Soccer Mom Madam' pleads guilty in New York
Why-Adults may paddle students of opposite gender in Texas district
Victoria's Secret Geisha Lingerie Sparks Controversy
Wow-Chinese Popstar, 24, falls for young model
Why-Adults may paddle students of opposite gender in Texas district
SAN ANTONIO, TEX. - School administrators will be allowed to paddle students of the opposite sex under a rule approved unanimously Monday night by the school board in the North Texas community of Springtown. Superintendent Michael Kelley said Tuesday the new policy would ensure both male and female students are treated equally since there are not enough administrators of both genders in some schools in Springtown, which has a population of about 2,600. Under the previous policy, corporal punishment could only be carried out by an administrator who was of the same gender as the student. The new policy says that a school official of the same gender as the student must be in the room where the paddling takes place and that parents must provide written permission for their child to be paddled. The punishment involves striking students on their clothed rear with a wooden paddle.
Why-'Soccer Mom Madam' pleads guilty in New York
NEW YORK - Anna Gristina, the accused Manhattan madam whose case garnered lurid headlines in the New York media, pleaded guilty Tuesday in state court to one count of promoting prostitution. The "Soccer Mom Madam," as she was dubbed by the tabloids, is expected to be sentenced in November to time served by Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. She spent four months in jail after her February arrest. With her family in the front row of the courtroom, Gristina told Merchan she wanted to change her plea to guilty, then turned and mouthed to her husband, Kelvin Gorr, "Okay?" Gorr nodded, hugging their young son.
Officials spent five years investigating the case, using wiretaps and other methods of surveillance. But it only resulted in one criminal count against Gristina. The Manhattan district attorney's office said Gristina ran a high-end brothel for wealthy clients out of a Manhattan apartment and was captured on tape boasting of connections inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the district attorney's office and the police department. Assistant District Attorney Charles Linehan told Merchan that prosecutors had been
unable to substantiate her claims of ties to law enforcement. "We are left with a straightforward promoting prostitution case," he said. "That is all." Gristina had refused to consider a plea deal, in part because she could face deportation to her native Scotland for a crime of moral turpitude. Her lawyer, Norman Pattis, said she would fight to stay in the United States. As part of her plea, Gristina admitted in court that she arranged for a tryst between two prostitutes she employed and a man, known to her as "Anthony," inside an apartment on the Upper East Side. The man was an undercover police officer, according to court documents.
Bad-Teen allegedly chained, sexually assaulted
Police in Nova Scotia are on the hunt for two men accused of forcibly confining and sexually assaulting a teenage boy. An Upper Chelsea resident called police at 7:15 p.m. Monday to report that there was a young man in need of assistance. RCMP responded and found that the 16-year-old boy had been forcibly confined in a house on Faulkner Rd. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Local media reported the boy showed up at an older woman's house Monday night wearing chains and begging for help. The woman, a widow, didn't let the boy inside but said she'd call police. "And he said, 'Don't call the cops. They'll hurt me,'" referring to his captors, a neighbour who asked not to be named told the Chronicle Herald.
Investigators have charged David James Leblanc, 47, and Wayne Alan Cunningham, 31, with forcible confinement and sexual assault.
Wow-Chinese Popstar, 24, falls for model, 12
A 24-year-old popstar and a 12-year-old model have apparently fallen for one another, sending social networks in China and around the world into a frenzy. Akama Miki, 12, declared her love to Zhang Muyi, twice her age and more importantly an adult, and it
appears the feeling is mutual. Miki's a pre-teen sensation in China with a huge following - about 500,000 on the Chinese social network Weibo - and only follows one person back: Muyi.The two have posted lovey-dovey posts to each other and photos of themselves together on Weibo.While there’s no suggestion of a physical relationship, Muyi wished her a happy 12th birthday and vowed to wait "four more birthdays" until Miki is a legal age.Miki responded: "I will always love you and you will be my darling forever!!!", attaching a couple of love hearts at the end. The photo of the pair touching fingers by the water at night, expressing a kiss, has created shockwaves. Web sceptics have been quick to call the relationship a fake and a publicity stunt. Still, why would a 24-year-old pretend to be in love with a child to boost his profile?If you take away "popstar" and "model", you're just left with a 24-year-old man declaring his love for a 12-year-old. Alarm bells are ringing.
Strange-Victoria's Secret Geisha Lingerie Sparks Controversy
It takes hundreds of employees, thousands of hours and millions of dollars to launch a mass market lingerie line. And one blogger to take it all down. "I never thought they would pull the Geisha outfit off the market," Nina Jacinto tells Shine. "I imagine there were a number of factors that went into that decision." Two weeks ago, Jacinto, a 26-year-old Bay Area blogger and non-profit development manager, most likely became one of
those factors. It all started here. "I saw a link to [Victoria's Secret's Go East] line on the blog, Angry Asian Man," she says. "Hooray for exotic orientalist bull----," wrote the blogger who included a link to the "Asian-inspired" lingerie line's centerpiece: "The Sexy Little Geisha," a mesh teddy that comes with an obi belt, chopsticks and a fan. Immediately Jacinto sat down to write an insightful post on why she found the outfit, and the line in general, offensive. "It's the kind of overt racism masked behind claims of inspired fashion and exploring sexual fantasy that makes my skin crawl," she wrote in article published September 6 on the blog Racialicious, a site for commentary on the intersection of culture and race.
"There's a long-standing trend to represent Asian women as hypersexualized objects of fantasy," wrote Jacinto. She also took umbrage with the lingerie description as "your ticket to an exotic adventure" and the fact that none of the models for the collection were of Asian descent. "The lack of Asian women here simply exposes the deep-rooted nature of the Orientalist narrative, one that trades real humanness for access to culture," she wrote. "Besides, it can only feel sexy and exotic if it's on an "American" body—without the feeling of accessing something foreign or forbidden, there can be no fantasy." One week after Jacinto posted her piece, the feminist website Bust picked up on the story. When the Bust reporter went to check out the teddy described in Jacinto's story, it had disappeared from the site. According to Bust, a Victoria's Secret rep suggested the teddy had simply "sold out." A week after that, The Frisky's Jessica Wakemen wrote about the offending and mysteriously missing teddy in question. "Considering the complicated history of geishas, repurposing the "look" for a major corporation to sell as role-playing lingerie seems a bit tasteless," she wrote. By the afternoon, major news outlets like the Huffington Post began calling blogger backlash to Victoria's Secret a "controversy." The Daily Mail noted that the teddy and the Go East line in its entirety had been removed from the company website and replaced with the main product page.
