Article here. Excerpt:

'How happy a woman believes her marriage is has a direct impact on the quality of her husband's life, according to research in the Journal of Marriage and Family. And that holds "no matter how he feels about their nuptials."

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'The underaged boyfriend of a Calgary Catholic school board teacher was seen fleeing barefoot from a city hotel room window, as police banged on the door, court was told Friday.

Jennifer Mason pleaded guilty to breaching a no-contact order with the boy after she’d been arrested for having an illicit sexual relationship with him.

Crown prosecutor Vicki Faulkner said Mason, 30, was on bail last May 10, charged with sexually exploiting the teen, when the hotel tryst occurred.

Faulkner said Mason, who was handed a 30-day sentence and place on probation for three years, checked into a south Calgary hotel room around 3 p.m. that day.

She told provincial court Judge Catherine Skene that police were concerned Mason would try to contact the teen — whom she was prohibited from seeing as part of her bail conditions.

Around 7:15 police received a call indicating there were loud noises coming from the room Mason had checked into.'

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'Several agencies are searching in Southeast Austin for 2-year-old Colton Brandt Turner.

Turner, of Cedar Park, was last seen in July by someone other than his mother, and police believe he may be the victim of child abuse.

Crews began searching on Friday morning at the intersection of Burleson Road and Felter Lane. Officials say they are searching after they were given a lead, but would not give anymore information.

Colton's mother, identified as 20-year-old Meagan Work (pictured below), is being charged with abandonment/endagerment of a child. The charge is a 3rd degree felony. She is currently at the Williamson County Jail awaiting processing.'

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'SEPTEMBER 12--A Seattle woman has been charged with raping a man who told cops he awoke in his bed to find his attacker sexually assaulting him while she had his hands pinned down, according to a police report.

Chantae Gilman, 26, was charged this week in connection with the alleged June 2013 attack inside the 31-year-old victim’s Seattle apartment. Gilman has prior felony convictions for attempted robbery and possession of a stolen vehicle, as well as several misdemeanor convictions, according to court records.

As detailed in a probable cause affidavit prepared by a Seattle Police Department detective, the victim told cops that while he did not know Gilman, she was an acquaintance of another man who lives in his duplex. He described Gilman as “a drug user in the area.”'

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'At Ohio State University, to avoid being guilty of “sexual assault” or “sexual violence,” you and your partner now apparently have to agree on the reason WHY you are making out or having sex. It’s not enough to agree to DO it, you have to agree on WHY: there has to be agreement “regarding the who, what, where, when, why, and how this sexual activity will take place.”

Article here.

'LANSING, MI — A small group of protesters decked in fake blood-stained jumpsuits gathered outside the Michigan Capitol on Friday, acknowledging their shock value as they urged parents to stop circumcising their newborns.

“It represents the mutilation that we, as children, had inflicted upon us,” said Norm Cohen, state director of NO-CIRC. “Somebody cut our penis. There was no disease. There was no risk, and yet somebody decided to cut this.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, in its 2012 review of existing medical research, concluded that “the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks and that the procedure’s benefits justify access to this procedure for families who choose it.”

Specific benefits, according to the AAP, include prevention of urinary tract infections, penile cancer, and transmission of some sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

Article here. Excerpt:

'This Sunday, September 16, is National Step Family Day. Christy Borgeld of Michigan founded the day in 1997 that is now celebrated every year. Her goal is “to support the stepfamilies of our nation in their mission to raise their children, create strong family structures to support the individual members of the family, instill in them a sense of responsibility to all extended family members.”

One in three Americans lives in a stepfamily and 30% of our children are currently growing up in a stepfamily, sometimes referred to as blended families.

While National Parents Organization is working hard to promote shared parenting and gender equality in family law, we understand that many of our children and members are part of blended families. In addition to raising your children you may also be raising the children of your new spouse or partner. Or, your new spouse or partner may be playing a major role in raising your children.

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'Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn't learn for eight years.

While in high school, Olivas had sex with a 20-year-old woman. As he sees it now, she took advantage of a lonely kid going through a rough patch at home.

State law says a child younger than 15 cannot consent with an adult under any circumstance, making Olivas a rape victim. But Olivas didn't press charges and says he didn't realize at the time that it was even something to consider.
...
Then two years ago, the state served him with papers demanding child support. That's how he found out he had a then-6-year-old daughter.
"It was a shock," he said. "I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It's unexplainable. It freaked me out."

He said he panicked, ignored the legal documents and never got the required paternity test. The state eventually tracked him down.

Olivas, a 24-year-old Phoenix resident, said he now owes about $15,000 in back child support and medical bills going back to the child's birth, plus 10 percent interest. The state seized money from his bank account and is now garnisheeing his wages at $380 a month.
...
"Anything I do as an adult, I should be responsible for," he said. "But as a teenager? I don't think so."

Situations such as Olivas' are rare, according to fathers-rights advocates. But cases in several states have garnered attention. And while there has been some public outcry over charging a crime victim with child support, the courts have consistently said states have every right to do so.
...
Feit said if the roles were reversed and the woman was the victim, the scenario would be unthinkable.

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'Every 40 seconds someone in the world takes their own life, a global tally of more than 800,000 suicides a year, according to a landmark United Nations report on the subject.

