In February, Pope Francis acknowledged a longstanding dirty secret in the Roman Catholic Church — the sexual abuse of nuns by priests. It's an issue that had long been kept under wraps, but in the #MeToo era, a #NunsToo movement has emerged, and now sexual abuse is more widely discussed. The Vatican's wall of silence was first broken in Women Church World, a supplement of the official Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano. An article in the February issue by editor Lucetta Scaraffia — a history...

The Bernie Sanders who's running for president in 2020 is not the same Bernie Sanders who ran in 2016. Yes, he has many of the same policy positions, and many of his 2016 supporters are enthusiastically backing him again. But the Vermont independent senator is no longer the insurgent taking on a political Goliath with huge name recognition. Now, he is the candidate with high name recognition, taking on candidates who are introducing themselves to the American people again. Not only that, but...

A video of a stranger with a bouquet of roses walking into a New York mosque was shared thousands of times online. "An expression of sympathy for the loss of life in New Zealand," the man said, as he handed over the bouquet. The message was clear: Muslims, you are not alone. That message echoed in vigils and interfaith gatherings across the country over a weekend marred by a tragedy across the world that felt so close to home — an attack on two mosques in New Zealand where at least 50 people...

For 18-year-old high school senior Ellie Rapp of Pittsburgh, the sound of her family chewing their dinner can be ... unbearable. "My heart starts to pound. I go one of two ways. I either start to cry or I just get really intensely angry. It's really intense. I mean, it's as if you're going to die," she says. Rapp has been experiencing this reaction to certain noises since she was a toddler. She recalls a ride home from preschool when her mother turned on the radio and started singing, which...

The death penalty, and whether to repeal it, is likely to be one of the weightiest topics Colorado's legislature will debate this session and advocates believe this is the best chance they've had in years to abolish it. It's on the legislative agenda across the country and California's Gov. Gavin Newsom last week put a moratorium on the death penalty. Democrats, who are pushing for the repeal, hold the majority in the Colorado statehouse. Yet, for Democratic state Sen. Rhonda Fields, the...

In the U.S., older people with dementia are usually told they have Alzheimer's disease. But a range of other brain diseases can also impair thinking and memory and judgment, according to scientists attending a summit on dementias held Thursday and Friday at the National Institutes of Health. These include strokes, a form of Parkinson's disease and a disease that damages brain areas that regulate emotion and behavior. "There's a host of things that can cause loss of cognitive function," says...

Born 100 years ago today, Nat King Cole was one of the most popular and influential entertainers of the 20th century. As an African American ballad singer and jazz musician, he topped the charts year after year, sold more than 50 million records, pushed jazz piano in a new direction and paved the way for later generations of performers. "Nat King Cole's voice is really one of the great gifts of nature," Daniel Mark Epstein, author of the 1999 biography Nat King Cole, says. "Remember, he was...

Nitzia Chama arrived in Los Angeles from Veracruz, Mexico with dreams of becoming an actress. Eight years later, at age 30, she is balancing freelance gigs, running errands with her grandparents and attending health education classes to learn more about diabetes. Chama is the only family her grandparents have in the area and, as their health needs increase, so do Chama's responsibilities. Chama's grandparents are Albano Villa, 83, and María de Jesús Caro Villa, 82. She affectionally called...

The green, serrated leaves of cannabis are something you might expect to see on a college campus — perhaps grown secretly in a dorm, or emblazoned across clothing of students who support marijuana legalization — but certainly not within a college classroom. At the University of Connecticut (UConn), cannabis is taking center stage in the biggest lecture hall on campus. The university is teaching a whole class focused on growing just this one kind of plant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a...

For every sexual assault survivor who speaks out, Laurie Halse Anderson knows there many others remaining silent. "If there was a way for every victim of sexual violence to come forward on one day, I think the world would stop spinning for a day," she says. It's been 20 years since Anderson's groundbreaking novel Speak was published — it tells the story of Melinda, a freshman in high school who stops speaking after a sexual assault. In her new memoir, Shout, Anderson reveals that she was...