Story here. Excerpt:

'CHENNAI: Railway minister Mamata Banerjee's announcement to launch Only Ladies' EMU services on suburban lines at Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata has brought cheer to the city's commuters. Ranging from school students to senior working professionals, daily passengers said the facility would make train journeys more comfortable for women.

"I think it will be very useful. We struggle to get into the ladies' compartments on EMU services right now since we have to run all the way to the front of the train or to the rear end when a train pulls into the station because there are no ladies' compartments in the middle sections of several trains. There is no indication of where the ladies' compartments are placed either," said Chitra Balasubramanian, an employee of the Postal department who travels from Mambalam to Meenambakkam every day. She has been using the EMU service for the last 24 years.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Look through the vast windows at 29 West Hastings St. and you'll see stylish wooden counters, a funky bench created from reclaimed pink and red chairs and chandeliers fashioned from bicycle rims, plastic hangers, water bottles and clear tubing.

Located between Funky Winker Beans and the Army and Navy, it's the site of Lu's: A Pharmacy for Women, and it claims to be the first of its kind in North America.

Vancouver Women's Health Collective will open Lu's July 7. The group has developed the business to sustain the non-profit society that has helped women with healthcare decisions for 38 years.

Caryn Duncan, executive director of the collective, came up with the idea of opening a pharmacy for women in the Downtown Eastside in 2006.

Story here. Excerpt:

'FISHKILL - The Hudson Valley Renegades [ed.: link added] still plan on holding Tuesday's promotional night, an event the team says is a tribute to its female fans.

But don't expect to see any county officials at Dutchess Stadium - inside or outside the ballpark.

Story here. Excerpt:

'PHOENIX – Cynthia Mary Roberson is an unemployed mother who police say led her 12- and 14-year-old sons and their friends to commit at least 20 armed robberies and assaults, including the beating of a teenage boy who had nothing more than an orange lollipop.

Her motivation was purely financial — police said she needed money to pay rent and the loan on her gold Chevrolet. In every case, the mother drove the getaway car and once coached a kid during a robbery because he was having trouble stealing a cell phone from a victim, police said.

The case has outraged authorities and the public and drawn comparisons to "Ma Barker," the infamous mother who led her four young sons on a robbery spree in the early 1900s.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The 1538th sustained no casualties during its almost 10 months in Iraq ferrying supplies and providing security for U.S. military convoys, perhaps in part by obeying its unofficial motto, “Drive it like you stole it.” But the same can’t be said for the jobs its members left behind.

Forty-six soldiers — fully 25 percent of the company — have no work awaiting them, including many whose jobs vanished while they were heeding their nation’s call.

“They pretty much said there’s nothing to come back to, better start looking for another job,” said Pfc. Jonathan Maher, 20, of the Elkhart County community of Bristol, recalling the letter he received from his employer, Keystone RV, shortly after Christmas.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'(CNN) -- A Long Island, New York, social worker is facing two misdemeanor charges after allegedly posting a sexually suggestive ad on Craigslist that gave interested parties the home phone number of a 9-year-old girl.

According to prosecutors, Margery Tannenbaum posted the ad to get revenge after an argument between her daughter and the girl, who attend the same school in Hauppauge, New York.

On Thursday, Tannenbaum was arraigned on charges of aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a minor. She pleaded not guilty and will appear in court later this month.
...
When asked about the case, Tannenbaum's attorney, Tad Scharfenberg, said, "I think this has been blown out of proportion to what the actual alleged act was."

He described Tannenbaum as "a well-loved woman by both family and friends," and said she was a classroom mom at her daughter's school.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'YAKIMA, Wash. — A Washington kindergarten teacher who sent a 5-year-old student home with a bag of feces tucked in his backpack has been formally reprimanded.

A West Valley School District official warned teacher Sue Graham in a letter that similar behavior in the future will result in disciplinary action, including termination.
...
The May letter was released Thursday in response to a public disclosure request from KIMA-TV. The district had previously said "appropriate action" was taken against the longtime teacher.'

Recenly we tried to re-allows new account registration here at MANN but almost immediately after doing so we got spam posts. So until the issue is resolved, assuming it can be, please send all requests for new accounts to newaccounts@mensactivism.org. Sorry for the inconvenience.

-- Matt

UPDATE (7/22/09): If you send a note asking for an account, please remember to include a request for a user ID; otherwise I can't make the account for you until you reply to my response asking you to do so. Bear in mind, also, that replies from me will be coming from matt_at_mann (at) yahoo.com, so please make sure you check your spam folder before deciding I didn't reply to you, or put that address on your safe-list.

