Broadly: The Photographer Showing Burkinis in Objective, Abstract Light

However, burkinis are not the sole focus of Burkini. Burkini is a meditation on life in Abu Dhabi from the point of view of an expatriate. "Burkinis were a base, but I was trying to see the big picture. How people live there. It's really important to say that I'm an outsider. I have travelled there many, many times, but I am still an outsider. I didn't grow up in this culture. [Burkini] is just a way of observing. That's an important point, that I'm an outsider."

The closely-shot images are detail-oriented and have a diaristic feel. Many were taken in and around cars or from moving vehicles. "I was also really interested in finding colours and shapes and form. Those were also things that I was looking for in the images," she says. The closeness of the shots allude to a laser-focused abstraction, where fabric floating through water becomes a study in movement, where car windows become frames for distant skyscrapers. "It was very important for me to take the images really close, because one thing I wanted understood was that so... well, the burkini is, in a way, just a fabric. A car is just a car. It was important to photograph them really close—visually really close—just to observe it as it is.

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America Magazine: As church influence wanes, an abortion debate arises in Ireland

Ireland metaphorically barred the door on the church’s influence on public policy when citizens voted overwhelmingly for the legalization of gay marriage in 2015, making it the first country in the world to do so by national referendum. Now  some devout Catholics fear that door may be locked after a Citizens’ Assembly—a deliberative body of people randomly selected from across the country—recently recommended liberal changes to Ireland’s abortion laws. [...]

The Assembly’s recommendations, which are nonbinding: 87 percent of the 100 members voted that the eighth amendment “should not be retained in full,” and 64 percent voted that abortion without restriction should be lawful. [...]

The recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly are just one step toward potential abortion legislation. Debate among politicians may take months. The Assembly’s advice will go to a parliamentary committee made up of a handful of members from each party. If there is a referendum, it will likely take place in early 2018—a referendum that could accelerate the evolution of Irish politics away from the church.

Throughout the relatively short history of the Irish Republic, church and state have governed private, public and spiritual spheres hand in hand. More than 90 percent of national schools are run by a local parish. A twice-daily call to prayer can still be heard on television and radio. And Good Friday remains the holiest of holy days, with a (much-disputed) nationwide ban on the purchase of alcohol.

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Al Jazeera: Profile: Iran's President Hassan Rouhani

He began studying religion at an early age. In the 1960s, he went to religious seminaries and began attending classes taught by prominent Shia scholars. In 1969, he attended the University of Tehran and received his bachelor's degree in judicial law three years later.

In addition to religious studies, he was interested in learning modern sciences, going on to receive a master's degree in public law along with a doctorate at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. [...]

Since the government takeover of the Islamic Revolution, Rouhani has held multiple positions, including Secretary and Representative of the Supreme National Security Council, member of the Assembly of Experts, member of the Expediency Discernment Council, President of the Center for Strategic Research, and multiple roles in Parliament.

After the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August 2005, Rouhani, an outspoken critic of the former president, resigned from his post as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council after having held the job for 16 years. Rouhani also served as Iran's top nuclear negotiator from October 2003 up until his resignation from the SNSC.

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America Magazine: The once officially atheist China is booming with religion

That has not always been true. At the end of the 19th century, there were 1 million temples in China and religion flavored every aspect of public and private life. Mao destroyed half of the country’s temples. Religion—what was left—went underground. [...]

A 2005 survey conducted by a Chinese university found that 31 percent of the population—about 300 million people—are religious. Two-thirds of those are Buddhists, Daoists or members of other folk religions, while 40 million people said they are Christian. [...]

But the boom has its limits. The Chinese government recognizes only five faiths—Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. And it still bans Falun Gong, the suppression of which Johnson reported on for The Wall Street Journal, coverage that earned him a Pulitzer. There are state-run churches led by clergy in the government’s employ who give government-sanctioned sermons. Other houses of worship are monitored—one of the most chilling segments of Johnson’s book describes a Christmas Eve service with government agents watching from the back.

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Vox: How many American atheists are there really?

Pew and Gallup — two of the most reputable polling firms in America — both come to a similar figure. About 10 percent of Americans say they do not believe in God, and this figure has been slowly creeping up over the decades. [...]

First is the Pew Research Center. Most recently, Pew found that around 3 percent of Americans say they are atheists. It also found that a larger group — around 9 percent — say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit. (Which goes to show that you may not believe in God but could still be uncomfortable calling yourself an atheist — because that term implies a strong personal identity and an outright rejection of religious rituals.) Gallup also regularly asks the question point blank — “Do you believe in God?” The last time it asked, in 2016, 10 percent of respondents said no. [...]

Study after study has shown that most people (even other atheists) believe atheists are less moral. “We’ll give participants a little vignette, a story about someone doing something immoral, and probe their intuition about who they think the perpetrator was,” Gervais says. “And time and time again, people intuitively assume whoever is out there doing immoral stuff doesn’t believe in God.” [...]

But in the data, they also find some small evidence that the stigma around atheism is changing. When they break the numbers down by demographics, they find that baby boomer and millennials report similar levels of disbelief (even though traditional polling shows baby boomers are more likely to believe in god). This could be because younger people feel less anxious about their atheism.

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