Article here. Excerpt:

'A study of more than 200 students revealed many wrongly blamed the effects of a "bad night out" on date-rape drugs, when they had just drunk excessively.

Many are in "active denial" that drinking large amounts of alcohol can leave them "incoherent and incapacitated", the Kent University researchers concluded.

Young women's fears about date-rape drugs are so ingrained that students mistakenly think it is a more important factor in sexual assault than being drunk, taking drugs or walking alone at night.

The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, found three-quarters of students identified drink spiking as an important risk – more than alcohol or drugs.'

More than half said they knew someone whose drink had been spiked.

But despite popular beliefs, police have found no evidence that rape victims are commonly drugged with such substances, the researchers said.

Story here. Excerpt:

'LANGLEY, B.C. -- Police in Langley are investigating after a woman kicked a man in the groin so hard he lost a testicle -- the latest in a series of similar assaults.

"I just want to know what her problem is," victim Anthony Clark, 22, said this week. "People like her shouldn't be on the streets."

Mr. Clark was walking in the Brookswood area of Langley in early September when he passed his assailant on the sidewalk.

"I was looking down and then I took a passing glance and saw her walk up to me," he said.

That's when the young woman inexplicably kicked him in the groin hard enough to send one of his testicles into his abdomen.'

Story here.

'TAMPA, Fla. — A judge has allowed former teacher and sex offender Debra Lafave to have contact with the children of family and friends.

Lafave is the former middle-school teacher who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old boy.

She served 2 1/2 years of house arrest but is still on sex-offender probation.

After a hearing Thursday, Circuit Judge Wayne Timmerman said that because Lafave has completed sex-offender therapy, state law allows her "appropriate" unsupervised contact with minors. Prosecutors did not object.

Lafave still isn't allowed to live near a school or work with children.

Her attorney called it "a good step forward." Lafave did not comment.'

Blog entry here. Excerpt:

'The CHP (ed.: hyperlink added) will maintain the registration of handguns but would restore the right of Canadians, especially women, to own .32 and .25 calibre weapons of barrel lengths shorter than 4.1 inches. Small handguns in the hands of women would do much to end the fear they currently experience because of violent ex-partners.

The intent of "especially women" was not to suggest that domestic violence is primarily perpetrated by men against women. As you correctly point out, statistics show that men and women are about equal in abuse. However, they also show that more serious injury and death are generally men assaulting women.

I've quoted below from a Macleans article from July 2006 entitled "Breakup Blast".

Article here. Excerpt:

'Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr. Braun's work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies together.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

"Unless you have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, arrest the male."

That's the grim reality in dozens of states with DV mandatory arrest and predominant aggressor policies on the books. These laws were passed thanks to the 1994 and 2000 versions of the Violence Against Women Act, which paid millions of $$$ to states to establish and enforce mandatory arrest policies.

This week, we are asking you to take 5 minutes of your time to contact Senators Patrick Leahy and Jeff Sessions of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Tell them:

• Mandatory arrest laws are now responsible for the biggest roll-back in civil liberties since the Jim Crow era.¹
• State mandatory arrest laws were passed thanks to financial inducements in the 1994 and 2000 versions of the Violence Against Women Act.
• Even though the 2005 version of VAWA wisely shifted from a "mandatory" to a "pro" arrest position, not a single state has repealed its mandatory arrest policies.
• The 2010 reauthorization of VAWA needs to include strong financial incentives to states to repeal their unconstitutional mandatory arrest policies.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A secretary at Palmer Elementary School in Denver has been charged with false imprisonment and misdemeanor child abuse after she bound a misbehaving 6-year-old student’s wrists with duct tape and applied the tape to his mouth as well. Jennifer Carter, 45, has been placed on administrative leave and the Denver Public School District has indicated she will be fired for her actions.

The incident happened last Wednesday, and the first grader’s mother, Ashlye Tenner, expressed concern that a report had not been made about the incident until she pushed for it. On Thursday, the school sent a letter to parents notifying them of the situation.

