoing crises in their lives, the church and men claim. The so-called healing acts, which date to 1999, were allegedly performed by the Rev. Dr. William …

Mexican Pentecostal church says leader is innocent, denies sex crimes charges

By Aysha Khan Mexico’s largest evangelical church, La Luz del Mundo, is defending its leader, despite his arrest on sex crime charges. The church has denied all charges against Naasón Joaquín García, known by church members as the “The Apostle of Jesus Christ,” in a statement. Church leaders say they are confident Garcia’s innocence will …

DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians

By the University of Cambridge Two children’s milk teeth buried deep in a remote archaeological site in north eastern Siberia have revealed a previously unknown group of people lived there during the last Ice Age. The finding was part of a wider study which also discovered 10,000 year-old human remains in another site in Siberia …

Trump administration halts fetal-tissue research by government scientists

By Sara Reardon US President Donald Trump’s administration is ending fetal-tissue research by government scientists and placing restrictions on academic researchers seeking grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for studies involving fetal tissue. The administration said on 5 June that it will set up an ethics-review board to evaluate NIH grant applications that …

Alabama’s Bible-in-School Bill Would Break the Law Before Classes Even Begin

By Hemant Mehta Like several other Republican-dominated states using the Project Blitz playbook, Alabama is on the verge of passing a “Bible literacy” bill. In theory, these classes would be fine since they’re intended to teach the Bible in an objective way — it’s hard to understand literary allusions, for example, without a basic understanding …

W.Va. bishop gave powerful cardinals and other priests $350,000 in cash gifts before his ouster, church records show

By Michelle Boorstein, Shawn Boburg, and Robert O’Harrow Jr. In the years before he was ousted for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses, the leader of the Catholic Church in West Virginia gave cash gifts totaling $350,000 to fellow clergymen, including young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals in …

Venus is Earth’s evil twin — and space agencies can no longer resist its pull

By Shannon Hall The helicopter fell like a stone. It dropped by more than 1,500 metres over Maryland, twisting slightly as the ground grew rapidly closer. Although this was all according to plan, that didn’t settle James Garvin’s nerves. Nor did the realization that his seat belt wasn’t fully fastened — a moment that sent …

Alabama Mayor Mark Chambers Calls For Killing LGBT People In Facebook Post

By Michael Stone Bible Belt Terrorist: Mark Chambers, the mayor of Carbon Hill, Alabama, is in hot water after calling for the killing of LGBT people and others in a public Facebook post. Chambers, a “pro-life” conservative Christian, originally tried to deny that he had made a Facebook post calling for the “killing” of LGBT …

The Catholic Church Paid Lobbyists Millions to Block More Sex Abuse Lawsuits

By Hemant Mehta So that’s where the congregation’s money is going. According to a new study titled “Church Influencing State: How the Catholic Church Spent Millions Against Survivors of Clergy Abuse,” between 2011 and 2018, the U.S. Catholic Church spent more than $10 million on lobbyists to fight against legislation that would have allowed victims of pedophile priests to sue the …