ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 67

Supreme Court sides with Catholic schools in employment suit

By Jessica Gresko The Supreme Court sided with two Catholic schools in a ruling Wednesday underscoring that certain employees of religious schools, hospitals and social service centers can’t sue for employment discrimination. The high court’s ruling was 7-2, with two liberal justices joining the conservative majority for the schools. The justices had previously said in …

Supreme Court says employers may opt out of Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate over religious, moral objections

By Robert Barnes The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration may allow employers and universities to opt out of the Affordable Care Act requirement to provide contraceptive care because of religious or moral objections. The issue has been at the heart of an intense legal battle for nine years, first with the Obama …

Churches Were Eager to Reopen. Now They Are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases.

By Kate Conger, Jack Healy and Lucy Tompkins Weeks after President Trump demanded that America’s shuttered houses of worship be allowed to reopen, new outbreaks of the coronavirus are surging through churches across the country where services have resumed. The virus has infiltrated Sunday sermons, meetings of ministers and Christian youth camps in Colorado and …

‘I accept full responsibility:’ Calvary Chapel pastor talks church’s COVID-19 outbreak

By Amanda Henderson Calvary Chapel San Antonio’s Pastor said he is heartbroken after a COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in dozens of positive cases. “Immediately we shut down the church to get everyone through a quarantine period,” said Ron Arbaugh, Pastor of Calvary Chapel. Arbaugh said if he could go back to when they reopened he …

Supreme Court hands victory to school voucher lobby – will religious minorities, nonbelievers and state autonomy lose out?

By Frank S. Ravitch The Supreme Court’s recent decision that Montana cannot exclude donations that go to religious schools from a small tax credit program could have consequences felt far beyond the state. The 5-4 ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which came down June 30, follows on from recent cases that have expanded what counts …

The U.S. Government Gave Nearly $10 Billion in Forgivable Loans to Churches

By Hemant Mehta A few months ago, when the seriousness of the pandemic was finally making itself known, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act allowing businesses to borrow money from the U.S. government in order to cover costs (including salaries) during the pandemic without having to repay those loans at a later …

Six months of coronavirus: the mysteries scientists are still racing to solve

By Ewen Callaway, Heidi Ledford, & Smriti Mallapaty In late December 2019, reports emerged of a mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million people in the southeastern province of Hubei. The cause, Chinese scientists quickly determined, was a new coronavirus distantly related to the SARS virus that had emerged in China in …

Some question replacing Mississippi’s Confederate symbol with ‘In God We Trust’

By Jack Jenkins The Rev. Isiac Jackson Jr. was one of many Mississippi residents who took it as a spiritual victory when the state’s lawmakers voted Sunday (June 28) to remove the Confederate symbol from the state’s flag. “God answers prayer,” said Jackson, president of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention. “He may not come …

DOJ backs Kentucky photographer who won’t do gay weddings

By Brooke Sopelsa The Department of Justice is backing a Kentucky wedding photographer who is suing the city of Louisville over an ordinance banning local businesses from discriminating against gay customers. The DOJ’s “statement of interest,” filed this week in federal court, asserts that the photographer, Chelsey Nelson, is likely to succeed in her claim, …

How a hidden ocean circulates beneath the Antarctic ice

By Craig Stevens and Christina Hulbe Jules Verne sent his fictional submarine, the Nautilus, to the South Pole through a hidden ocean beneath a thick ice cap. Written 40 years before any explorer had reached the pole, his story was nevertheless only half fiction. There are indeed hidden ocean cavities around Antarctica, and our latest research explores …