Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
WASHINGTON ― House Republicans on Wednesday quietly tried to repeal a major provision in the Violence Against Women Act that helps tribes respond to horrific levels of violence directed at Native American women by non-Native men on tribal lands.
During a House Judiciary Committee markup on the 2019 bill to reauthorize the law, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) offered an amendment to repeal provisions in the 2013 law that give tribes jurisdiction over non-Native people who commit crimes of domestic violence, dating violence or who violate a protection order against a victim on tribal land.
He claimed that non-Native domestic abusers’ constitutional rights might not be upheld if they harm a Native woman on tribal land and have to go before a tribal court. His amendment would have also stripped out new language in the 2019 bill to expand tribes’ jurisdiction over non-Native abusers who commit crimes […]
More Catholics questioning their membership than in 2002- Nonpracticing Catholics most likely to reconsider their religion
- 59% confident in the priests at their church; 58% confident in Pope Francis
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the Catholic church responds to more allegations of sexual abuse of young people by priests, an increasing percentage of Catholics are re-examining their commitment to the religion. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. Catholics, up from 22% in 2002, say news of the abuse has led them to question whether they would remain in the church.
These results are based on interviews with 581 U.S. Catholics who participated in Gallup polls Jan. 21-27 and Feb. 12-28. While the polling was being conducted, Pope Francis met with Catholic leaders from around the world at the Vatican to respond to a new wave of sex abuse allegations in numerous countries. The church dealt with a similar crisis in the U.S. in 2002, the last time Gallup polled about this. That polling came after The Boston Globe reported on widespread abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston area and church leaders’ efforts to […]
Credit: John Keeble/Getty
The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest.”
The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, storm protection and the removal of climate-warming carbon dioxide the atmosphere, they say.
Global warming is gradually increasing the average temperature of the oceans, but the new research is the first systematic global analysis of ocean heatwaves, when temperatures reach extremes for five days or more.
The research found heatwaves are becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe, with the number of heatwave days tripling in the last couple of years studied. In the longer term, the number of heatwave days jumped by more than 50 percent in the 30 years to 2016, compared with the period of 1925 to 1954.
As heatwaves have increased, kelp forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs have been lost. These foundation species are critical to life in the ocean. They provide […]
Havana flood
Cuba has become the latest country to enshrine the fight against climate change in its constitution — provoking a mixed response from the scientific community.
In late February voters approved a new constitution that included amendments directing Cuba to “promote the conservation of the environment and the fight against climate change, which threatens the survival of the human species”. The country joins ten other nations, including Ecuador and Tunisia, that mention “climate” or “climate change” in their constitutions.
Some researchers believe the additions are a positive sign of a growing worldwide impetus to combat extreme weather events. Cuba has already introduced aggressive policies to combat global warming, including a long-term plan to adapt to more destructive hurricanes, extreme droughts and sea level rise.
“It’s very exciting to see what Cuba is doing,” says Carl Bruch, an attorney at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC. “The fact that you’re seeing climate change in the […]
In their latest attempt to roll back abortion access, conservatives have seized on later abortions as a moral outrage. The only problem? New research suggests restrictions on abortion actually push women to get them later in pregnancy.
A new study from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project found that the number of second-trimester abortions in Texas increased after implementation of a restrictive abortion law in 2013—even as the number of abortions overall decreased. On average, patients received abortion care one week later following the implementation of the law.
The finding suggests that restrictions on abortion have the opposite effect of what many conservatives say they want, lead author Kari White told The Daily Beast.
“What we think this study points to is that when you have this layering of [restrictions] that contract the number of services and available providers, that a consequence of that is that women will be having procedures later in pregnancy,” said White, a professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
Later abortions became a point of conservative outrage after two state legislatures introduced bills making the procedure […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
