Article here. Excerpt:

'Women are still awaiting a gender revolution in Britain's boardrooms but Norway's corporate culture has undergone a radical change that has transformed the career of one woman in particular.

At one point Mai-Lill Ibsen held more than 185 Norwegian boardroom seats and was undisputed queen of the so called "golden skirts" – experienced executive women who found themselves in demand when Norway in 2006 passed a law requiring 40% of boardroom seats to go to women (or men in the rare case of a female-dominated directors' suite).
...
Nonetheless, Ibsen opposes the quota system as a way to get women into the highest echelons of business. "I've never seen the glass ceiling," she says, raising her arms against an imaginary barrier. "I'm against quotas. They are discriminatory in a way. I feel we [women] are so strong we don't need that.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'At the beginning of her freshman year at Upper St. Clair High School, Kallan Piconi had plenty of decisions to make. Which classes would she take? Which clubs would she join? Most importantly, which fall sport would she play?
...
On Sept. 11, Kallan's mother, Eden Piconi, arrived at her seat for the game at Peters Township, ready to watch her daughter compete. Quickly, Mrs. Piconi saw something in the action that jarred her: Running up and down the field with the girls was a boy wearing a kilt and a Peters jersey.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A former beauty queen who was once married to the owner of a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred has reportedly struck a deal with prosecutors who were preparing to try her for allegedly luring a man to his death nearly a decade ago.

The Seattle Times reports that Peggy Sue Thomas, 47, will spend four years in prison when she is sentenced next month on charges of first-degree rendering criminal assistance. Thomas, who was crowned Ms. Washington in 2000, had faced a first-degree murder charge in the death of Russel Douglas, who was found fatally shot two days after Christmas 2003.

Thomas, a former beautician, once worked at a salon owned by Douglas’ wife, and allegedly plotted with her then-boyfriend, James Huden, to kill Douglas.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Casey Anthony, the Florida mother who was acquitted of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2011, has filed for bankruptcy, The Associated Press reports.

Anthony filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Tampa Friday, claiming about $1,000 in assets and $792,000 in debts, according to the AP. Many of the liabilities come from legal fees associated with her trial, as well as taxes and a $145,660 fee she was ordered to pay the Orange County Sheriff's office for misleading police during the investigation into Caylee's murder.

Anthony, who is unemployed and living in an undisclosed location due to threats she received after the verdict was handed down, is still listed as a defendant in a number of civil suits linked to the case.'

Story here. Seriously, what a nasty person. And of course, were the sexes reversed, not only would the plot not include him walloping her, but if it had, he would have apologized profusely. Instead, she taunts him about it with a "memento" reminding him of her assault. And of course, the story reports that the 'he' character shouldn't have even tried to fight back. I'd like to suggest a boycott of this film. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Genital integrity activists from across the country are demanding that lawmakers ban the practice of circumcising boys. Popularly known as “intactivists”, these children’s rights advocates submitted the Male Genital Mutilation (MGM) Bill proposal to more than 2,000 legislators this week in an effort to require gender neutrality in federal and state laws that regulate genital cutting.

As director of MGMbill.org’s Indiana state office in Indianapolis, Jeff Cowsert wants all boys to be able to grow up with their genitals left intact. “When I was eight years old, my religious friends told me about circumcision,” said Cowsert. “I was silently outraged, and for the remainder of my childhood I mourned the fact that I didn't have a complete body. I would not have chosen to be cut if given the choice, and I strongly feel that infant circumcision needs to be banned so that men can make their own choices about their own bodies when they are mature adults.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Gender equality is an admirable goal that is almost universally agreed upon in our nation. We want men and women to have the same rights and equal access to opportunities. That is uncontroversial. What is wrong, however, is seeing unequal results and categorically inferring unjust treatment. In other words, what looks, feels and smells like sexism may not actually be sexism.

We must first understand that seemingly organized, designed patterns may naturally arise from individual decisions that are not motivated by bigotry. For example, in seminar classes, the men and the women often sit on opposite sides of the table with no interlay. Is this evidence of a conscious decision to segregate due to sexism? No, of course not. If every member of the class prefers to sit next to at least one person of his or her own sex, then the pattern of complete segregation will occur organically. Thus, patterns of behavior that seem collectively organized can emerge from the aggregation of individual choices that stem from innocent motives.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'European rules on quotas for women on company boards are necessary because businesses aren’t doing enough themselves, according to European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.

