Story here. Excerpt:

'A couple who battered the woman’s four-year-old son and left him to die in a locked, unheated box room have been convicted of murder.

The woman and her partner starved Daniel Pelka for months and force-fed him salt during a campaign of physical abuse. A serious case review will now try to establish why a number of opportunities to save the boy’s life were missed by authorities, who were convinced by his killers that he was suffering from a rare eating disorder.

Fourteen months before he died in March last year, Daniel became the focus of a police inquiry after his arm was broken. But the file was closed when his killers convinced officers that he hurt himself when he jumped from a sofa at their home in Coventry.'

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'SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — An eyewitness recorded cellphone video of a Santa Ana police officer shoot and kill an unarmed 22-year-old homeless man at a shopping center earlier this week.

The witness, who wished to remain unidentified, was standing in the parking lot of the Harbor Place Shopping Center on South Harbor Boulevard around 3 p.m. Tuesday when he said he filmed a confrontation in front of Jugo’s La Tropicana between an officer, later identified as a 13-year veteran, and victim Hans Kevin Arellano.

“She exited her patrol car, gun drawn, and asked the gentlemen to get on the ground. The gentlemen didn’t get on the ground, he was still inside the restaurant. She asked again. The man then exited the restaurant, and as he was exiting the restaurant, he said, ‘What are you gonna do, b—-?’ About a second later, she shot him in the chest,” he said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A former Redlands high school teacher convicted of having sex with three of her students got off easy because she is a woman, an attorney for one of the victims said.

Laura Elizabeth Whitehurst, 28, pleaded guilty to engaging in sex acts with three boys and was sentenced to one year in jail this week. She had a baby with one of the boys this summer.

She admitted guilt to four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and two of oral copulation of a person under 18.

"This is a very short sentence for such crimes," said attorney Heather Cullen, whose firm represents the family of the boy who fathered a child with Whitehurst. "It's shocking anyone would face so little time for abusing minors. This is definitely being treated differently because they are boys and she is a woman."

She described the sentence as "a slap in the face to the victims."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'ROCKLAND, Maine — A Knox County jury convicted a 30-year-old Rockland woman Thursday of making a false report to police about being sexually assaulted by a former boyfriend.

Octavia Faustini was convicted of two criminal charges — filing a false report and unsworn falsification.

Justice Jeffrey Hjelm said that sentencing likely would be held during the last week of August. Both offenses are Class D crimes, punishable by a maximum of 364 days in jail.

Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Baroody said he has not yet come up with a recommendation for a sentence.

The jury deliberated for two hours Thursday afternoon in Knox County Superior Court.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'FREEPORT – Tucked away on the sprawling land of Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport is the Coastal Studies For Girls, a science and leadership school for girls dedicated to experiential learning.

While not quite hidden in plain sight, the school, which leases 8 acres of land from Wolfe’s Neck Farm, occupies a unique place in the tri-town area. Entering its fourth year, Coastal Studies for Girls is a semester-long science and leadership school for 10th-grade girls. The school brings girls from around the country to the coast of Maine for 16 weeks during either the fall or spring term of their sophomore year of high school, enabling them to immerse themselves in a challenging and rewarding experience while living in a beautiful coastal landscape that serves as a natural laboratory, according to information provided by the school.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Hera Hub, a shared workspace community of several hundred like-minded entrepreneurial women, announces the launch of the third ‘coworking’ space in Carlsbad at 5205 Avenida Encinas. The other two locations are in Sorrento and Mission Valley.

The 4,000-square-foot facility offers a large conference room, several private meeting rooms, and a large, shared workspace.

“We had significant demand for a North County location, with over 170 people on the interest list,” said Felena Hanson, Hera Hub founder. “Memberships will go fast, as we’ll cap at 120. Five days after our July 15th soft launch, we’re already one-third full.”

Article here. Excerpt:

'One lawyer's quixotic fight for men's equality suffered yet another legal setback when a judge ruled his human rights were not violated by a Chelsea nightclub that made him buy a $350 bottle of vodka to get in.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Alexander Hunter wrote this week that Roy Den Hollander was not the victim of age and gender discrimination in 2010 when a bouncer at Amnesia nightclub told the 66-year-old to pay up, while letting a young lady in for free at the same time.

"They all pull the same thing: 'These guys got gray hair, let's charge them some money,'" said the crusading barrister. "They're doing the same thing they did in the Deep South back in the 1950s. Having to buy a $350 bottle of watered down vodka – that's the 'sitting in the back of the bus' for us!"
...
He also sued several Manhattan hot spots including the Copacabana for organizing "ladies’ nights" drink specials. The suit was thrown out by federal appeals court in 2010.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Television news anchor Adrienne Alvarez was arrested early Thursday morning on suspicion of domestic violence, officials said.