If you recently asked for an account and think you never received a reply from me, it is probably because the reply got spam-blasted. So if that is the case, just send me another request.

From Jeremy S.: GOOD GOD! How blatant is THAT? What an outrage! I was just going to ask for proof of this: "$25.00 goes to battered women's trust funds". I am stunned and outraged. I can only imagine what monies are transferred and to where in my own country. Everything is possible now. (Seriously this is not a joke.) I stand in disbelief and in renewed earnest solidarity with our American brothers. I need say no more. Let this tell the story.

37:1-12.1. Additional fee: '1. In addition to the fee for issuing a marriage license authorized pursuant to R.S.37:1-12, each licensing officer shall collect a fee of $25 from the applicants which shall be forwarded on a quarterly basis to the Department of Human Services.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities say two professional wrestlers found dead in a low-rent hotel in the capital may have been drugged to death by female robbers.

Autopsies are being performed on the two midget wrestlers, one of whom went by the name "La Parkita" — or "Little Death" — and wore a skeleton costume in the ring. The other was known as "Espectrito Jr."

Authorities say two women were seen leaving the men's hotel room before the bodies were discovered.

Prosecutor Miguel Angel Mancera said Wednesday that gangs of female robbers are experienced at using drugs to knock men out and rob them, but they may have used too strong a dose.'

Sydney Morning Herald has this report about an ad Microsoft pulled.

Basically, the ad shows a man surfing the net, then his wife pulling the laptop round to see what he's done. She's so horrified by what she sees (it isn't explained) that she pukes on the floor. He trips up in the vomit (slapstick, always funny when a guy gets hurt!) and then - just to make it absolutely certain that we know where the guy stands - she throws up all over him.

The ad doesn't explain what the guy was looking at, but the obvious intonation is that it is at the least hard core porn, if not child pornography. Queue actor who talks about surfing safe - followed by wife flirting with him.

The ad has been pulled already - but man it's horrific. I never liked Microsoft much but I own several laptops with Windows on it - be damned if I'll buy another, any company who paints me as a child porn pervert who's good for nothing but being vomitted on doesn't deserve my hard earned dollar....

Story here. Excerpt:

'Lori Drew, the woman convicted of using a hoax MySpace profile to harass a teenage girl to the point of suicide, was acquitted by a Los Angeles judge on Thursday, Wired reported.

Judge George Wu overturned Drew's guilty verdict, which was issued in November, saying that if Drew had been convicted of a felony in the case, she would already have been sentenced. But because she was convicted of three misdemeanors--a significantly lighter offense than prosecutors originally sought--the constitutionality of the guilty verdict was less clear.

Drew, a Missouri resident, had been convicted of three misdemeanor counts of "accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress," each of which could have resulted in a year of jail and a $100,000 fine. But she hadn't been convicted of conspiracy, a felony that could've led to up to 20 years in prison.

From Marc A.: NCFM's San Diego Chapter, though NCFM President Harry Crouch, recently succeeded in getting the San Diego District Attorney to remove false, gender-biased material from their new police training video on domestic violence, such as the myth that domestic violence is primarily male-on-female and is a leading cause of death for women. The story, including a letter from the District Attorney thanking NCFM, is chronicled here.

Article here. Excerpt:

'While both boys and girls face issues — in school and out — the problems affecting boys are serious and have not been properly addressed by policy makers, according to a new review article by psychologist Judith Kleinfeld. Among the results: high rates of functional illiteracy and a troublingly high suicide rate that's become even more pronounced in recent years compared to the rate among girls.

"Boys' issues are being neglected, whereas girls' issues have been addressed for over 20 years, with great success," said Kleinfeld, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. "Now it's time to turn our attention to boys."

Story here.

'(AP) A former Massachusetts schoolteacher who was found with a student at a West Virginia motel has pleaded not guilty to rape.

Lisa Lavoie, 24, was arraigned Tuesday in Hampden Superior Court in Massachusetts on three counts of aggravated rape and abuse and three counts of statutory rape.

Lavoie and a 15-year-old student were reported missing Feb. 16 and were found a week later. She was fired from her job.

Lavoie already pleaded not guilty in March to enticing a minor. Her attorney, David Hoose, says the new charges were not unexpected.

He says Lavoie is "very upset by the whole experience that she went through."

She is out on $25,000 bail.'