One of the key means by which conservative religion propagates.
John Stewart famously said, "Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."

The painful irony of Stewart's words is obvious to us all. What may be less obvious is the underlying pattern: Offering solutions to problems that religion itself has created is one of the key means by which religion propagates. The Pope's recent limited-time offer of confession and forgiveness for women who have aborted pregnancies perfectly illustrates this pattern.

The Reality of Women's Lives

Few women end a pregnancy on a selfish whim. All around us—all around you—are women (or couples) who have chosen to end pregnancies for reasons that are prudent, compassionate, service-oriented, or self-aware. Sometimes the reason is simply, "I can't do this right now," or "I don't want to, and children should be wanted." Sometimes a woman commits to an education, or to take one step forward out of poverty, or to join the military, or simply to devote her finite energy to the children she already has or to her community or our world. Under most circumstances, these are kinds of decisions that we honor, even if they are difficult and require letting go of one possible future to embrace another.

But choosing to carry forward a new life—or not—is one of the most momentous decisions a person can make, and inevitably some people regret it, just as some people regret smaller decisions like the choice of a college or career or spouse. Each of us is far more likely to feel regretful or even eaten-up about a decision we have made if it violates our own values or if people around us say that it should. And when it comes to parenthood decisions, that creates an opening for religion to create (or at least feed) a problem it can solve.

Turning Prudence into Sin

The Bible teaches that sin came into the world through woman, that a woman's reproductive capacity belongs to man (her father "gives her" to a husband), and that women will be saved through childbearing. Biblical literalists who have internalized this view actively work to induce shame and guilt in women who end pregnancies, because a woman actively managing her fertility and her life fundamentally violates their worldview.

In response to a Fourth Amendment lawsuit filed by attorneys for The Rutherford Institute, government officials insist they had "probable cause" to arrest a 37-year-old disabled man, allegedly because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait. Gordon Goines, a resident of Waynesboro, Va., who suffers from a neurological condition similar to multiple sclerosis, was then strip searched by police, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having "mental health issues," and subsequently locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will and with no access to family and friends.

Disputing the assertions of the Valley Community Services Board (VCSB), one of its mental health screeners and three police officers, Rutherford Institute attorneys have asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate Goines v. Valley Community Services Board, arguing that citizens have a clearly established right to be free from mental health seizures by government officials unless there is compelling evidence justifying seizure.

The US dentist who killed Zimbabwe's Cecil the lion has broken weeks of silence, saying in an interview that he had no idea it was a special feline and announcing he would return to work after lying low.

In his first interview since sparking international outrage over the killing of the black-maned lion, Walter Palmer told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he would be back at his dentistry practice on Tuesday.

The skilled trophy hunter said that he and the others in his party had no clue that the lion they were hunting was the revered feline that has been a well-known attraction at the Hwange National Park, according to the paper.

The 55-year-old also maintained in the interview published late Sunday that the July hunt, during which he was armed with a bow and arrow, was legal.

Palmer declined to say whether he would abide by any request to return to Zimbabwe over legal allegations, and an attorney present for the interview added that there had been "no official allegations that he's done anything wrong."

Zimbabwe has asked the United States to extradite Palmer to face charges over the hunt.

A public outcry has been raised over the plight of a woman who's considering an illegal abortion at 8 months because the child would violate China's restrictive birth policy and would cost her husband his job as a police officer.

Members of the public have been phoning local officials in the couple's Yunnan province community to inquire about the case, and an online travel service reportedly has offered the husband a position if he loses his government job.

The case has rekindled debate over whether employment in the public sector should be used to enforce the policy that limits urban couples to one child in cases where both husband and wife have at least one sibling.

The 41-year-old woman, who spoke on condition that she be identified only by her surname, Chen, said in a telephone interview Monday that the couple felt under pressure to abort their second child to keep her husband's job with local police.

"I'm fearful," Chen said. "If my husband believes I must abort the child, there's nothing I can do."

She also grew uneasy about the public attention her case was drawing. "I am worried he would lose his job even after we lose the baby, if the situation gets messy."

A Texas judge ruled last week that a case against Williamson County could go forward after a job applicant claimed that commissioners had a religious test for constable jobs.

Robert Lloyd explained at a press conference that Williamson County asked about his views on marriage, abortion and religion during a 2013 interview for a job at the Williamson County Precinct 3 Constable's Office.

"I was shocked," Lloyd said, according to KVUE. "I was sick to my stomach when I left because I had never believed that things like this in government would go on."

Video depositions obtained by KVUE show Williamson County Commissioner Lisa Birkman and other commissioners admitting that applicants were asked about abortion and marriage.

The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling. Most, including many of those at the heart of the American empire, recognize that every promise made by the proponents of neoliberalism is a lie. Global wealth, rather than being spread equitably, as neoliberal proponents promised, has been funneled upward into the hands of a rapacious, oligarchic elite, creating vast economic inequality.

