The Times reports on the recurring issue of the Catholic takeover of hospitals in the US and the fact that Catholic hospitals both refuse to perform procedures they have a goddy objection to and conceal this fact up front. This by the way is yet another reason to prefer a national health service: the fact that it’s national as opposed to Catholic.

The opening personal story:

After experiencing life-threatening pre-eclampsia during her first two pregnancies, Jennafer Norris decided she could not risk getting pregnant again. But several years later, suffering debilitating headaches and soaring blood pressure, she realized her I.U.D. had failed. She was pregnant, and the condition had returned.

At 30 weeks, with her health deteriorating, she was

But also in the Atlantic is Franklin Foer’s cover story on how Trump radicalized ICE. He starts with people fleeing murderous violence in Mauritania:

The country is ruled by Arabs, but these refugees were members of a black subpopulation that speaks its own languages. In 1989, in a fit of nationalism, the Mauritanian government came to consider these differences capital offenses. It arrested, tortured, and violently expelled many black citizens. The country forcibly displaced more than 70,000 of them and rescinded their citizenship. Those who remained behind fared no better. Approximately 43,000 black Mauritanians are now enslaved—by percentage, one of the largest enslaved populations in the world.

I didn’t know about that. I’m horrified that I didn’t know about … Read the rest

Where does this bias come from?

Two scientists have launched a campaign to get a copy of a book that debunks accepted scientific “facts” about women into every state school in the UK.

The physicist Jess Wade, best known as “chief troublemaker at Imperial College London”, and Claire Murray, a chemist and beamline scientist at a UKsynchrotron, are raising funds to buy copies of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Science That’s Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini. The actor Daniel Radcliffe has described it as one of his favourite books.

The pair are hoping to raise £15,000 via a crowdfunding campaign in an effort to encourage more girls and young women to educate themselves

Conspiracy theories meet arson and a friendship is born.

Southern California’s Holy Fire, sparked on Monday, has already scorched more than 18,000 acres as of Friday morning and forced over 20,000 residents to flee.

Now, authorities have identified the man suspected of igniting the massive blaze.

On Wednesday, local officials arrested 51-year-old Forrest Gordon Clark, charging him with two counts of felony arson, as well as another felony charge of threatening to terrorize.

…

A glimpse through his social media presence also offers a clue into the world of conspiracy in which Clark, who claimed he could read minds, lived.

JJ MacNab, who covers anti-government extremism for Forbes, first identified Clark’s Facebook profile. A quick skim reveals just how

I saw a lot of uproar yesterday about Boris Johnson’s column dissing the burqa, and now he’s being “investigated” over it.

Former British foreign secretary Boris Johnson will face an internal investigation over complaints that he violated the ruling Conservative Party’s code of conduct when he wrote in a newspaper column last week that women in burqas resemble “bank robbers” and “letter boxes.”

…

His most recent column noted his opposition to a new ban on face veils in Denmark but veered away to critique traditional Islamic garb, calling niqabs and burqas “oppressive and ridiculous.”

Well guess what, they are oppressive and ridiculous. That’s not to say Tory provocateurs need to insult powerless women for wearing them, but let’s … Read the rest

Space Force all the way!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2018

… Read the rest

Michelle Bachelet will be the next UN high commissioner for human rights.

Ms. Bachelet, 66, who was imprisoned and tortured during Chile’s right-wing dictatorship and years later became a pediatrician and politician, will be stepping into a particularly difficult and contentious role at the 193-member organization.

The Times tried to talk to her but she hasn’t gotten back to them yet.

The change comes as the Trump administration has taken an increasingly dim view of human rights diplomacy at the United Nations. The administration withdrew from the Human Rights Council in June, partly over the frequent criticism of Israel and other actions that the administration described as two-faced.

After Mr. al-Hussein’s office criticized the White House over the practice

Good. The LA Times:

A federal judge in Washington halted an apparent deportation-in-progress Thursday and threatened to hold Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions in contempt after learning that the Trump administration tried to remove a woman and her daughter while a court hearing appealing their deportations was underway.

