Paycheck Fairness Act vote scheduled for November 17

Story here. Excerpt:

'The Paycheck Fairness Act is poised to see action, following the re-introduction of the bill (S. 3772) in September by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). The bill is scheduled for a lame-duck (post-election) vote in the Senate on November 17, 2010. The Senate will vote on whether to debate the bill. This is known as a cloture vote and 60 votes are needed to move the bill forward. With the balance of power in the Senate teetering, the election on November 2 of three new Senators (from West Virginia, Illinois and Delaware), who may be seated for the lame-duck session, could affect the cloture vote.

If passed, the Act would expose employers to far greater liability than now exists. Employers must act now to make sure their concerns are heard.
...

The proposal would fundamentally change the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA). The EPA prohibits employers from paying women less than men for performing the same or “substantially equal” work in the same “establishment,” except for specific reasons.

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Australia: Mother cheered as son aged five downed alcohol shots

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'A mother who gave her five-year-old alcohol cheered as he downed shots of home-brewed liquor, a Victorian court has heard.

Kylie Eastwood, 34, is accused of giving her son several shots of home-made grappa, which tests later found had a 44 percent alcohol content, the Herald Sun reported.

The father of the five-year-old said he confiscated the bottle when he found his son drinking from it with a shot glass at their home in the town of Moe, east of Melbourne.'

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South Africa: Prisoners (and priests!) to be circumcised

Link to article here. Excerpt:

'The KwaZulu-Natal government will soon start circumcising prisoners to reduce HIV infections among inmates, says health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo.

“We will soon start circumcising prisoners in our campaign to reduce infections,” he said.

A total of 10, 229 male circumcisions had been done since the provincial government started the male medical circumcision programme in April this year.

Dhlomo said the department had a target of 2.5 million circumcisions by June 2014. Previously circumcisions among Zulus were conducted traditionally. With the permission from King Goodwill Zwelithini, government would be conducting them medically.
...
Dhlomo said they would also circumcise priests.

“We believe that if we circumcise them, they will encourage members of their congregations to test.” '

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SAVE asks "How do DV Laws Contribute to Over-Criminalization?"

Via email:

Are you aware of a growing number of conservative and liberal groups that are saying our nation’s laws are over-criminalizing America? Groups like the Heritage Foundation, ABA, ACLU, Cato Institute, National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and others are saying we have gone way overboard in criminalizing everyday conduct, like whether you can arrest an 8-year-old boy for playing ‘cops and robbers’ at school.

In support of next week’s campaign to “Protect Victims: Stop Mandatory Arrest,” SAVE has just released a new Policy Briefing that summarizes the issue: http://www.saveservices.org/how-do-dv-laws-contribute-to-over-criminalization/. (Also see http://www.saveservices.org/how-do-we-know-that-our-approach-to-domestic-violence-has-become-over-criminalized/)

Feel free to share with lawmakers and others.

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Disabled boy, 16, found to be teacher’s sex slave

Story here. Excerpt:

'A 16-year-old disabled boy doing Grade Four at a primary school in the Manzini region, has become a sex slave to one of the female teachers who also acts as his benefactor, it has been revealed.

This situation is now stressing the boy’s mother, who had never suspected the teacher’s intentions when she offered to help the child with fees and other needs.

As a result, she is said to be looking for a way to save the teenager from further damage, especially because he has already suffered from venereal diseases. The other problem is that the boy’s peers think of him as very successful because he is able to share gifts with them.

Sources within the area say the young man stays with the mother in the village nearby, but friends always help him out in the evenings to spend quality time with the teacher.

The boy is presently complaining of sharp pains in the spinal cord, a suspicion that this could be a development from his previous encounters with venereal diseases.'

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UK: Surrey woman jailed for false rape claim, theft

Story here. Excerpt:

'Kate Woodhead made her claim against Paul Joseph after he told her their 18-month relationship was over, Guildford Crown Court was told.

The 31-year-old, from Ripley, told police Mr Joseph had drugged her before attacking her.

She then stole belongings of his worth about £25,000.

Judge Neil Stewart said he had no option but to send her to prison.
...

The court heard Woodhead, who ran livery stables in Surrey, went to police with a friend in April 2009 and made the false allegation.

She then stole property including an expensive stereo and art prints, and transferred ownership of her ex-boyfriend's sports car and motorcycle to her own name.

Mr Joseph was arrested and questioned by police but the rape allegation was dropped when officers became suspicious that Woodhead had made it up.

Judge Stewart said the offences were part of a "deliberate and vindictive" campaign waged against Mr Joseph.

He added: "These offences therefore must be seen as devious and manipulative and you are wholly unrepentant."'

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Australia: Schoolboy hung by neck on pole in act of bullying, gov't does nothing

Link to article here. In full:

'A South Australian schoolboy has reportedly been hung from a pole by his neck in an apparent incident of bullying.

The Adelaide Advertiser says the education department is looking into the event at Para Hills High School in Adelaide's north which took place in September when the 13-year-old was tethered to a pole by three other students by a velcro strap around his neck.

The boy's mother's told the paper that the school didn't tell her about the incident which caused her son to lose his voice for two weeks.'