The child had been sent to the principal’s office for acting out in class; when the principal saw the duct-taped child, he immediately told Carter to remove it.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Brno, South Moravia, Oct 1 (CTK) - Czech foreigner police recently uncovered in Brno the case of false paternity in which a Vietnamese persuaded a Czech family to register him on the birth certificate as the father of their child for 25,000 crowns, police spokeswoman Roman Pittner told CTK Thursday.

The Vietnamese later obtained a residence permit in the Czech Republic on the basis of the forged birth certificate.

The parents of the child and the Vietnamese face up to three years in prison if found guilty.

"Although the foreigner police come across such cases rarely, it is very difficult to prove that such a crime was committed," Pittner said.

The fraud was uncovered when the child's mother asked for an increase in her welfare benefits. After being advised to address the father of her child for help she revealed that she lied about the real father and had already spent the money she received for her lie.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'It's a well-researched phenomenon: Boys tend to underachieve in school, while a higher proportion of girls successfully make their way to university. (Female students are a now majority in most faculties.) And this might have to do, at least in part, with the fact our schools are made for girls.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Labour Party bosses are 'unlikely' to overturn plans to impose women-only candidates on Wigan's two parliamentary seats.

According to a national party source such an about-face would be very unusual.

He said: "The National Executive Committee will always listen to the views of constituency parties but it would be highly, highly unusual for such a decision to be overturned at this stage.

"In fact I have only known it once in the last 10 years."

Members of the Makerfield party have voted to reject the female shortlists three days after the Wigan party took the same decision.

The two MPs, Ian McCartney and Neil Turner, have both announced they will stand down at the next election.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs decried what he called "feminist disinformation" on a resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council affirming "traditional values." The resolution also calls for a UN workshop in 2010 to examine the way traditional values are the foundation for human rights: http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/sdpage_e.aspx?b=10&se=100&t=4.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A doctor offering £150 circumcisions at his private clinic in Essex left young boys in agonising pain, a disciplinary panel has heard.

Dr Aziz Chaudry allegedly did not adequately ensure young boys were fully anaesthetised, The General Medical Council (GMC) was told.

He is also accused of not fully informing the families of the processes involved at his clinic in Clacton.

Dr Chaudry admits failures over notekeeping but denies misconduct.

The hearing was told young boys were restrained in pain.

One boy's family was told he may need plastic surgery to correct damage, the GMC's Fitness to Practise Panel was told. Another boy, aged four, was taken to hospital after the operation.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A 19-year-old Lehigh University student who allegedly made a false report about being raped by a campus police officer waived a preliminary hearing today and could stand trial.

Brielynne Neumann, of Shrewsbury, Mass., was lying in the center of Parkhill Street at 11:49 p.m. Sept. 3 when Bethlehem police approached her, according to court records. She identified herself as Brei Scano and gave a fake date of birth, records say.

The lie backfired when police, who claim she was intoxicated, took her to her sorority house to verify her identity, records say. Neumann then told officers she had been raped the day before by a man who claimed to be a Lehigh University police officer, records say.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'This legislation is especially important for the girls and women of this nation because it extends existing federal hate crimes laws beyond the narrow scope of protected federal activities and also includes -- for the first time -- violent crimes committed on the basis of actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity. Women know first hand how vicious crimes of sexual and hate-filled violence can affect our lives, especially if local law enforcement is ill-equipped to investigate and prosecute these crimes. We know that hate crimes are more than individual assaults -- they send shock waves and fear throughout a whole community. Girls' and women's lives are restricted and often ruined by the fear as well as the reality of vicious hate crimes, be they based on our religion, race, gender identity or just because we are women.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Pennsylvania home health care company Linda Bettinazzi runs is charged about $6,800 per worker for health insurance – $2,000 more than the national average for single coverage. One reason: nearly every one of her 175 employees is a woman.

Insurers say women under the age of 55 cost more to cover because they use more health services, and not just for maternal and infant care. But Bettinazzi, the president and CEO of Visiting Nurse Association of Indiana County, believes there's something inherently wrong in charging her company more because it hires a lot of women.
...
Gender rating is the norm today, part of a complex formula of risk factors — including health history and age — insurers say has been necessary to fairly price policies. But advocacy groups for women argue that charging more for women than men is discriminatory and should be illegal.'