Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University announced yesterday they have, for the first time, succeeded in creating a cloned human embryo, which they destroyed in order to derive embryonic stem cells. The researchers hope that this will advance understanding of developmental biology, and perhaps lead to regenerative therapy for a variety of conditions.

Public debate over the propriety of human cloning remains heated, and University of Notre Dame Bioethicist O. Carter Snead is concerned by this new development.

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Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, convicted of killing three babies born alive at his clinic (along with various felony violations of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act), waived his right to appeal yesterday (May 14) in exchange for a sentence of life without parole, dodging a possible death sentence.

The news comes as no surprise to bioethicist O. Carter Snead, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.

“It is not surprising that the prosecutors would have agreed to such an arrangement,” Snead says. “From a pragmatic perspective, it can take decades for a defendant to exhaust all of his appeals from a sentence of death. Given Gosnell’s advanced age (72), it is likely that he would die on death row before this process runs its course.”

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The Justice Department yesterday began a criminal investigation into overzealous scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service of applications for tax exemptions by conservative groups, and the outrage over the IRS admission that it played political favorites is fully justified, according to University of Notre Dame Law Professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, who says the problem is even more complex than it seems.

“What has been missed in the furor is the recognition that this problem arose from much deeper sources than the poor judgment or possible partisan bias of a handful of IRS employees,” says Mayer, who specializes in the laws governing nonprofit organizations and politics. “Congress has given the IRS the difficult task of applying an incredibly vague definition of political activity and an uncertain standard for how much political activity tax-exempt social welfare organizations may engage in.

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With charges expected to be filed soon against Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, terrorism law expert and former federal prosecutor Jimmy Gurulé, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, says he likely will face multiple charges of violating federal terrorism statutes.

“I expect him to be charged with ‘use of weapons of mass destruction;’ ‘acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries;’ and ‘bombing of places of public use, government facilities, public transportation systems and infrastructure facilities,’” says Gurulé, also a former assistant U.S. attorney general and former undersecretary for enforcement for the U.S. Treasury Department.

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F. Clark Power, a professor of psychology and fellow in Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives, has some advice for NCAA president Mark Emmert in responding to the recent firing of Rutgers’ head basketball coach.

“In his press conference yesterday (April 4), Emmert said that he found the videotape of Mike Rice abusing student athletes ‘pretty appalling,’” Power said. “He declined to suggest a remedy, but he promised that he would open up a conversation on the way in which coaches should treat their athlete.

“Mark Emmert may want to start that conversation by revisiting the letter of inquiry he sent to Penn State following the allegations of Sandusky’s history of blatant abuse. There he cited Article 19 of the NCAA Constitution, which points out that because coaches are ‘teachers of young people,’ the NCAA holds them to a higher ethical standard than ‘less critically paced individuals.’

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An Indiana Supreme Court ruling last week that upheld the broadest school voucher program in the nation may impact the education reform debate in other states, says a University of Notre Dame expert on parental choice.

In its much anticipated Meredith v. Daniels decision, the court unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of the the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program (ICSP), a publicly funded voucher initiative serving at-risk children in the Hoosier State.

John Schoenig, of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education, noted, “One of the constitutional provisions reviewed states, ‘No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.’ More than 30 states have similar constitutional provisions, often referred to as Blaine Amendments, which are a sad legacy of anti-Catholic bigotry that sought to protect against the growing ‘Catholic menace’ of the 19th century by forbidding state aid of religious schools.”

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Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected by the College of Cardinals today in Rome as the new pontiff of the Catholic Church. He has taken the name Francis.

As the 266th occupant of Saint Peter’s chair in the Vatican, the new pontiff can be certain of at least a few things: No CEO in the world will receive more scrutiny, none will have more key stakeholders to answer to, and no CEO will face a greater range of challenges, according to James S. O’Rourke, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame.

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Troubled online coupon giant Groupon fired its quirky founder and CEO Andrew Mason Thursday (Feb. 28) following another disappointing quarter, and University of Notre Dame Management Professor Timothy Judge says, “Clearly, Groupon’s poor financial performance was the precipitating factor in Mason’s downfall.”

However, Judge, who specializes in management psychology, leadership personality and career and life success, says Mason’s strange sense of humor and irreverent behavior didn’t do him any favors.

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Pope Benedict XVI

University of Notre Dame faculty members continue to react to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, who stepped down from the papal post, effective Feb. 28.

Upon his official resignation at 8 p.m. Rome time (2 p.m. EST), the Catholic Church entered a period called “sede vacante” (empty seat), which will end with the election of a new pope by the Church’s cardinal electors in Conclave.

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Naunihal Singh

Over the past several years, the number of Catholics in Europe has plummeted to the point that it is no longer the most Catholic region in the world, and the election of a non-European pope would reflect that change, according to Naunihal Singh, a University of Notre Dame political scientist specializing in African politics.

“In the eight years of Benedict’s papacy alone, the number of Catholics in Africa grew by 21 percent and the number of priests by 16 percent,” says Singh.

“The election of Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson by the College of Cardinals, most of whom still come from Europe, would be a clear acknowledgment that the leadership of the Church has to reflect this shifting center of gravity.”

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