Article here.

'Winfrey's relationship with longtime "love" Stedman Graham, her reputed dirt-poor upbringing in rural Mississippi, her rumored lesbian crushes on women such as Diane Sawyer -- all are stories she has manipulated for decades in the name of sensational ratings, according to writer Kitty Kelley's latest unauthorized biography "Oprah."
...
The much-anticipated book details how:

* Winfrey concocted stories about sexual abuse she suffered as a child -- and grossly exaggerated the poverty she was brought up in.
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The future star would steal from her mother's purse, pawn her jewelry and even turn tricks. She was eventually sent to live in Nashville with Vernon Winfrey, who was her mother's former lover and who is listed on her birth certificate as her father. He has been described as the domineering disciplinarian who set her straight.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Tennessee mother who horrified the adoption community when she put her 7-year-old son on a plane back to Russia was in the process of trying to adopt a second child.

Torry Hansen had turned to a second adoption agency to bring home a child from the Soviet Republic of Georgia, a source with the sheriff's department told ABC News.

She switched adoption agencies after the agency that arranged the adoption of her first child, World Association for Children and Parents, urged her to wait before adopting again, the source said. The association advised Hansen it would be best to settle in with the boy before adding to her family, the source said.

A few months later, Hansen, of Shelbyville, Tenn., and her mother, Nancy Hansen put 7-year-old Artyem Savilev on a plane back to Moscow in hopes of having the boy's adoption annulled.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'From the invasion of Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat there. But a higher number in the service — 817 — had taken their own lives over the same period. The surge in suicides, which have risen five years in a row, has become a vexing problem for which the Army's highest levels of command have yet to find a solution despite deploying hundreds of mental-health experts and investing millions of dollars. And the elephant in the room in much of the formal discussion of the problem is the burden of repeated tours of combat duty on a soldier's battered psyche.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Ben Roethlisberger might have promised to be a role model, but the district attorney who declined to press sexual assault charges stemming from a drunken evening at a nightclub said it was the actions of the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, not his words, that would prove it.
...
Bright said that due to scant physical evidence and conflicting statements from the student, he could not prove a crime had happened.

"You get a lot of he said, she said," Bright said, "but it's unclear. It's foggy, and I couldn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt."

The woman, who Bright said told police after the incident she didn't know if they even had sex, wrote a letter asking that Roethlisberger not be charged, but Bright said it made little difference in his decision.

"Without that letter, I still feel we did not have enough to prove him guilty, at least of the charge of rape," Bright said.
...

Blog post here. Excerpt:

'If you search the web, you will find few web sites that deal with the emotional abuse of men by women. Most sites that deal with this subject tend to be a bit on the misogynistic side. As a man, I don't want to be painted with the same brush as men who abuse women, so it's not fair to paint all women as emotionally abusive.

In my search, I did find one web site that presented an intelligent, balanced view of the subject. WomenAbusingMen.org was founded by Dr. Claudia B. Cornell and Kimberly C. Taylor.

While I found WomenAbusingMen.org to be quite intriguing, I wanted to learn more on the subject of emotional abuse of men by women. I sent an email with a comprehensive list of interview questions. Fortunately, I received a prompt response from Dr. Cornell expressing a great willingness to answer my questions in the hope of spreading awareness on the emotional abuse of men by women.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Fathers & Families’ mission is to protect children’s right to the love and care of both parents after divorce or separation. One of the ways fit parents are sometimes driven to the margins of their children’s lives is by one parent using the other parent’s disability or partial disability as a pretext to deny them custody or visitation with their children.
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Existing California family law codes do not address the issue of disabled parents, leaving the door open for unnecessary and often expensive litigation, even in cases where the disabled parent had been successfully parenting the children for many years prior to the separation or divorce.

SB 1188 will add Section 3049 to the Family Code. It will read:

Blog post here. Excerpt:

'San Francisco’s top public defender, Jeff Adachi, recently called for the city’s crime lab to become independent of the police department. This announcement comes on the heels of a series of scandals in the San Francisco Police Department’s forensic laboratory initiated by the discovery that a criminalist was stealing cocaine from evidence storage facilities. What initially seemed to be a problem with one unethical employee has led to the unearthing of myriad problems within the lab, including two cases of tainted DNA samples. Moreover, a troubling audit was released showing an improper maintenance of chain of custody of evidence, inadequate record keeping, and a lack of cleanliness in the overall facility. Multiple legal challenges raised in the aftermath of the scandal, including a murder case, have pointed to the possibility that police and prosecutors withheld vital information about the drug thefts from defendants’ attorneys.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Washington woman is accused of luring a disabled man into a relationship with promises of marriage and children only to squander thousands of dollars of his money, leaving him suicidal and in debt, investigators say.