Follow-up article here. Excerpt:

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Newsweek: "Women Will Rule the World"

Article here. Excerpt:

'When historians write about the great recession of 2007–08, they may very well have a new name for it: the Mancession. It’s a term already being bandied about in the popular media as business writers chronicle the sad tales of the main victims of the recession: men. They were disproportionately represented in the industries hit hardest during the downturn, including financial services, manufacturing, and construction, and their higher salaries often put them first in the line of fire. Men are the victims of two thirds of the 11 million jobs lost since the recession began in 2007; in August 2009, when U.S. male unemployment stood at 11 percent (versus 8.3 for women), it was the largest unemployment gender gap in the postwar era. Those numbers have improved, a bit—new unemployment figures show men at 9.9 percent and women at 7.8—but not enough to stop Larry Summers, the president’s top economic adviser, from speculating recently, that “when the economy recovers, five years from now, one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working.”

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4-YO boy growing hair long for cancer victims denied entry into pre-K

Story here. Excerpt:

'Renee Szablewski is a good, churchgoing Catholic. She wants her 4-year-old son, Jack, to grow up to be one, too.

That’s why Szablewski was so upset last month with St. Dominic, a parochial school in Brick, N.J. The principal at the school barred Jack from his pre-kindergarten class because his hair was too long.

“That’s Christian? That’s Catholic?” Szablewski fumed during a telephone interview with TODAYshow.com Monday.

Jack’s early lesson in how tough life can be actually began when at the tender age of 16 months, his grandfather died of lung cancer. Renee Szablewski decided to honor her father by letting her son’s hair grow out so that he could donate his locks to be used in wigs for children who lose their own hair to cancer radiation treatment.'

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Obama’s domestic violence initiative neglects male victims of abuse

Article here. Excerpt:

'In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, President Barack Obama introduced his administration’s new “government-wide” domestic violence initiative this week.

Missing from his words about a renewed focus on victims, however, was half of the population: men.

When looking at violence within intimate relationships, men are often viewed primarily as perpetrators, yet this is not always the case. Martin S. Feibert, psychology professor at the University of California, Long Beach, has highlighted more than 270 scholarly investigations, empirical studies and reviews, “which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.”

Equity feminist and Reason magazine contributing editor Cathy Young told The Daily Caller that while the cause was a good one, she was disappointed to see male victims excluded from the president’s equation, for just that reason.'

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Hong Kong discrimination against men gets probe

Article here. Excerpt:

'Hong Kong's Equal Opportunities Commission says men are discriminated against in the workplace.

"We're not out to stir up trouble," says Commission Chairman Lam Woon-Kwong. "For lower-educated men, even the young ones, finding a job is difficult. Even if they get one, the salary is low."

The service industry in particular prefers to hire women for posts such as cashier. Ironically, part of the reason is unequal salary expectations -- women are generally willing to work for lower pay.

In the 1980s, when Hong Kong lost its competitive edge in manufacturing, many factories relocated to the Chinese mainland. With them went male-dominated factory employment.

Now, low-level white-collar jobs are also being lost to the mainland.

Hong Kong men with low-education levels find it difficult to get hired. And while there are many welfare programs for women in Hong Kong, social initiatives for men are lacking.'

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Australia: Female crime boss ready to call it quits

She's made here fortune from a life of crime, and most of here Male family members have spilled blood for her, so this "matriarch" is ready to retire. Link to article here. Excerpt:

'The matriarch of the Chaouk family has "put her foot down" and urged her relatives to end their deadly dispute with the rival Haddara clan.

Cancer-stricken widow Fatma Chaouk is "sick and tired and dying" and does not want to see any more family members killed, barrister Tas Roubos told the Victorian County Court on Monday.

Mrs Chaouk's change of attitude comes after the death of her husband Macchour, who was gunned down in the backyard of the family's western Melbourne home in August.'

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Men’s Matters radio show available for download

Report here. Excerpt:

'The hard work has been done by James Williams, the presenter of the radio show “Men’s Matters”, at ExpressFM in Portsmouth, UK. He has, of his own volition and independently of me, adapted the Feminism series of films to make it suitable for radio, and then broadcast it at ExpressFM virtually in its entirety.

This is absolutely unheard of in any mainstream media and is nothing short of an historic achievement!

As anyone familiar with men’s issues will know, the genuine viewpoints expressed by men’s rights advocates and any views that are remotely anti-Feminist are simply not allowed to be aired and so this radio broadcast is undoubtedly a first in Britain and a phenomenal achievement.'

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Female Yemeni bombing suspect released

Report here. Excerpt:

'Authorities in Yemen have released on bail a 22-year-old female engineering student whose name and phone number were on the shipping documents for the two bombs sent to the United States.
...
A Yemeni official briefed on the investigation said the suspect "is not allowed to leave the country pending further questioning."

The official said the shipping agent who received the packages was called in to identify her and said Samawi "was not the person who signed the shipping manifesto."
...
But as her fellow students mounted a protest Sunday at a university, her lawyers questioned why anyone involved in the plot would use their real name and phone number to ship a bomb.'

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Unemployment stats show good news -- unless you a man

Article here. Excerpt:

'One thing the rates don’t reflect is the disproportionate number of men who are receiving unemployment insurance.

“If you look, 80 percent receiving unemployment insurance payments are male, whereas they are just about 50 percent of the population,” he said. “The issue is that the big hits in jobs have been in construction and manufacturing that are heavily male and the gains have been in health care and education that are more female.

“People are using the term ‘mancession,’ ” he said.

Nationally, first-time claims for unemployment fell 21,000 to 434,000, the third straight decline. The report boosted early Wall Street trading that actually ended the day slightly lower.

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