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 Last week, the British newspaper, “The Daily Mail,” acquiesced in the face of a lawsuit filed by Sally Morgan, aka “Psychic Sally,” a talk-to-the dead medium and self-styled professional psychic. The paper agreed to pay £125,000 in libel damages and issued a full apology for running a story written by the British magician, Paul Zenon, which alleged that Ms. Morgan had relied upon concealed electronics in order to gain information used in a public performance of psychic readings and mediumship.

Here’s the story of the settlement and case as reported in “The Guardian”

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The atmosphere may appear calm and serene, and the people friendly and hospitable. Life in the regional capital, Tamale may not be much of the hustle and bustle one finds at the state capital, Accra. There is low traffic and the streets are hardly overcrowded except when a new chief is being installed, a political campaign is going on or a top politician is visiting the area. Still all is not well in the northern region of Ghana because beneath this veneer of calmness and tranquility lurks a vicious, virulent and violent trend. Witchcraft accusation.

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 Coming to the Amaz!ng Meeting this year?

There will be parties, endless socializing and great entertainment. And of course, there will also be inspirational, educational and motivational talks. But if you’re hoping to learn how you can really participate in the skeptical movement and make a big difference, then you need to come to the Crowdsourcing Skepticism workshop (Workshop 2B)

Fighting for the Internet

The Internet has become the modern battle ground between evidence based claims, and faith based beliefs. With access to the total sum of human knowledge through the Internet, you would be forgiven for thinking the Internet would be ushering in a new age of enlightenment. However, the openness of the Internet has provided an unearned level playing field for purveyors of misinformation and deceit to reach larger audiences than ever before.

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It was a big week in news about psychics, pseudoscience and questionable claims. Here is a rundown courtesy of Doubtful News. 

The huge news this week was the settlement of a libel lawsuit by "psychic" Sally Morgan against the U.K.'s Daily Mail. It just goes to show, Skeptics have to have their unsinkable rubber ducks in line.

Another story that went all over the place is the woman who thinks she's a plant. Well, that didn't go so well. But, the good news is, she gave up.  

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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo-woo in medicine.

The murder of autistic teen Alex Spourdalakis by his mother and caregiver: What happened? (David Gorski)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-murder-of-autistic-teen-alex-spourdalakis-by-his-mother-and-caregiver-what-happened/ An autistic teen was stabbed to death by his mother, with the collusion of his caregiver. There are some puzzling things about the case as reported. A video plea by Andrew Wakefield suggests the possibility that the killer may have been subjecting her son to autism biomed quackery.

More bad science in the service of anti-GMO activism (David Gorski)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/once-more-bad-science-in-the-service-of-anti-gmo-activism/ A study supposedly showed that pigs fed GMO corn developed stomach inflammation. The study is not credible. Among other things, the scoring of inflammation was deceptive, the data are all over the map, and the pigs were sick: over half of them had pneumonia. This is not good science; it’s little more than fear-mongering by people biased against GMO.

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