Alesha Lair, 23, is charged with theft and domestic violence stemming from what King County prosecutors are calling a "deceptive" two-year relationship with 55-year-old Douglas Lare.

Lare was diagnosed at birth with mild mental retardation and cerebral palsy and has a mental age that ranges between 6 and 12 years old, according to the probable cause report from the Seattle Police Department.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- Former middle school math teacher Stephanie Ragusa was teary-eyed Monday as she pleaded guilty to having sex with two underage students.

Ragusa, 31, faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced on June 15.

She pleaded guilty to three counts of lewd and lascivious battery in a March 2008 case involving a 14-year-old boy.

She also pleaded guilty to two counts of having unlawful sex with a minor in an April 2008 case involving a 16-year-old student.

Prosecutor Rita Peters said Ragusa had intercourse with the 14-year-old on three occasions between October 2006 and May 2007. Evidence in that case included a phone conversation police recorded with the teen's consent. During the phone call, Ragusa could be heard urging him to keep their encounters secret, Peters said.
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Ragusa has been in jail since her arrest, and defense attorney Robert Herce said she has spent more time behind bars than several other teachers in Hillsborough County, Florida, who have faced similar charges.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'I don't have a son so I've never had to make the circumcision decision. I know which way I'd go, but that's neither here nor there.

And in Madatom blogger Jacob Harper's opinion, it's irrelevant what any mom thinks because moms should not be the ones making the decision of whether or not to circumcise their kid.
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Harper is one guy who isn't the least bit shy about sharing his opinion. In his blog post "Living the Dream: Uncircumcised in America," he writes about being in the "freaky hooded minority," but says that he's proud not resentful.
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I do think Harper's post is hilarious and I enjoyed reading about circumcision from his perspective, but what he fails to appreciate is that making decisions that affect their kids' lives is what moms do every day -- on things that go well beyond haircuts. Sometimes it's just not practical to wait 18 years and let your kid make a life-changing decision on his own.'

Article here.

'Durban: In an effort to combat the scourge of HIV and Aids, over two million men will be circumcised in South Africa's eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, BuaNews reported on Friday.

The premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, Zweli Mkhize, said on Thursday this initiative had received overwhelming support from HIV activists and the medical fraternity.

The process will begin on April 11.

Uganda government outlaws female circumcision

In late 2006, two randomised controlled trials on whether male circumcision reduces HIV transmission were halted because interim results showed an overwhelming protective effect, validating the results from an earlier South African trial conducted in Orange Farm.

Story here. Excerpt:

'The White House is stepping up its efforts in the area of Violence Against Women, according to Vice-President Joe Biden who announced an unprecedented $730 million in the President's proposed FY2011 budget to shore up services, help victims find housing and legal assistance, and make sure every call for help is answered.

The United States Vice President, who took his commitment to ending violence against women to Peoria, Illinois where he spoke at the Center for the Prevention of Abuse's Partners in Peace awards, pledged to continue his commitment to change attitudes and to "free women from the oppressive cultural norm that causes them in any way to feel they are responsible for or contributed to their own abuse."

The first Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) hearing was held on June 20, 1990, and over the next four years then-Senator Biden held moving hearings on domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Men in heels and feather boas strutted among an entourage of women carrying signs and chanting on a mile-long loop of downtown Ukiah [link added] west of State Street Saturday morning.

They were taking part in the 9th annual "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" event, aimed at making a visual display to stimulate talk in the community about ending sexual violence. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

"It's one of those topics that's taboo to discuss, but Walk a Mile' brings a little humor to it and makes it more approachable for people, so we can address a serious subject and still have a good, uplifting time," said Carissa Johnson, a volunteer coordinator for the inland branch of Project Sanctuary, which sponsors the event. Project Sanctuary is the local battered women's shelter.

One of the organization's board members, Tim Rohan, sported low, red heels and a black tie over a pink shirt and jeans. The pink showed his support for ending domestic abuse and sexual violence, he said.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'NEW DELHI: In the wake of the raging debate on whether the Domestic Violence Act, enacted for the welfare of women, can be used against them or not, with different high courts expressing "conflicting views", a trial court has set the record straight by holding that female members of a family can be charged under the Domestic Violence Act in case of harassment of a woman.

While giving an interpretation of the provisions for protection of women in the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the court has said that the law provided a wife can file complaint against her husband and his relatives (both males and females). "Section 2 Clause (q) of the Act which provides that ‘an aggrieved wife or female living in a relationship in the nature of a marriage may also file a complaint against a relative of the husband or the male partner’. The provision includes both male and females," additional sessions judge Kamini Lau said.'

Paper here (.pdf file). Excerpt: