Story here. Excerpt:

"Secondary schools in England are being given free books for their library, in an attempt to get teenage boys reading.

The collection includes classic novels such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and factual books like Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. There are also spy and adventure books, as part of efforts to close the "reading gap" between boys and girls.

The scheme - Boys into Books - is principally aimed at boys aged between 11 and 14, because research suggests boys enjoy reading at primary school but lose interest after the age of 11."

Story here. Excerpt:

In Webster, Texas, a 25-year-old mother with a history of drug abuse says she woke up and found that her miniature eight-pound, dachshund had torn off her baby boy’s genitals. (The woman’s name is being withheld by the family, and she hasn’t been charged yet.)
...
Police, child protective service officials, and the doctors who examined Holden told his dad that the injuries were not consistent with dog bites because the cuts were too neat. The only person who knows what really happened - Holden’s mother - has checked herself into a drug treatment program and is not talking to police or family members.

On a positive note, the father, who has not had any contact with Holden’s mother since the attack, says he is dedicated to the baby’s recovery and to making sure Holden is safe and happy for the rest of his life."

In my opinion, the Men's Health Forum in the UK is one of the most important and positive things concerning men's rights and well-being that I've seen in years as it is an official, almost governmental body.

Check these links out (the second one is to show you how the Forum defends the male point of view when it comes to health):

Link 1

Link 2 (.pdf file)

Story here. Excerpt:

"John Walsh, 40, of Deerfield Beach, wants the same thing. He recently challenged his $400-a-month support requirement. He said two weeks after his 8-year-old son was born, he learned he was not the father. He has since had DNA tests indicating there is no biological relationship and filed a challenge to his support orders earlier this year."

How about some good news, guys!

"The Parental Alienation Awareness Organization/www.Parental-Alienation-Awareness.com has made more progress in gaining recognition of April 25 as "Parental Alienation Awareness Day"--Florida has now become the 9th state to support PAAD."

Tons of more information at the above website!

Story here. Excerpt:

"Since then, the actor has been behind bars, with no trial, at the maximum-security Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, 30 kilometres west of Kingston, on charges of criminally harassing his wife during their marriage. It's alleged that his "reckless" behaviour led his spouse, Leah, with whom he has a now-2-year-old daughter, to be afraid for her own safety or others'."

Rosato's situation raises troubling questions. Why must he wait so long for a trial? And if he is suffering from mental illness, why isn't he in a hospital room instead of a jail cell?

'nuff said.

News.com.au reports here on a woman who tricked her ex into being handcuffed, then used a sex toy to brutally sodomise him, whilst also getting her new boyfriend to beat the crap out of him. The new boyfriend killed himself (presumably from the shame of what he'd done), but of course the girlfriend denies everything - and who knows, she's a woman so she's innocent and will probably get off.

QUOTE:

"A PERTH woman today denied in court that she tied and handcuffed her soldier lover to a chair and sodomised him with a sex toy in an hour-long attack.

Nicola Clunies-Ross, 19, is accused of luring the Darwin-based soldier, also 19, to her home on October 28 last year and tricking him into being tied to a chair and handcuffed."

Still out there... see it here. Looks like David & Goliath have just switched mediums for their anti-boy merchandise.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A woman falsely accused an ex-boyfriend of rape after her current partner beat him up, a court heard yesterday.

Sharon Owers told police that keen yachtsman Chris Sullivan had raped her on her birthday on a pontoon at Swanwick Marina, near Southampton.

However, she made the allegation only when she and boyfriend Craig Abernethy were being interviewed over a frenzied attack on Mr Sullivan.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A female pimp who lured girls as young as 12 into prostitution by getting them hooked on drugs has been jailed.
...
Walsh, of Kilburn, north-west London, was given a 10-year prison term after she pleaded guilty to four counts of child prostitution and supplying drugs.
...
Joanna Korner QC, prosecuting, said the two victims were vulnerable as they were from "dysfunctional, single parent family backgrounds".

"She cynically and cold-bloodedly befriended them in order to use them for her own purposes," she said.

"She exercised control over them through the belief she was their friend and by supplying drugs."'

Article here. A new book "Opting Out" looks at American moms’ struggles to balance both work and family and finds that women often aren't opting out — instead they're being shut out. Excerpt:

“Even the brightest women have fewer options around balancing work and family than society assumes. ... the stories women tell reveal not the expression of choice, but rather the existence of a choice gap, a gap that is a function of a double bind created primarily by the conditions of work in the gilded cages of elite professions. ... women go home because they have been unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain flexibility or because they found themselves marginalized and stigmatized for trying to hold onto their careers after becoming mothers.”'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Hundreds of Britons accused of being paedophiles in the country's biggest Internet child pornography investigation were actually victims of credit card fraud, it was claimed last night. More than 7,000 - including rock star Pete Townshend - were said to have downloaded child-porn images from a U.S. website. But an investigation has found that many of those charged as part of the police inquiry codenamed Operation Ore were innocent and their card details had been used illegally.'

To listen to the original BBC Radio program, click here. It is available for 7 days until Thursday 17th May.

Story here. Excerpt:

"For more than 30 years U.S. judges have given custody or unsupervised visitation of children to abusers and molesters putting the children directly at risk," says Dianne Post, an international attorney who authored the petition. "These horrendous human rights violations have been brought to the attention of family court systems, and state and federal governments, to no avail. We turn now to international courts to protect the rights and safety of US children."

I might agree with the quoted attorney's sentiments, but I think she got the sex of the offenders wrong in way too many cases...

Read it here, it's beautiful. Amy Alkon is syndicated in over 100 newspapers in the US. Excerpt:

'Warped thinking like yours makes me realize how lucky I am to be a woman and white as typing paper. Although I recently got stopped by a cop for going the wrong way on a one-way street (he rolled his eyes and let me go when he realized I wasn't drunk, just ditzy), I'm generally safe from automatic presumptions of criminality like Driving While Black or Living And Breathing While Male.

I've just read on the menshealthforum site (UK) this breaking news:

"The Equality Act 2006 has created an important new duty for NHS organisations: the ‘gender duty’. NHS organisations’ compliance with the duty will be overseen by the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights and the Healthcare Commission."

"Men's Health Forum's president Dr Ian Banks believes ‘men are being badly let down because of the "one size fits all" approach to health care that has bedevilled the NHS since its inception.’ He says: ‘the Equality Act provides the biggest opportunity to improve male health since the foundation of the NHS."

This one is the best:

"The Men’s Health Forum will be monitoring the performance of the NHS and will not hesitate to use the new legislation to ensure compliance."

"Since men do worse in any areas of health, specific actions are needed to improve male health."

Check out the five main issues affecting men's health according to the MHF.