Article here. Excerpt:

'A message to British Politicians, and the public regarding family law.

Hi there, my name is Aimee Nicholls, I’m 16 years old, and 11 years ago, my parents divorced. It doesn’t matter why right now, that’s history. But it is important that you know that it wasn’t down to my dad. It wasn’t something that he wanted, and he couldn’t do anything about it. It’s certainly not something that I wanted, but I also had no say. My dad is definitely the more natural parent out of my mum and dad, and I’ve always been closer to him. I do love my mom and dad both the same. But, if I could only live with one of them, it would be my dad, and it’s been that way for 11 years. There was no reason for that not to happen. He hadn’t harmed me in any way, and he didn’t pose any risk, or threaten me. My dad shared my care before my parents split.

Link here. Excerpt:

'A British taxi driver has used a voice recording app on his phone to prove a female passenger lied about him raping her at knife-point in his cab.

Astria Berwick was jailed for 16 months in Nottingham Crown Court yesterday after admitting to perverting the course of justice by wrongly accusing Mohammed Asif of rape on February 20, the Telegraph reports.

The court heard the CCTV in Mr Asif’s car was broken on the day of the alleged attack so he switched on the app as a makeshift replacement.
...
"I keep thinking, 'I just dropped her off, she was just a normal passenger, why has she done that?’," he said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada stayed proceedings against Nicole Doucet, who sought to hire at least one hit-man to kill her then-husband, Mike Ryan. Eight of the nine Justices accepted the unproven contention that Doucet “was the victim of a violent, abusive and controlling husband,” and that “she believed that he would cause her and their daughter serious bodily harm or death and that she had no safe avenue of escape other than having him killed.”

In response, Dalhousie University law professor Archibald Kaiser is calling for a public inquiry to rectify what he is calling a “stain on the justice system.”

A stay of proceedings, he writes in the journal Criminal Reports, has no precedent “without an abuse of process or charter violation” — and neither element is present here. Professor Kaiser adds: “In [the case of Doucet-Ryan], the courts lost their vision of the nature of Canadian society and the function of the criminal law.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Proposed measures include docking maternity leave from couples if fathers fail to take proper leave too, enabling courts to accelerate restraining orders, trials and compulsory "awareness-raising courses" for violent male partners. The law also envisages providing females considered under threat of violence with free emergency mobile phones to alert police.

Divorced men who fail to pay alimony could see the owed funds taken directly from their social benefits.

Companies that fail to respect gender equality could be excluded from public contract tenders, while sports federations will also face penalties for shunning equality. Fines on political parties failing to respect gender parity in legislative elections will be doubled. Currently only 26 per cent of French MPs are women.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In this talk (audio- MP3) , Brian D. Earp argues that the non-therapeutic circumcision of infant males is unethical, whether it is performed for reasons of obtaining possible future health benefits, for reasons of cultural transmission, or for reasons of perceived religious obligation. He begins with the premise that it should be considered morally impermissible to sever healthy, functional genital tissue from another person’s body without first asking for, and then actually receiving, that person’s informed consent—otherwise, this action would qualify as a criminal assault. He then raises a number of possible exceptions to this rule, to see whether they could reasonably serve to justify the practice of infant male circumcision in certain cases.

Article here. Excerpt:

'THE US government has allocated an extra $10m for male circumcision in South Africa, highlighting the change it has made to funding programmes that are expected to have a long-term effect on the progression of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The additional money comes as the US is cutting back support to South Africa’s HIV/AIDS programmes, moving money away from nongovernmental organisations that have provided services such as treatment, and shifting the funds to technical support.

The baseline funding from the US President’s Emergency Programme for Aids Relief (Pepfar) for South Africa for fiscal year 2013 was $520m, of which $36m was for male circumcision. The new money brings total US support for male circumcision in South Africa to $46m this year.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Labour is poised to introduce new party rules to ensure half of its elected MPs are women by 2017 and would allow individual electorates to run "women only" candidate selections.

The proposed rule changes, to be decided at the party's annual conference in November, would force the party's list selection committee to ensure caucus would be 45 per cent woman in 2014 and 50 per cent by 2017.

In putting the list together the moderating committee would also have to take into account the electorate MPs that were likely to be elected, to ensure that balance.