“I don’t like to intervene very strongly, but I thought it was the only way,” Reding said today in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I tried to do it first with asking the companies to do it by themselves. What was the result? Nothing.”

Reding set out draft legislation in November asking governments and the European Parliament to approve rules for a 40 percent quota to favor women over equally qualified men for supervisory board seats. She said today such legislation was needed as the population ages.

Story here. Excerpt:

'DAVOS, Switzerland –  Three women angry over sexism and male domination of the world economy ripped off their shirts and tried to force their way into a gathering of corporate elites in a Swiss resort.

Predictably, they failed. The ubiquitous and huge security force policing the World Economic Forum in Davos carried the women away, kicking and screaming.

The women, from Ukrainian feminist activist group Femen, scaled a fence and set off pink flares in the protest Saturday. Their chests were painted with "SOS Davos," as they sought to call attention to poverty of women around the world.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'SEVARE, Mali (AP) — The boy sits with his knees tucked under his chest on the concrete floor of the police station here, his adolescent face a tableau of fear. He's still garbed in the knee-length tunic he was ordered to wear by the Islamic extremist who recruited him.

It's these same clothes, styled after those worn by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, which gave him away when he tried to flee earlier this week. They have now become his prison garb.

Adama Drabo is 16, and his recruitment into the ranks of a group designated as a terrorist organization, followed by his violent interrogation at the hands of the Malian army, underscores the obstacles faced by France as it tries to wash its former West African colony clean of the al-Qaida-linked fighters occupying it.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'We have apparently arrived at the Golden Age, free from strife and the threat of foreign enemies. Little else can explain so gratuitous a decision as to place women in combat units. The downsides to such a policy are legion and obvious; the only reason to pursue it is to placate feminism’s insatiable and narcissistic drive for absolute official equality between the sexes.

Any claim that our fighting forces are not reaching their maximum potential because females are not included is absurd. The number of women who are the equal to reasonably well-developed men in upper-body strength and who have the same stamina and endurance is vanishingly small. Because the number of women who will meet the military’s already debased physical-fitness standard will not satisfy the feminists’ demand for representation, the fitness standard will inevitably be lowered across the board or for women alone, as we have seen in civilian uniformed forces.
...

Article here. Excerpt:

'And as a MOB - Mother of Boys - she has come to the conclusion that bringing up boys "is like dealing with dogs".

While males, or FOB (Fathers of Boys), may initially take offence at the analogy, her reasoning does, perhaps, make more than a little sense.

Evans, a mother of three boys aged seven, nine and 10, explains that 'boy pups' need feeding at least three times a day, a tree or a toilet to mark his territory, clear commands of no more than one syllable such as 'Stop!' or 'No!', love which may be shown in manic displays of tummy tickling, and most importantly, to go out to let off steam, twice a day, every day.
...
But Evans, like most MOBs, weathers the violent boy storms, and concludes she wouldn't have it any other way.

She points out that one of the many reasons why being a MOB is great is that boys' needs are simple: "Exercise, discipline, lunacy and love.

"Oh, and a never-ending supply of Scooby snacks."'

Story here. Excerpt:

'Prosecutors have rested their case in the high-profile trial of an Arizona woman accused of killing her boyfriend in 2008.

They called their last witness to the stand Thursday, a female friend of defendant Jodi Arias.

The woman testified that she had dinner with Arias 24 hours after Arias allegedly killed 30-year-old Travis Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home.

The 32-year-old Arias could become the fourth woman on Arizona's death row if she's convicted.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Is Jodi Arias the next Casey Anthony? Two beautiful women, two terrible deaths and a lot of lies. We all thought the evidence was sky high to convict Casey but she went free. Could this happen again in the Jodi Arias trial?

Jane Velez-Mitchell analyzes the prosecution’s case with a panel of legal experts.'

---
Ed.: In case you're unfamiliar with this case, read about it here and here.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Two teenage girls have been arrested in a violent subway assault on a 55-year-old man, punching him in the head in an attack that sent the victim to the hospital, police said. 

According to police, the two teens were on a northbound 4 train departing Utica Avenue in Brooklyn at about 1 p.m. when they encountered a man and became aggressive with him, police said. The nature of the dispute wasn't immediately clear.

Police say the teenagers became violent and attacked the 55-year-old man, punching him in the face and head. Video of the incident showed the man eventually punching back in an attempt to defend himself.'