Alvarez, 28, allegedly was involved in a fight with her husband at about midnight on the 100 block of Desert Garden Drive in Santa Teresa, Doña Ana County Sheriff's officials said.

She was arrested on suspicion of battery against a member of a household, officials said.

She was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center. She was released on a $1,000 bond later that day.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Girls are the perpetrators of some form of dating violence nearly as often as boys, surprising new studies show.

More girls – 43 percent – than boys – 28 percent – reported committing an act of physical dating violence, said researchers who are presenting their findings beginning Wednesday at the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting. Slightly more boys – 23 percent – than girls – 18 percent – reported perpetrating at least one act of sexual violence.

For her study, Dorothy Espelage, professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues conducted a longitudinal study among 625 students starting in grades 5, 6, and 7, and followed them over a period of four years. Researchers interviewed the students at intervals over that time.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'My mother’s brand of feminism went from wanting equal rights to wanting to smash the patriarchy, which she defined for my brother and me as “men’s historical oppression of women, which they continue to do today.” No man could escape complicity, not even little boys, she said. Suddenly, men were the root of all of women’s problems and since they had all the power, we had to fight them.

Article here. Excerpt:

'NEVER MIND the “war on women:” According to growing numbers of bloggers, activists, and authors — some of them women — it’s males in modern Western society who are under siege and whose rights need defending. Is this the next frontier for gender justice, or a woman-hating backlash? Men’s advocacy raises important and worthy issues that often draw unfair ridicule. Unfortunately, it is also prone to toxic rhetoric that subverts its valid points and alienates potential supporters.

To many, the very notion of “men’s issues” or men’s rights seems laughable. But consider: If women were dying in 90 percent of workplace fatalities and three out of four suicides, would we not see such numbers as troubling—and as legitimate women’s issues? Yet, reversed, the disparities go unnoticed.

Article here. Excerpt:

'What particularly galls me is the mealy-mouthed dishonesty practiced by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which oh-so-carefully crawls a tightrope spun of silken shite:

"New scientific evidence shows the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks of the procedure, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all newborn boys."

The procedure? Ritual genital mutilation. Yes, I have a son, and when he was born, I hired a mohel to cut him. What a dolt I was. An ignorant fundamentalist, nothing more. My wife, born and raised Catholic, had to quash the urge to seize the boy and vanish into the woods behind our house before the mohel began. I wish she had.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A former Judson school district kindergarten teacher accused of rallying students to line up and hit a disruptive schoolmate could now end up behind bars following her indictment Tuesday for official oppression.

Cynthia Ambrose, 43, was an 11-year veteran at Salinas Elementary in May when authorities said a less experienced kindergarten teacher sought advice for disciplining a 6-year-old student accused of bullying other children. Ambrose's solution, the colleague later told the school district's police department, was to have other students bully the alleged bully.

Official oppression — a charge often applied to police officers who abuse their positions — is a Class A misdemeanor carrying a maximum sentence of a year in jail.

At least seven children struck the targeted student as Ambrose encouraged them, saying “Hit him harder,” and “Teach him why bullying is bad,” authorities alleged.'

Article here. Excerpt:

It’s more than a little confusing. One minute feminists are taking to the streets in their hundreds, on so-called slutwalks, to defend their right to be scantily clad. The next they are insisting that lads’ mags’ covers, featuring, er, scantily clad women, should be covered up in pre-sealed ‘modesty bags’ when sold in supermarkets.

Predictably, the first supermarket to cave in to the anti-lads’ mags campaign has been the holier-than-thou Co-op, which yesterday declared that titles such as Zoo and FHM had six weeks to start concealing their products in burqa-style black plastic. In the meantime, the Co-op has already put these ‘lewd’ magazines in hard-to-reach positions, and concealed them with opaque shelving.

But surely this is a violation of press freedom, an attempt to dictate the content of particular publications? ‘Think of the children’, feminists respond. Apparently, the nation’s young are being damaged by the presence of lads’ mags ‘next to the sweets at children’s eye-level’.

If you've been following our efforts regarding Asst. DA Mary Kellet in Maine, you know that the case started with a false allegation of abuse. Ligia Filler had falsely accused her husband Vladek Filler of abusing her and their children.

In reviewing the Filler case, the court found:

December 3, 2009 - Responding to Ligia's allegation that Vladek had molested their children, the Ellsworth District Court concluded the accusation was "false and known to be false. She [Ligia Filler] has shown a capacity to manufacture claims." (Determination of Ellsworth District Court. Findings at Page 4, Paragraph 1.)

Not only was Ligia a known liar, but Vladek had a serious back problem at the time of the alleged incident, Ligia refused a rape kit examination, and she had no injuries to support her claim.

While we are not happy about Kellet's so-called punishment, it's time to turn our attention to the accuser. People who lie about abuse, like Ligia, rob true victims of their credibility.