The working poor, whose unions and rights have been taken from them and whose wages have stagnated or declined over the past 40 years, have been thrust into chronic poverty and underemployment, making their lives one long, stress-ridden emergency. The middle class is evaporating. Cities that once manufactured products and offered factory jobs are boarded up-wastelands. Prisons are overflowing. Corporations have orchestrated the destruction of trade barriers, allowing them to stash $2.1 trillion in profits in overseas banks to avoid paying taxes. And the neoliberal order, despite its promise to build and spread democracy, has hollowed out democratic systems to turn them into corporate leviathans.

Democracy, especially in the United States, is a farce, vomiting up right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump, who has a chance to become the Republican presidential nominee and perhaps even president, or slick, dishonest corporate stooges such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and, if he follows through on his promise to support the Democratic nominee, even Bernie Sanders. The labels "liberal" and "conservative" are meaningless in the neoliberal order. Political elites, Democrat or Republican, serve the demands of corporations and empire. They are facilitators, along with most of the media and most of academia, of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of "inverted totalitarianism."

Italy's top criminal court said Monday that it threw out the murder convictions of American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend earlier this year because of "glaring errors" and a hit-and-miss hunt for a scapegoat to satisfy public opinion.

The stunning ruling in March — which wasn't explained until Monday's filing was published — marked one more twist in a years-long saga that boomeranged through the Italian criminal justice system, captivated two countries and left Knox and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, to serve four years in jail.

At the center of the case was the brutal 2007 killing of Knox's 21-year-old roommate, Meredith Kercher.

Knox and Sollecito were arrested after Kercher was found dead in a pool of blood in the apartment the two women shared in the university town of Perugia, with as many as 40 knife wounds over her half-naked body.

Prosecutors argued that Kercher was killed as part of a sex game. Knox and Sollecito said they were alone together on the night in question, watching a movie, smoking pot and having sex, but they were convicted of the killing two years later.

30 Practitioners found with amphetamine poisoning at an alternative "Homeopathic Conference"
Depending on the sources it's either called, alternative, holistic or homeopathic, but one thing is clear: the articles state that the people say they took nothing (at least knowingly) that could cause them to become poisoned and so ill they are falling over. As you can see above ambulances and even one helicopter had to be sent out.

From the article:

Authorities say emergency workers called to a conference center in northern Germany found some 30 practioners staggering and suffering from cramps, apparently as a result of amphetamine poisoning.

The local government said 15 ambulances and a helicopter were sent to the scene Friday in the small town of Handeloh, south of Hamburg, the dpa news agency reported.

Fire service spokesman Matthias Koehlbrandt told broadcaster NDR the group was aged between 25 and 55. NDR reported they were alternative and homeopathic practitioners, and that they were taken to the hospital.

Authorities said their preliminary finding was that the group was poisoned with amphetamines, but Koehlbrandt said they didn't knowingly take the substance.

Protesters have set up tents outside the government building in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, following a demonstration that attracted up to 100,000 people. The opposition say they will stay until the resignation of the government and a crippling $1 billion bank scam is prosecuted.

"Today everything changes," Vasily Nastase, one of the leaders of Dignity and Truth, the broad non-party movement that organized the protest, told the crowd. "We will not leave here with our demands unmet. We will create a political alternative of uncorrupt professionals to give people a choice at the next election. Today, we will demand the resignation of president Nicolae Timofti, because he is not the true president of Moldova."
Organizers said that up to 100,000 people in a country which has a population of just over three million flooded the streets of Chisinau - the biggest demonstration since Moldova seceded from the Soviet Union. Many chanted "Shame!" and"Thieves!" The authorities estimated the number of protesters to stand at 40,000.

While most of the demonstrators have been markedly peaceful, scuffles broke out at an offshoot picket outside the prosecutor's office, as several protesters broke through a thin police cordon. Police say they have arrested a number of men concealing chains and other potential weapons in their backpacks.

The remains are thought to belong to a child aged between two and four as police search through missing persons cases.

A child's feet, hands and head were found in a lagoon in Chicago. The head and other body parts of a young child have been discovered in a lagoon in a west Chicago park.

A search was launched at Garfield Park after someone reported seeing an object floating in the water at the lagoon on Saturday afternoon. Detectives discovered the badly decomposed remains, which also included hands and feet, as investigators searched through the waist-high water over the weekend. Part of Garfield Park has been closed off during the search

Police said on Sunday that officers had found additional body parts, but did not release any further details. The Chicago Sun Times reported that a child's head had been found. A 20lb weight was also found nearby, authorities said. Jason Ervin, alderman for the district, said investigators had told him the victim was likely aged between two and four and said there was no indication the remains were from more than one child.