Irish women ride the rails to protest restrictions on abortion

The Republic of Ireland has strict abortion laws, forbidding the procedure even in cases of rape or if a child will be stillborn. Only with recent reforms have abortions been allowed at all — when a mother's life is in danger from complications or from the risk of suicide. So, in protest, a group of Irish women are taking the train north.

An Irish politican, Ruth Coppinger of the Socialist Party, and 30 others traveled on Tuesday to Belfast in Northern Ireland, part of Great Britain, to pick up abortion pills that are illegal in their country. They planned to return to Dublin, where some were intending to take them in defiance of the prohibition on the pills. Their protest comes on the anniversary of the death of a woman of Indian descent, who died of blood poisoning after she was denied an abortion to remove a fetus that had died.

Coppinger says Irish politicians continue to cite Catholic teachings when supporting restrictions on abortion, in spite of strong popular interest in loosening the laws. According to The Guardian, the train ride to Belfast was modeled on a protest in the 1970s, when women rode the train there to bring back condoms — which were illegal in the Irish state until the late 1970s and not made fully legal without a prescription until 1985.

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Chinese officials shut down a university brothel

Officials at Wuchang University of Technology in Wuhan, China, were ensnared in a recent prostitution raid. The raid occured at the Guangxin International Hotel, a "barely disguised brothel," which police claim was owned and operated by the university president. 

If that weren't incredible enough, a report from a Beijing newspaper says that students who visited the hotel and got so-called "special services" were eligible for a discount, by displaying their student ID. Police have shut down the hotel's massage services while they continue their investigation. According to the South China Morning Post, university officials deny that they or their leader were involved and say they are cooperating with the investigation.

Older musicians don't get a crumb from the streaming music pie

Prior to 1972, recordings of music performances couldn't be copyrighted — so musicians who recorded songs before that year receive no royalties these days when their performances are played. It was an arbitrary decision when Congress passed the Sound Recording Amendment. Now, Congress is being asked to reconsider its choice.

Take Johnny Cash, who recorded most of his songs before 1972. He doesn't make a penny when you play I Walk the Line on Rdio or Spotify. At the same time, when you play Michael Bolton's 1991 cover of Cash's When a Man Loves a Woman, Bolton gets paid.

PRI's Studio 360 reports there's a growing movement to ask Congress to change the law and apply current copyright policies to older recordings. Even if that happens, though, it wouldn't lead to a windfall to the surviving artists who would suddenly be entitled to payments. It takes millions of streams in a one-year period to even crack $1,000 in royalty payments. 

A dating site for gravediggers, morticians and the people who love them

There's JDate for Jews looking to meet other Jews, there's Christian Mingle for Christians looking to meet those who share their belief in Jesus Christ, and, now, there's a site for people who work in death industries. Folks like forensic pathologists, taxidermists and morticians can find soulmates at Dead Meet, which combines dating with business-to-business networking.

VICE reports that the website is the idea of Carla Valentine, whose work involves sprucing up aging body specimens at the Barts Pathology Museum in the UK. So far, her site has attracted 5000 members who are dying to meet each other. That is a drop in the bucket compared to big dating sites like Match or eHarmony. But the site only launched this spring, and Valentine says she has had problems getting people to take the site seriously.

When God orders a year of rest for the land, Jewish farmers get creative

The book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible orders Jews to leave their lands fallow every seventh year. And this year, which started a month ago in the Jewish calendar, is the one. As you might imagine, that can be a problem for farmers in modern-day Israel. So some have found creative ways to obey the rule and still farm.

PRI's The World talked to a farmer who takes all of his plants out of the ground and grows his crops hydroponically, in water — allowing the land to have its required rest, while keeping his livelihood and keeping Israelis fed. Another solution? Selling the land to non-Jews for the year, and then buying it back for the next six. Very few farmers actually take the year off and leave their lands fallow.

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Weather around the world

Residents of the Hawaiian village of Pahoa are being forced to evacuate their homes as a volcanic eruption sends lava in their direction. The lava has reached a point where it's just 75 yards from the closest homes. Already, two roads have been cut off and a cemetery has been engulfed. The BBC reports that residents will be allowed to return and watch the lava overtake their homes, if they choose — as a measure of closure, state officials say.