“This is pretty outrageous,” said U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan after being told about the removal. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”

“I’m not happy about this at all,” the judge continued. “This is not acceptable.”

The woman, known in court papers as Carmen, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil

Meanwhile, Trump and Pence are sweating with excitement at their big plans to put SOJERS in SPASE.

The creation of a new branch of the military — the first since the Air Force was created in the wake of World War II in 1947 — could require a significant reorganization of the Pentagon. Some officials within the military and national security communities fiercely oppose the idea. The Air Force in particular might lose key responsibilities. The proposal would also need congressional approval.

Also it would be a little pricey, but hey, they can just get rid of Medicare and Social Security and bob’s your uncle.

White House officials have been working with national security leaders to aggressively move ahead

Saudi Arabia likes executing people even more than the US does.

The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, a human-rights group, said 146 people were executed in 2017, slightly lower than 154 in 2016. “Such a level of executions has not been witnessed since the mid 1990s,” the group said in a report released this week. The group said that as of April 2018, Saudi authorities had executed 47 people and were on pace to meet last year’s figure. Dozens more, it said, continue to face the death penalty, including some under the age of 18.

That’s out of a population of 32 million, so a tenth of ours in the US. We executed 23 people last year, 20 … Read the rest

What’s Prince Jared been up to? Trying to make sure Palestinian refugees starve and die.

Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, has quietly been trying to do away with the U.N. relief agency that has provided food and essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees for decades, according to internal emails obtained by Foreign Policy.

His initiative is part of a broader push by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress to strip these Palestinians of their refugee status in the region and take their issue off the table in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to both American and Palestinian officials. At least two bills now making their way through Congress

Arizona State finds that Krauss did it.

An investigation by Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe concluded this week that high-profile astrophysicist and atheist Lawrence Krauss violated the university’s sexual harassment policy by grabbing a woman’s breast at a conference in Australia in late 2016.

“Responsive action is being taken to prevent any further recurrence of similar conduct,” ASU’s executive vice president and provost, Mark Searle, wrote in a 31 July letter to Melanie Thomson, a microbiologist based in Ocean Grove, Australia, who is an outspoken advocate for women in science. Thomson, who witnessed the breast-grabbing incident, received the investigative reportfrom ASU’s Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) and shared it with Science.

In response to an

A highly interesting interview with the actor Kathleen Turner, who – surprise! – has a lot to say about attitudes to and behavior towards women.

I randomly caught Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? on TV the other night and it made me wonder if you’d watched Elizabeth Taylor’s performance before you played Martha?

God, no. Quite the opposite. For a while I felt like half my life was making her wrongs right.

Sorry, Elizabeth Taylor’s?

Yes. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — you ever listen to her voice? It’s awful.

But you’ve got one of the all-time great voices. Maybe that makes you a tough critic.

No. She has a bad voice, badly used. In any case, people

A piece of a Fresh Air interview yesterday that struck me as odd. The interview is with David Kirkpatrick,  the New York Times Cairo bureau chief from 2011 to 2015.

GROSS: So you’re living in London now, still working for The New York Times. And I’m wondering, like, if you think the lens through which you’re seeing London has been affected from your years in Cairo.

KIRKPATRICK: My time in Cairo and covering the Arab Spring has made me much more sensitive than I was previously to what I guess I should just call anti-Muslim bigotry. I find that when I move in sophisticated liberal circles in the U.S. or the U.K., the only group that you can make sort

Oh good, more women getoutery.

His appointment is the first of its kind in British history. No other mayor has hired an LGBT adviser to help tackle problems facing the community — despite the Labour party itself having an LGBT advisory panel. But yesterday, it was announced that Carl Austin-Behan would serve as the first LGBT adviser to Andy Burnham, the directly elected Labour mayor of Greater Manchester.

Hmmmm. Wait. He’s a guy. How can he tackle (all) the problems facing Ls? Which “community” is “the community” here? Gay men remain men, and lesbians remain women, and having men speak for women isn’t always an ideal arrangement.

Just hours before Burnham unveiled this new role, which comes with its