Vid/story here. Excerpt:

'“I Didn’t Do It” told the story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton. Thompson wrongly accused Cotton of raping her in 1984, though she didn't do it on purpose. She was certain Cotton was her attacker -- and convinced two juries he was.

Cotton was sentenced to life behind bars in North Carolina in both his trial and a retrial; in the latter trial, a second victim claimed he'd raped her as well. Ronald maintained his innocence throughout.

Eleven years into his sentence, he asked for new DNA-testing technology to be used -- and was finally proven innocent and released in 1994. Investigators -- and Thompson -- were blown away by the news. She and Ronald met after his release so she could apologize, and broke down in each other’s arms.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Malawi Government launched a year ago what it called “voluntary male circumcision programme” with an aim of circumcising 2.1 million males by 2016. The goal of the programme is to reduce HIV infections among sexually active males.

So far, the Malawian Ministry of Health announced that only 15,000 males have come forward and went through the knife. This number represents only 0.7% of the targeted population, which indicates that something must be wrong somewhere in the process as the programme now nears one year mark.

The ministry’s spokesperson, Henry Chimbali, points to a number of factors that contributed to the slow pace of the programme. He blames 'house-keeping' issues such as policy, scale up plan of the campaign, communication plan and human resources as the main contributing factors to the slow pace.'

Story here. Excerpt:

'The head of Girlguiding UK says that no boys should be allowed in, despite girls being allowed into the Scouts.

Since 2007, girls of all ages have been allowed to join UK Scout groups, which traditionally were only for boys.

However the Guides don't allow boys in and the new head of the organisation, Julie Bentley, says that's the way it should be.

We asked you what you thought. Here's a selection of some of the comments sent in.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In announcing her plans to continue leading the Democrats in the House, Nancy Pelosi stressed this morning an unusual but critical and easily overlooked political force in resolving the fiscal cliff: gender diversity.

“As we move forward to debate our economic and fiscal challenges in the weeks and months ahead, one thing is clear — our economic agenda and choices will be viewed through the perspective and eyes of our nation’s women,” the California congresswoman said at a Wednesday news conference, flanked by other women Democratic lawmakers.

It’s a sign of how identity politics will come into play as Washington scrambles to address the economically toxic mix of tax hikes and spending cuts that are slated to begin next year. Rather than accepting a changing of the guard, Pelosi — with more than a decade of time in congressional leadership — decided to highlight how she embodies an increasingly diverse caucus.'

The race/gender composition obsession seems endless. I honestly think if Minnie Mouse wanted to run for office vs. Sam Rayburn, Wasserman-Shultz would endorse the mouse. Video here. (For those unfamiliar with it, EMILY's List is a PAC that supports only female Democrat party candidates who support a pro-choice abortion position.)

Article here. Excerpt:

'David Petraeus' cheating was somewhat, if not entirely predictable. As Lisa Belkin points out, the Men Behaving Badly phenomenon is quite common when it comes to politics: FDR, JFK and Slick Willie Clinton are three egregious examples.

It isn't just that male politicians who sleazy, but women in general are expected to stay attractive in middle age, whereas men don't have to because they still call the shots. I hate to say this but as soon as I saw Petraeus' wife's picture I said to myself: "poor thing, a once-attractive gal, who has gained weight and looks somewhat frumpy can expect that her famous husband's eyes will wander when he comes into close contact with a younger woman."

Story here. Excerpt:

'A disturbing case out of Canandaigua*. A teacher is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student. Investigators believe the relationship lasted for several months. Officers say the most recent incident happened last weekend.

44-year-old Lisa Footer has been charged with sex abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child.

On her teacher web page, Lisa Footer says it's her 22nd year of teaching and she's determined that it will be her best. Obviously it isn't turning out that way as she stands accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student who attends Canandaigua Academy.

Footer is charged with three misdemeanors: sex abuse, forcible touching and endangering welfare of child. She was arraigned Tuesday night. According to police, she was having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male student.

