Iran Insists US Must Meet Stringent List Of Demands Before Hormuz Opens

Austrian Hotel Defends Burkini Pool Ban As Hygiene Dispute With Muslim Guests Heads To Court Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, A hotel in the Austrian city of Salzburg is defending its refusal to allow two women to use its pool while wearing burkinis, arguing that the decision was based on hygiene concerns rather than discrimination. The case is now before the Salzburg Administrative Court after the operators of the hotel in Pongau appealed fines imposed by the district authority, according to Salzburger Nachrichten. Boshra and Jasmina Amasha, two sisters from Upper Austria,...

NY Times Suggests Babies Are Not Conscious Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, The New York Times has decided the open question in science this week is whether a baby is conscious. Not a cluster of cells. Not a theoretical model. An actual newborn baby. Carl Zimmer's 5 October piece, "Are Babies Conscious?" (yes that's a real headline) walks readers through a lab test and then informs them that a "squirming, gurgling infant" does not seem conscious, "at least not in the way adults are." Zimmer's setup is the oddball-sound test. A...