Submitted by email, essay here. I would include an excerpt but the site spoils efforts to copy-and-paste. If you have the time, worth a read.

Story here. Excerpt:

'BLADENBORO, N.C. (CBS Charlotte) — A North Carolina middle school student has been suspended for hugging a teacher.

WECT-TV reports that Ryan Blackmon, an eighth grade student at Bladenboro Middle School, was suspended when he hugged his teacher after she broke up a potential fight between himself and another student.

“”I said, ‘Thank you,’ after she got done,” Blackmon told the station. “I went to hug her, then she just snatched me up by the arm and drug me to the other teacher and said that I needed to be written up, and that something serious had happened.”
...
Blackmon’s parents have filed a police report against the teacher and the school after a mark was left on the boy’s arm from where the teacher grabbed him.

“I don’t understand how she could feel threatened if I was showing my gratitude, but she could have told me politely to tell me to move away,” he told the station.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'They look like any other teenagers, but Western Australian police believe this gang of girls are responsible for a series of violent assaults in Perth's CBD over the past two weeks.

CCTV footage has been released of the group of girls suspected of attacking and robbing several young women in separate attacks.
...
Detectives also believe several other attacks are linked to the teen gang.'

Registration is free, and food is provided. From the registration site:

"Based within the Academic Diversity Initiatives of DDCE, Project MALES aims to create and cultivate a support network for Latino male students at UT-Austin, within local school districts, and throughout the surrounding community. The Project is a research-informed model that highlights mentoring as a way to leverage social capital among Latino males. Specifically, we hope to explore innovative ways to establish mentoring links between Latino male role models, current UT Latino male students, and younger Latino males within the Austin area and surrounding communities."

While men in general are underrepresented in higher ed relative to women (~60% of graduates are women), these disparities tend to be greater among men of color.

Register at http://latinomalesymposium.eventbrite.com/.

Learn more about Project MALES and their research at http://blogs.utexas.edu/projectmales

Link here. Excerpt:

'More unmarried women who live with their partners are having babies than ever before, a new government report shows.

Twenty-seven percent of births between 2003 and 2010 were to such couples -- a threefold increase from 1985, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

"It's thought that in births outside of marriage, one parent isn't present. But our data is showing that a large proportion do have two parents, even though [they're] not formally married," said report author Gladys Martinez, a demographer in the CDC's Division of Vital Statistics.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the resulting military deployments have significantly affected our service members and their families. These deployments have sometimes caused considerable disruptions in existing child custody and visitations arrangements between the parents. Current California law provides that upon return from deployment any temporary custody order issued during the deployment reverts back to the prior order.

AB 1807, sponsored by Representative Paul Cook, passed the House without a single ‘no’ vote. It clarifies the law protecting custodial arrangements for deploying parents to better protect the custodial rights of our servicemen and women, while still ensuring the best interest of children.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'FORT WORTH — For four years, a North Texas bodybuilder and former police officer has waged a court battle in California against a woman who sued him for support of children born to her from sperm he donated.

Only recently did an appeals court in California overturn a lower-court ruling that held 47-year-old national bodybuilding champion Ronnie Coleman of Arlington responsible for supporting twins born from his donated sperm, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

But after an April 2008 court order directed him to pay child support, Coleman paid thousands of dollars in child support until the March 19 ruling by California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles overturned that order.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In recent years, the number of women earning college degrees has vastly increased. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women earned the majority of almost all levels of degrees in 2008-2009 across various racial and ethnic groups. Additionally, the Council of Graduate Schools found that in 2008-2009, about 50.4% of doctoral degrees were awarded to women, marking the first time females have earned the majority of these credentials, The New York Times reports.

While this certainly marks a huge step for American women, other professionals say it also shows that men need to become more focused on earning a degree as well.

..........

Unemployment Falls Fast in U.S. If Men Get College Degree

..........