"NBC's White House corespondent Chuck Todd Discussing Nancy Pelosi running for Minority leader again." Video here.

Article here. Excerpt:

Few would dispute the intentions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 as it applies to sports. To prevent discrimination on the basis of sex, the law requires all institutions receiving federal funding to provide equal opportunity in athletic participation.

But a new study, based on participation data and the hypothesis that women are inherently less interested in sports than men, asserts that Title IX might be taking the wrong approach.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Back in the late 1970s, as an undergraduate at Princeton, I auditioned to be the loudspeaker announcer during halftime at football games. It would be, I thought, a great gig: sitting in some box talking into a microphone, narrating the funny skits the band performed on the field. I made it to the final callback, but in the end the judges gave the slot to a guy. They told me afterward that it was just too hard to imagine a woman's voice coming out of a loudspeaker at an Ivy League stadium. That was what the 1970s and '80s were like, for women: opportunity and setback, goofy small disappointments along with important big ones. We were there, but they didn't want anybody to, you know, hear us.

Story here. Excerpt:

'Pelosi's wind-up was epic. For nearly 10 minutes, she praised her fellow female members and admitted that "we want more." She emptied the cliché-o-matic, talking about the need to "reignite the American dream" and work "for a healthy nation, a healthy political arena, a healthy planet." Finally, after cable had cut away, she announced that she'd "made the decision that some of you might have some interest in." She was running for leader again. Her team of women burst into cheers.

Story here. Excerpt:

'A Toledo woman and her son al­leg­edly con­spired to kill them­selves and three young chil­dren — her grand­chil­dren and his nieces and nephew — in or­der to pre­vent the chil­dren's par­ents from re­gain­ing cus­tody, po­lice the­o­rized on Mon­day.

Po­lice found the five fam­ily mem­bers — Sandy Ford, 56; Andy Ford, 32; Paige Hayes, 10; Logan Hayes, 7; and Mada­lyn Hayes, 5 — dead in­side of a car parked in­side the fam­ily's at­tached ga­rage at 5142 Harvest Lane on Mon­day af­ter­noon.
...
Ser­geant Hef­fer­nan said the par­ents were in the pro­cess of get­ting full cus­tody and po­lice be­lieve that was the mo­tive for the al­leged mur­ders and suicides. He said carbon monoxide poisoning was suspected as the cause of the deaths.

Dean Sparks, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Lu­cas County Chil­dren Ser­vices, said Mon­day night that he did not im­me­di­ately have much in­for­ma­tion about the case, but did know that the chil­dren were placed in the Fords’ cus­tody in 2009.

This week is the beginning of our "What Happened to the Presumption of Innocence?" campaign. And we're starting right out of the gate with a 24-hour call to action.

Today is a Day of Action for some victim advocates, with calls and tweets asking for reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). We're not so quick to jump on that bandwagon, because VAWA is not ready to be reauthorized. It still has many provisions that strip the presumption of innocence from the accused.

See our recent press release for more details: http://www.saveservices.org/2012/11/pr-anti-violence-law-may-dash-the-presumption-of-innocence-save-warns

Article here. Excerpt:

'Today, men are slightly more likely to be unemployed than women, while women are 6% more likely to be in management positions than men. Women dominate many of the professions poised to grow the most in the next decade, while several male-dominated industries -- notably manufacturing -- are losing jobs. And, in an economy where a college education is increasingly important, women are 46% more likely to have a bachelor's degree by the time they turn 24.

Nothing scares the unholy monkey-snot out of Islamists like the Taleban more than a girl with a book. This is because they know that if girls and women learn to read and make up their own minds about the Islamists' particular version of Islam (which I would argue isn't really a version so much as a perversion), they will stop supporting Islamist men in what they are doing. When men lack the moral and personal support of women at home for a war they go to fight, by and large, they decide to stop doing it. Or as history has shown time and again, as with the Spartan mother who used to tell her son to "Return with your shield or on it!", there is nothing like a mother's encouragement to make her son go get his head blown off for king and country.