A local electorate committee would be able to request that the NZ Council decide "only women may nominate for the position of Labour candidate for their electorate".'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Swedish police have arrested a 36-year-old woman in connection with the illegal circumcision of two young boys in the town of Eksjo, authorities said.

Police spokesman Goran Gunnarsson told the Swedish news agency TT that police received a call from someone who heard the boys screaming.
...
Charges against her include suspicion of aggravated assault since it is illegal to perform a circumcision in Sweden without supervision by a medical professional.'

Article here. Drug overdose deaths are increasing at a faster rate for women than men. But men continue to die in larger numbers. Apparently, now is the time to take action because it's now a "women's issue." Excerpt:

'Prescription painkiller addiction has long been seen as mainly a man’s problem, but a new analysis of federal data released Tuesday shows that in recent years the death rate has risen far faster among women.

Fatal overdoses from prescription pain pills increased fivefold among women from 1999 to 2010, the most recent year for which the federal government has final data. The rate among men tripled over the same period, according to the analysis, which was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More women die from drug overdoses than from cervical cancer or car accidents. Four times as many died over the last 10 years from drug overdoses than from homicides. And while the absolute number of overdose deaths is still higher for men, women are catching up.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'REDLANDS, CALIF. – A Southern California high school teacher was arrested on unlawful sex charges two weeks after she gave birth to a baby that was allegedly fathered by a student, Redlands police said Tuesday.

Laura Elizabeth Whitehurst, 28, was arrested Monday night for allegedly having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old, Redlands police spokesman Carl Baker. She was the boy's adviser.

Officials at Citrus Valley High School in Redlands contacted police on Monday, acting on a tip from the boy's mother.

The sexual relationship began last summer and continued for nearly a year, police said. The boy is now 17.'

Last week we told you about Senator McCain challenging the recent DOJ Sexual Harassment settlement with the University of Montana. Thank you for urging your senators to join with Sen. McCain to restore free speech on campus. We appreciate every single call.

Today, let's take it one more step. Sen. McCain has asked the feds: "To what extent does the broad nature of the new and judicially untested 'unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature" standard, increase the risk of a wrongful conviction?'

DEMAND that the Dept. of Education's Asst. Secretary Seth Galanter answer Sen. McCain's question!

EMAIL him NOW: seth.galanter-at-ed.gov

Happy 4th of July!

Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org

Presentation here. Caption:

'Nineteen firefighters died while fighting the Yarnell Hill fire, located northwest of Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday, June 30. The fire started on Friday, June 28, and spread to more than 6,000 acres in two days. Learn more about the fallen firefighters.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The family courts and laws are set up in such a way that makes it very easy for a mother to collect child support, and very difficult for a man to avoid it. If a couple was married, the default law is that the man will be required to pay child support for any child born while they were married. In order for a man who isn't the father to escape this outcome, he must obtain a paternity test and take a series of legal steps in court. Most states only allow a short window of time for a man to do this. If a man is not aware of the child, which he may not be if his wife or former wife doesn't notify him of the child right away, he loses all chance to fight the child support, and will be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the next 18 years until the child becomes an adult.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last week when I attended the graduation ceremonies for a local high school, ironically designated as a "National School of Excellence," I noted a distressing fact: the ceremony was dominated by females. In a significant omission, the male student body president, a senior, was not identified in the program, nor did he have a role in the ceremony. Instead, six senior girls were prominently listed in the program, marched in with the school dignitaries and participated in the ceremony.

Article here. Google the text of the first para. below and click the first hit link in order to bypass the login challenge. Excerpt:

'ALBY Schultz has used his valedictory speech to urge the incoming government to hold a parliamentary inquiry into what he believes is an "endemic" anti-male culture at the Child Support Agency.

Mr Schultz, the member for the NSW seat of Hume to the ACT's north, was one of three Liberal MPs in the lower house to give their outgoing speeches yesterday along with South Australian MP Patrick Secker and NSW MP Joanna Gash.
...
In a damning swipe at the Child Support Agency, Mr Schultz accused it of denying men natural justice and of covering up male suicide rates. He said the culture of "gender bias" at the agency was endemic and should be exposed under the protection of a parliamentary inquiry.'