Story here. Excerpt:

'Women in nine U.S. cities -- Seattle, New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, Honolulu, San Francisco and Austin, Texas -- will gather in public spots on Aug. 22 to put the hot-button issue front and center by wearing little more than strategically placed stickers.

In addition, male supporters of the cause will show their support by wearing bras and bikinis.

"It's a matter of fairness," Go Topless director Nadine Gary said. "We want equal topless rights for all or none."

Gary believes that the right for women to go topless should be guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. "The Supreme Court won't stop us," she added

Although other countries, such as Gary's country of origin, France, tolerate topless women, she wants it to be in the legal books so there is no wiggle room.
...
Meanwhile, Gary is getting support from, not surprisingly, men.

"Guys are great," she said. "They understand this issue, and we get lots of cooperation from males."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Update: Swedish prosecutors have canceled the arrest warrant issued for Assange. “Chief prosector Eva Finné has come to the desicion that Julian Assange is not suspected of rape,” the Swedish Prosecution Authority has announced.
...
“According to Expressen, the Australian is facing charges leveled from two women. The media report suggests that Assange has been charged in absentia, based on recent claims leveled against him,” reports OneIndia this morning."'

From Abusegate Bob:

Nearly everyone has heard the expression, "You're in good hands with Allstate." And now the Allstate Insurance Company has set up a domestic violence grant program.

But its website features the usual parade of one-sided and flawed statistics:

"Each day in the U.S. three women die as the result of domestic violence."
"More than one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime."

To see the real truth of domestic violence, see this Fact Sheet: "Seven Key Facts about Domestic Violence"

Complain to Allstate now: 1-800-255-7828
Or email: http://messaging.allstate.com/corp.aspx

But don't complain just once -- do it every hour today until Allstate posts balanced information on its website.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Teen boys wearing sweats with “Awaiting Instructions” emblazoned on the front? What is all this crap from something called the Family Violence Prevention Fund about?

“Respect Girls”? what do you think of this horrible ad de-balling innocent teen and pre-teen looking boys? Why should young teens wear t-shirts or sweats with the words: “Awaiting Instructions” pasted across the front?

Since when are young boys abusing anyone? Do these children look like abusers? This gives new meaning to child abuse!

“Awaiting Instructions”? From whom? For What? Where did this come from? What did this poor kid do to be branded an abuser and told to await instructions?

Looks like the folks at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, (endabuse.org) want to turn our young boys into feminized Zombies, ball-less geldings, waiting to be awoken by a superior race and given some type of instructions.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Paris, France (CNN) -- French police believe they've gotten to the bottom of a series of robberies in which teenage girls exposed their breasts to distract men withdrawing money from Paris cash machines.

Two teenagers have been charged with three hold-ups, but they will be prosecuted as juveniles since they are under 18, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.

Police say that on August 7, a man inserted a card into a cash machine in central Paris to withdraw money when two young females approached him and asked for money. The girls waved a newspaper at the man in an attempt to distract him, but the technique didn't work.

So the girls tried another strategy: One of them bared her breasts and put her hand on the man's genitals while the other took the opportunity to withdraw 300 euros, police said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Despite a worldwide campaign for circumcision to slow the spread of AIDS, the rate of circumcision among American baby boys appears to be declining.

A little-noted presentation by a federal health researcher last month at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna suggested that the rate had fallen precipitously — to fewer than half of all boys born in conventional hospitals from 2006 to 2009, from about two-thirds through the 1980s and ’90s.

Last week, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautioned that the figures in the presentation were not definitive. But they are already stirring a sharp debate on the Internet.

The numbers were presented to the AIDS conference by a C.D.C. researcher, Charbel E. El Bcheraoui. The presentation was not covered by any mainstream news outlets, but a report by the news service Elsevier Global Medical News, along with a photograph of a slide from the presentation, quickly made the rounds of the blogosphere.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Click here to find out more!

Just when we thought President Obama had reached the ultimate in seizing extravagant power by appointing a Health Care Czar (Donald Berwick) to exercise life-and-death surveillance over Medicare and Medicaid, Congress is now trying to give him a czar with global powers. It would be a czar over worldwide women's issues.

Based in the State Department, her statutory title will be "Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues." Her task will be to assure a "gender integration" perspective in all State Department policies and programs.