The research found that suicide killed more people each year than conflicts and natural catastrophes, accounting for more than half of the world's 1.5 million violent deaths annually, World Health Organization staff told reporters at its presentation in Geneva.
...
Setting a goal to cut national suicide rates by 10 percent by 2020, the organization said suicide was a major but preventable health problem that health authorities had failed to adequately address due to a number of complicated factors.
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The global rate was estimated at 11.4 per 100,000, with men almost twice as likely as women to take their own lives -- rising to as many as three times more male victims than female in some richer countries.'

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'A Beijing-bound United Airlines flight returned to Washington's Dulles International Airport Thursday evening because of a child custody investigation.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation had received an alert that a mother on that flight was allegedly taking her child out of the country illegally, an FBI spokesman told CNN.
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"The mother was taken into custody on suspicion of committing an international parental kidnapping and the child was reunited with the father. The grandmother was not detained."
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After separating and starting divorce proceedings in 2013, Liu and William J. Ruifrok III were awarded joint custody of their 4-year-old son, who was born in China and is a dual U.S.-Chinese citizen, the complaint stated. The 2014 custody agreement doesn't allow either party to travel outside of the United States without "express written and notarized consent of the other party, provided in advance of the trip," according to the complaint.'

Article here. Excerpt:

The Campus Accountability and Safety Act needs some tweaks to ensure that students accused of sexual assault don’t get railroaded by the campus disciplinary system, one of the bill’s co-sponsors told The Breeze, James Madison University’s student newspaper.

The school is under fire for punishing three students who filmed their sexual assault with "expulsion after graduation".

The entire phone conversation with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is transcribed:

"I do believe you do need, for the accused, you need to maintain due process rights. And then … I think this part of the legislation will probably require some additional review, but you know, what is the level of sanction? If the university continues to not responsibly deal with this issue. … I would like to see some action this year, I mean there’s still parts of this bill that need to be fully debated ..."

Warner trots out the questionable statistic that 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted on campus, but deflects the paper’s request to “define mishandling of a sexual assault case”:

"I understand what’s going on with JMU … I’m not gonna try to put a description on what mishandling is … I think that’s — that’s what trying to get this legislation right would be, how you set up those standards. And I think we have set up a framework, but there’s more work to be done. …

How do you have an expedited process that gives the accused due process but also doesn’t leave the victim hanging in limbo?"
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'The “war on women” was always a cynical ploy by Democrats, aimed solely at getting votes from women rather than creating an economy in which we can flourish. But it worked.

President Obama is in the midst of his disastrous second term largely because women voted for him in 2012 by an eleven point margin. But there are clear indications that the “war on women” is not working in 2014.

A case in point is Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s recent attack on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. “Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality,” Wasserman Schultz asserted.

For good measure, she added that “what tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch.”

Being Debbie Wasserman Schultz means almost never having to apologize for ridiculous pronouncements. But this time Ms. Wasserman Schultz's charm wore so thin that she was reduced at least to having to admit that she “shouldn’t have used those words."

Allison Lundergan Grimes is trying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky using a “war on women” strategy. A Grimes TV spot features the candidate in a woodsy setting asking why Senator McConnell voted against renewing the Violence Against Women Act and an equal pay bill. “I can never get him to answer this one, either,” Grimes says after a moment of awkward silence.

Was really happy to see this ad, a very dad-positive advertisement that doesn't in turn bash on mothers.

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Contact info here to send General Mills a thank-you.

Article here. Excerpt:

'The words “sexual misconduct” will doubtless elicit images of predatory males. But in 2010, an investigation by the Tennessean newspaper found that a female kitchen employee reportedly gave a case of Chlamydia to a 17-year old-boy and later lived with another male juvenile whom she had abused while he was at Woodland Hills. Four state investigations failed to convict her. She was only convicted when she turned herself in to the police. In another case brought to light by the Tennesseean, a female guard married a former inmate, but still kept her job.

Many people – even professional therapists – resist the very notion that women can harbor abusive instincts.

Female pedophilia is far more prevalent than most people believe. Last week a former Quebec physical education teacher was sentenced to 18 months in jail for carrying on a two-year sexual relationship with a high school student. Within the juvenile justice system, a federal survey of detained juveniles found that nearly eight percent of respondents reported they had been sexually victimized by a staff member in the previous year. In nine out of ten cases, they were teenage boys reporting incidents with female employees, even though women usually represent about 40% of staff in these facilities.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Interestingly, Congress did not send the letter to any of the women's sports league's in the United States. So while it made sure to cover the five major men's sports leagues, it failed to touch on the women's leagues. However, both the WNBA and NWSL have had players accused of domestic violence. In 2012, WNBA player Deanna Nolan was arrested for assaulting her wife. Earlier this year Seattle Reign and USWNT player Hope Solo was arrested for domestic violence. She is accused of assaulting both her sister and nephew at a party in Seattle. Solo had plead not guilty to the charges and her trail is set for November. The NWSL does not have a personal conduct policy like the NFL, but when I spoke to the league about their policies back in June, I was told they do have personal conduct language in their standard player agreement and player handbook. However, the player agreement and handbook are internal documents. The NWSL Operations manual includes the right to fine and/or suspend for major misconduct. Under major misconducts is a section for heinous acts, 'a violent physical assault on another arising out of the scope of one's employment, or being convicted or pleading no contest to a major misdemeanor or felony.' But no specific fines or suspension are listed for any violations under major misconduct.