More than half of Chicago's Roman Catholic parishes have had a priest accused of sexually abusing a child working there at some point, according to a study released today that was quickly questioned by the Chicago Archdiocese.
In some cases, multiple priests accused of misconduct worked at the same church, according to the study, conducted by reform groups Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Study: More than half of Chicago parishes had priest accused of abuse
Helen Thomas: You cannot criticize Israel in the U.S. and survive
Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has acknowledged she touched a nerve with remarks about Israel that led to her retirement. But she says the comments were "exactly what I thought," even though she realized soon afterward that it was the end of her job.
"I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive," Thomas told Ohio station WMRN-AM in a sometimes emotional 35-minute interview that aired Tuesday. It was recorded a week earlier by WMRN reporter Scott Spears at Thomas' Washington, D.C., condominium.
Spying and lying about the left
The US peace group "Peace of the Action" has discovered documents showing that it and many other organisations have been under surveillance for many months by a private agency called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR).
Founded by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, Peace of the Action has focused on opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by pressuring legislators and organising demonstrations and civil disobedience actions at visible places around Washington DC.
Commentary: Incarceration's impact on society is shameful
The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with 2.3 million Americans behind bars, a 300 percent increase since 1980, the report states. This country has more inmates than the top 35 European countries combined.
While the costs of housing prisoners -- $50 billion annually for state correctional costs alone -- should be enough to cause us to rethink our way of doing things, the overall societal and human costs should be even more convincing.
Brazil eyes microchips in trees for forest management

With a hand-held device, forestry engineer Paulo Borges pulls up the tree's vital statistics from the chip -- a 14-meter-high (46-foot) tree known as a "mandiocao" cut down in Mato Grosso state, the southern edge of the Amazon where the forest has largely been cleared to create farmland.
First Patient Treated With Embryonic Stem Cells
The first person treated with embryonic stem cells is an Atlanta patient paralyzed by a recent spine injury. The Geron Corp. GRNOPC1 stem cells come from embryos left over after in vitro fertilization and donated by the parents. The FDA approved the study in early 2009.
The clinical trial is a first step toward an eventual cure for paralysis, says study leader Richard Fessler, MD, PhD, professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
How the right-wing media and Glenn Beck's chalkboard drove Byron Williams to plot assassination
Byron Williams, a 45-year-old ex-felon, exploded onto the national stage in the early morning hours of July 18. According to a police investigation, Williams opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him on an Oakland freeway for driving erratically.
For 12 frantic minutes, Williams traded shots with the police, employing three firearms and a small arsenal of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds fired from a .308-caliber rifle.
When the smoke cleared, Williams surrendered; the ballistic body armor he was wearing had saved his life. Miraculously, only two of the 10 CHP officers involved in the shootout were injured.
Banned in Europe for Causing 83,000 Heart Attacks - Are You Taking it?
A September 23, 2010 article in the New England Journal of Medicine announced that, finally, the FDA has stepped forward and decided on regulatory action for Avandia, a diabetes drug that last year claimed 1,354 lives as a result of cardiac-associated problems.
Under the ruling, the drug will be available to patients not already taking it only if they are unable to achieve glycemic control using other medications and, in consultation with their health care professional, decide not to take a different drug for medical reasons.
Bee Mystery Unsolved? Lead Investigator Had Connections to Pesticide Maker
Yesterday's New York Times featured a heartwarming ending to the years-long murder mystery of what was causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among honeybees. Experts suspected pesticides or genetically modified foods, but the article reported that the University of Montana's Bee Alert Team, working alongside the Army, found the cause: the combined effects of a virus and fungus. Data sharing! Chance discoveries! Honeybees live on to sting another day! But according to Fortune, there were a couple of details left out of the front-page story. The team's lead investigator, Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, may have previously dropped out of testifying in a class-action lawsuit after he received a significant research grant from the pharmaceutical giant Bayer. For years, beekeepers have tried to pursue legal action against Bayer Crop Science over their pesticides, in particular a type of neurotoxin that gets rids of insects by attacking their nervous systems. The beekeepers allege that the pesticides disoriented and killed their hives. One of the markers of CCD is a bee's tendency to fly off in a random direction before it dies.
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