Devastating images showing the complete destruction of coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef have been obtained by Guardian Australia and illustrate what is happening to coral there that would fill an area the size of Scotland.
They reveal the rapid death of coral impacting much of the Great Barrier Reef, with estimates that as much as half of the coral in the northern third of the 2000km reef had this fate. Source
Some burgers that you’ve eaten might not be what you think they are.
A new report reveals that more than one in ten burger brands across the US contains pathogens, unexpected ingredients, and other contaminants — including rat DNA. Source
Say goodbye to El Niño, and hello to its less popular sibling, La Niña.
Tropical Pacific Ocean waters are cooling rapidly after record warmth during much of 2015 and 2016 so far, signaling an impending shift.
A new climate outlook released on Thursday puts the odds of a La Niña event developing in the tropical Pacific Ocean at 75 percent by the September through November period of this year. Forecasters’ confidence in a developing La Niña event is high enough that the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has issued a “La Niña watch.” Source
A victim of childhood sex abuse was allowed to end her life under Dutch euthanasia laws after doctors and psychiatrists concluded that the woman’s post-traumatic stress disorder and physical health were incurable. The death of the Dutch woman in her 20s has fuelled the ongoing debate on the ethics of euthanasia in Britain, with some MPs arguing that allowing a victim of sex abuse to die is equivalent to punishing the victim.
The details of the case were documented by the Dutch Euthanasia Commission, which revealed that the woman began to suffer from mental disorders about 15 years ago. She was suffering from severe anorexia, chronic depression, suicidal mood swings, tendencies to self-harm, hallucinations, obsessions and compulsions. She was also almost entirely bedridden, according to a report. Source
“Gay” activists won a huge concession in Italy as parliamentary leaders, following a fiercely contested legislative fight that lasted years, gave their thumbs-up to a measure allowing civil unions for homosexuals.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called a conference to press the final bill into law, bringing an end to Italy’s status as the last major country in the West to refuse to legally recognize “gay” unions, Reuters reported. Source
A federal appeals court has reinstated a constitutional violations damage lawsuit against several police officers who handcuffed a Waynesboro, Virginia, man and locked him up in a mental health facility for nearly week for having a chronic disease similar to multiple sclerosis.
They believed he was hallucinating, and, according to the newest ruling in the case, from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, didn’t bother with the facts.
“The facts as alleged in the complaint … provided no reasonable basis for the officers to have concluded that [Gordon] Goines was a danger to himself or others. Goines alleged that he went to the police ‘because he did not know how the neighbor would react’ to a confrontation with Goines and ‘he did not want to ‘get in a fight’ with the neighbor,” the 4th Circuit panel’s opinion said Tuesday. Source
The American Family Association’s leadership hand-delivered a petition with more than one million names to Target executives, demanding it overturn its “unsafe bathroom policy” and make transgenders use the restroom facilities that correspond to their birth sex.
The AFA also said in a release its leadership was also able to meet briefly with Target’s management and express concerns about the retailer’s new bathroom policy that lets store staffers and customers use whatever bathroom they choose, based on whichever gender they feel they identify with best, at the time. Source
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is firing back at the Obama administration for what he says is the federal government trying to make states conform to its cultural agenda, threatening “extortion” to compel his state to abandon its new public accommodation law and comparing the debate over transgender access to the civil rights movement.
The debate expanded in two major ways this week after Gov. Pat McCrory rejected the Obama administration’s assertion that North Carolina was in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. McCrory also announced he was asking the federal courts to define what is meant by the discrimination based on sex in the law. The same day, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the Justice Department was bringing action against the state for denying civil rights to transgenders by requiring them to use facilities based on their sex at birth. Source
The shocking, and seemingly irreversible, destruction of the US honeybee population took a huge hit in the past year, with 44 percent of all hives collapsing between April 2015 and April 2016.This was the second worst year for colony losses since the “Beepocolypse” started a decade ago, according to The Bee Informed Partnership, the collaboration between the US Department of Agriculture, research labs, and universities that is tracking the alarming numbers. Source
In his new exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis reaffirms the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, stating, “every sign of unjust discrimination is to be carefully avoided.“ Yet, such teachings don’t seem to be applied consistently throughout the Catholic Church…
It should be noted that while a Cardinal in Argentina in 2010, Pope Francis privately signaled openness to civil unions for LGBT couples as a compromise to legalizing same-sex marriage. It was said that Francis held this stance because he thought Argentina wasn’t ready for a same-sex marriage law.
In Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis states, “It can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.” Source