(THE ADVOCATE) 26 March 2008:

Thomas Beatie is a normal guy. He and his wife Nancy live in Oregon and are expecting their first child. Except Nancy is not the one carrying the child. Thomas is pregnant.  Thomas is transgender female to male, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. When Thomas had his sex reassignment procedures, he kept his female reproductive organs. Nancy has a hysterectomy and therefore is unable to carry a child for the couple. When the couple decided they wanted a child, Thomas stopped taking his testosterone injections. After four months, his body knew what to do. He was able to get pregnant without the aid of fertility drugs or any additional hormone treatments.  The sperm came from a sperm bank. Many people they’ve encountered are hostile and angry, but they are thrilled that the pregnancy is free from complications and they are expecting a baby girl on July 3.

(CBS NEWS) 14 February 2008:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that at least 82 American youths have died from “playing” the “choking game.” The kids used various household items including dog leashes to wrap around their neck to temporarily cut blood flow to their head. “The goal is a dreamlike, floating-in-space feeling when blood rushes back into the brain.” The CDS estimates that 20 percent of teens and preteens play this “game.” Nearly 90 percent of the deaths were boys and the average age is 13.  Warning signs that a child is engaging in this activity include bloodshot eyes, marks on the neck, frequent and severe headaches, disorientation after spending time alone, and ropes, scarves, or belts tield to bedroom furniture or doorknobs or found knotted on the floor.

(CINCINNATI ENQUIRER) 31 January 2008:

While most 10-year-olds are going to school and Hannah Montana concerts, one 10-year-old girl was giving birth on November 4 in Ohio. The father is her mother’s 40-year-old boyfriend. The baby’s birth stunned social workers and they are trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. The father of the infant is in jail, accused of child molestation. Ya think?

(KITSAP SUN) 25 December 2007:

A 19-year-old woman who beat up her ex-boyfriend Monday after he drunkenly urinated in a closet told officers she hoped he would bail her out of jail because it was the right thing to do for their baby.

Bremerton police were called to the residence after receiving initial reports that the 25-year-old had assaulted the woman, reports said.

When met by officers, the woman explained that the man had been drinking and was extremely intoxicated when he went to bed. At some point he woke up to use the restroom, but was so confused he urinated in the closet.

“I attacked him,” she told the officer, reports said. “He was so drunk that I beat the (stuff) out of him.”

During the “wrestling,” as the man described it, she “repeatedly” kicked him in the face.

When police arrived, they arrested the 19-year-old woman and booked her into the Kitsap County jail for investigation of fourth-degree assault, third-degree malicious mischief and unlawful imprisonment.

The woman told officers she hoped her ex-boyfriend would come to the jail and bail her out because they “always did what was best for their child,” the report said.

(THESUN.COM) 12 September 2007:

She of the golden pipes Charlotte Church and her companion Gavin Henson are expecting a new baby any moment now. She’s already received approximately $60k in free baby gifts. The gifts include six prams, clothing, and tons of toys. It’s reported, however, that Charlotte would like to sell most of the items and give the money to…nope, not charity. She reportedly plans on putting the money in a trust fund for the expected child.

(ARABIAN BUSINESS) 12 June 2007:

From the new Barclays Wealth survey of who has the money and how they made it comes a confirmation of an idea long rumored to be true but not yet proven. That women are more risk averse than men.

The evolutionary psychologists have long thought it to be true, given both the differences in contributions to child birth and also in the past roles of men and women as hunters and gatherers.

But when looking at where men and women invest, it can be seen that men prefer the riskier alternatives, such as options, derivatives and commodities, while women prefer the safer, if lower yielding, bonds and stocks. The male choices can lead to greater gains but also to higher losses, the women’s to more safety, that is, they prefer less risk.

(MSNBC) 12 April 2007:

A provocative new Harvard Medical School study suggests that even accepted weight gains may raise the risk of having an overweight toddler.

Women in the study who gained the recommended amount of weight ran four times the risk of having a child who was overweight at age 3, compared to women who gained less than the advised amount.

Researchers found that about half the mothers gained more weight during pregnancy than the guidelines called for, while about a third met the recommended gain. The remaining 14 percent gained less weight than recommended.

Poor health habits shared between mother and child doesn’t account for the outcome, and while the women in the study generally had health insurance and were well-educated, studies of other groups are finding similar results, said Dr. Emily Oken, the study’s lead author.

(MSN.COM) 6 April 2007:

Tori Spelling, who recently gave birth to her first child, says she began reconciling with her mother, Candy, in the last weeks of her pregnancy.

“It was mutual,” the 33-year-old actress tells Us Weekly in its April 16 issue. “We both reached out at the same time by phone in the weeks before I had Liam.”

Their 9-month estrangement was juicy gossip in the tabloids, with mother and daughter sitting apart during a tribute to famed TV producer Aaron Spelling at the Emmy Awards last August.

Candy Spelling was in the delivery room when Tori Spelling gave birth to 6-pound, 6-ounce Liam Aaron McDermott by Caesarean section at a Los Angeles hospital last month.

“When she walked through that hospital door when I was in labor, it was like I had just seen her yesterday,” Spelling says. “We both started to cry and hug, and I said, `I love you, Mommy,’ and she said, `I love you.’ That was it. I wish my dad got to see it, but I think he is looking down on us.”

(THE DAILY TELEGRAPH) 12 March 2007:

Finally, someone has explained something that has puzzled men and women since we first came down out of the trees: just what is it that makes teenagers teenagers?

Contrary to folklore, it isn’t that teens are the universe’s way of reminding us how appalling we were to our own parents, thus increasing our mature wisdom. Nor is it adjustment to the raging hormonal stew that is adolescence, at least not the sex part.

Rather, the hormone THP changes its function in teenagers, from the normal child and adult function of reducing anxiety to increasing it for those few years.

Now we know… But the question still hangs in the air:  What to do about those teenagers and their hormones?

(REUTERS) 2 March 2007:

Isn’t that what mom always says to a naughty child? With grown men other techniques might need to be used.  Fred Gregor, in Berlin, Germany, was protesting against his 15 month jail sentence for fraud and demanding a new trial, by squatting in a tiny homemade cubicle atop a TV antena 75 feet up in the air.  His wife at first supported him but after ten days decided enough was enough and that Gregor should come down. The former stripper and mother of their five children convinced him to return to earth by sending up to him, in his lunchbox, a topless photo of herself.