Press release here. Excerpt:

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The federal government spends $76 million a year for domestic violence education programs, but 90 percent of the claims made in these programs are one-sided, misleading, or completely untrue, according to a new report from Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE). The report, "Most DV Educational Programs Lack Accuracy, Balance, and Truthfulness," compares validated scientific research with the claims made by leading abuse-reduction groups: http://www.saveservices.org/downloads/SAVE-DV-Educational-Programs

The SAVE report highlights three offenders:

1. The American Bar Association frames its discussion of domestic violence with the broad claim that "2 to 4 million American women are battered every year." But the dean of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Work derides that statistic as a "factoid from nowhere."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'A bill making its way through the Missouri General Assembly would allow adoptions to go through without paternal notification.

House Bill 1258 is based on a case that went before the Missouri Supreme Court in 2007. The legislation would allow adoption without a father's consent, if he had not developed a "consistent and substantial relationship with the child."

The bill defines a relationship as:

1. Consistent prenatal financial support;
2. Consistent payment of prenatal and natal medical care for the mother and baby;
3. Consistent child support payments commensurate with his ability to pay;
4. Consistent contact and visitation with the child; and
5. Assistance with educational and medical care of the child
...
The bill passed in the House 126-15. It was read in the Senate, and referred to committee.

Link here. Excerpt:

'Male teens who were sexually abused are more likely to have unsafe sex, a new study finds.

University of British Columbia researchers analyzed data from more than 40,000 American and Canadian male high school students who were surveyed between 1986 and 2011.

Compared to those with no history of sexual abuse, young males who were sexually abused were five times more likely to cause teen pregnancy, three times more likely to have multiple sexual partners and two times more likely to have unprotected sex, according to the study published online and in the June print issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.'

We'll be meeting on Capitol Hill Friday morning for a day of lobbying, followed by a get-to-know-each-other dinner.

On Saturday we'll enjoy the conference, have lunch, and participate in our June Domestic Violence Legislative Project (DVLP) meeting. DVLP: http://www.saveservices.org/dvlp.

Meet your fellow advocates, activists and citizen lobbyists. Learn from the experts. Get hands-on training. Feel empowered!

Visit the SAVE website for more information about this year's conference: http://www.saveservices.org/dvlp/annual-conference-2012

Start making plans now to attend. Register early, as space is limited. To register, email info-at-saveservices.org.

I can't wait to meet you all!

Sincerely,

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

Article here. Excerpt:

'Actually, what we find weird is that someone who claims to be a “feminist, a writer, and a gentlewoman of fortune” who refuses to be labeled as some sort of damsel in distress has absolutely no problem making up stereotypes for Mr. Gosling before having met him.

In an email to The New York Observer (sent before the Gawker piece), Ms. Penny wrote about that fateful meeting:

"Lucky or not, I feel it’s some sort of karmic retribution for my having spent so much time cackling at the ‘manarchist Ryan Gosling’ meme. I have no idea if Mr Gosling is actually a manarchist, but he’s clearly a decent sort of person, and looks rather dashing in double denim."

Link here. Excerpt:

'A Queensland man has lost a bid to gain full responsibility for his ex-girlfriend's unborn child.

The man, who cannot be named, had applied for an injunction from the Family Court of Australia to stop the 16-year-old girl from terminating her pregnancy and to get full custody of the child once it was born.

He also wanted to ensure the girl told him when she went into labour and that he was given permission to visit the hospital, the Daily Telegraph reports.'

As a follow-up to this item, I received the following in reply to my letter to the D.A.:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6th, 2012

KELSO, WA - Cowlitz County Prosecutor Sue Baur will not be filing perjury charges against Cassandra Kennedy. Ms. Kennedy recently claimed she lied in 2001 as an eleven-year-old victim when she testified against her father, Thomas Kennedy in a jury trial. The jury convicted Mr. Kennedy of three counts of Rape of a Child in the First Degree. Her recantation was found to be enough to warrant an order for a new trial, but was not determined to be the truth.
There is a misconception that Mr. Kennedy would not have been released unless he was found innocent. This is untrue. He has never been found innocent of the crimes of Rape of a Child.