The breath-taking reach of her powers is openly stated in the bill's first section: "The Ambassador shall coordinate and advise, and where relevant lead -- (1) State Department activities and policies, including as they affect programs and funding relating to prevention and response, including gender integration and women's development internationally as relates to prevention and response."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'(Aug. 12) -- The former girlfriend of a famous French chef has confessed to punching him to death and then hiding his body in a freezer for the past two years, prosecutors say.

The police raided the apartment the two used to share in Lyon, southwest France, after Guylene Collober, 51, confessed to her daughter on Tuesday that "something unfortunate" had happened to the 71-year-old Jean-Francois Poinard in 2008, The Globe and Mail reported today.

The daughter told police. When they arrived at the apartment, Collober collapsed in tears saying, "I think you'll find what you're looking for."
Jean-Francois Poinard - his body found stuffed in freezer.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Tonight in New South Wales, more than 700 women will spend the night behind bars, and some will have their children in custody with them.

The mothers and children's program at the Emu Plains Correctional Centre in western Sydney has been operating since the late 1990s.

The minimum security complex has now started a program to help women maintain a link with their children on the outside.

Nearly two years ago, Cindy MacDonald was convicted of firearms offences, and since then she has been held inside the Emu Plains Correctional Centre.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Thirteen-month-old twins Kimora and Kamari Roberson were underweight and overheated when they died in their Far South Side home, officials said on Friday.

The sisters, who each weighed only about 13 pounds, died of hyperthermia, environmental exposure and failure to thrive due to maternal neglect, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

The deaths were ruled homicides, and the babies' mother, Regina Lofton, 21, was charged on Friday with felony child endangerment resulting in the death of a child.'

Article here. Excerpt:

The Picture for Men: Superhero or Slacker: Recent scholarship and popular journalism both suggest an unappealing future for American boys: You’re screwed.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Short version: At Fathers and Families we receive many letters from divorced or separated military servicemembers with painful but preventable family law problems. California AB 2416 will help protect the loving bonds that servicemembers share with their children—to write a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger asking him to sign AB 2416, click here.

MorenoPlease send your letter whether you are a California resident or not. Your letter will be hand-delivered to the Governor’s office by our Sacramento legislative representative. You may use our form letter or write your own.

Full version: At Fathers and Families we receive many letters from divorced or separated military servicemembers with painful but preventable family law problems.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A communications professor at Creighton University in Nebraska, Shuler decided to take a sabbatical to study what academics are starting to call "princess culture" -- young girls inundated by films, books, toys, clothes and enabled by friends and family who encourage them to see themselves as bona fide blue-bloods.

Little girls have always swanned around in mom's castoff party frocks while pretending to boss the staff. But observers are concerned about what princess culture is doing to little girls. And what will happen when little princesses grow up to be insufferable adolescents and adults who demand constant adulation and access to a bottomless pot of spending money.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The city is one of the 10 worst-performing large school districts in the nation when it comes to African-American boys.

The Schott Foundation for Public Education study looked at graduation rates, performance on national tests and participation in gifted and Advanced Placement classes - and the picture is devastating.

National tests showed 9% of New York's black male eighth-graders were reading at grade level in 2009, compared with 10% in 2003.

In 2008, only 28% of male blacks graduated high school in the city, the same rate as in Philadelphia and Jefferson Parish in New Orleans. White male graduation rates in New York were 50% that year. The city graduation rates were based on the rigorous Regents diploma.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'GARY Keanu Patterson knows why men are important in his life.

"The father or father figure will try to keep you out of trouble," the 14-year-old freshman at West Side Freshman Academy said. "He will lead you away from drugs, alcohol and having a child before it's time."

Patterson joined elected officials, school representatives and local leaders at Gary's Boys & Girls Club on Monday to promote the Million Father March. The event, which begins on the first day of school, calls on men to walk children to school and continue their involvement in and out of the classroom throughout the school year.

In Gary, students return to school Wednesday.

"Statistics show when a father is involved in a child's life, they fare better in school," said Bennie Muhammad, executive director of the Gary Commission on the Social Status of Black Males, which is organizing the city's participation in the event. "Women make women and men make men. We're asking men to be a part of their child's life."'