A California teen with dreams of reaching the highest rank in the Boy Scouting division has been denied the honor because he’s gay, his mom says. Ryan Andresen, 17, says his scoutmaster knew about his sexuality all along, but the crushing news didn’t come until after he had completed the requirements for becoming an Eagle Scout.
“It was by far the biggest goal of my life,” Andresen told Yahoo News. “It’s totally devastating.”
Rainer Del Valle, the scoutmaster for Troop 212 in Moraga, Calif., let Andresen believe he’d get the rank, the teen says.
Teen Boy Scout denied Eagle rank because he’s gay
Government Sprayed Radioactive Chemicals on Poor People in Science Experiment, Study Claims
The U.S. government may have used a densely-populated swath of low-income housing projects in St. Louis as its radioactive chemical testing ground through the 1950s and 1960s, according to a new study.
The research, undertaken by sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor, claims that the government sprayed African American sections of St. Louis with radioactive particles as part of its biological weapons program.
Fast and Furious whistleblower demands 'Fortune' retract story
John Dodson, the Special Agent who blew the whistle on the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal, is calling on Fortune Magazine to retract its landmark article asserting that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives "never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels."
In a letter addressed to Fortune managing editor Andrew Serwer yesterday, obtained by POLITICO, Dodson's lawyer called reporter Katherine Eban's article "demonstrably false in many respects" when compared to a report from the Justice Department Inspector General released earlier this month, and said "a retraction is in order to correct the record."
Catholic Church in Australia reveals 620 sex abuse cases
The Catholic Church in one Australian state has revealed that at least 620 children have been abused by its clergy since the 1930s, sparking a fresh call Saturday for an independent inquiry.
The Catholic Church in Victoria revealed the number in a submission to a state parliamentary hearing on Friday but said the instances of abuse reported had fallen dramatically from the “appalling” numbers of the 1960s and 1970s.
Was Jesus married? New papyrus fragment fuels debate
A previously unknown scrap of ancient papyrus written in ancient Egyptian Coptic includes the words "Jesus said to them, my wife," -- a discovery likely to renew a fierce debate in the Christian world over whether Jesus was married.
The existence of the fourth-century fragment -- not much bigger than a business card -- was revealed at a conference in Rome on Tuesday by Karen King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim," King said in a statement released by Harvard.
Dave Camp, Orrin Hatch tell New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to back off
The top Republican tax writers are calling on the New York attorney general to cease an investigation into the secret financial records of close to two dozen tax-exempt groups that have been funneling millions of dollars into this year’s election.
Rep. Dave Camp, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter released Monday that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s attempts to obtain tax information directly from these groups violates federal privacy laws.
Video shows Libyans helping rescue US ambassador after attack
An amateur video appears to show Libyans trying to rescue U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens from a room filled with smoke at the U.S. mission where he was found unconscious after last week's attack by a mob protesting against a film that denigrates the Prophet Mohammad.
The video, which appeared on the internet and a copy of which was obtained by Reuters in Benghazi, confirms reports that suggested the U.S. envoy died of asphyxiation after the building caught fire.
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