Britain Says Equine Drug May Have Entered Food Chain

LONDON — A crisis over horse meat in European food products deepened Thursday when British officials said tests showed that a powerful equine drug, potentially harmful to human health, may have entered the food chain in small quantities.

Until now, the crisis had been seen primarily as an issue of fraud after products containing horse meat were labeled beef, with politicians insisting that, even if millions of products sold as beef contained up to 100 percent horse meat, food safety was not at issue.

But on Thursday came the first admission that a banned substance, phenylbutazone – known as bute – could have entered the food chain in horse meat.

The British Food Standards Agency said that it had checked the carcasses of 206 horses slaughtered in Britain between January 30 and February 7. “Of these, eight tested positive for the drug,” it said in a statement.

Because there is little demand for horse meat in Britain, the carcasses are thought to have been exported to France where they were likely to have been used by the meat industry. The British and French authorities were trying to trace the meat but as yet have not identified any products directly affected.

The scandal has already plunged the British food industry into crisis with millions of products being withdrawn from supermarket freezer counters, initially in Britain and Ireland. But other countries, including Sweden and Germany, have been affected too.

Officials in Britain tried to reassure the public.  "Horse meat containing phenylbutazone presents a very low risk to human health,” Britain’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, said in a statement Thursday.

"Phenylbutazone, known as bute, is a commonly used medicine in horses. It is also prescribed to some patients who are suffering from a severe form of arthritis. At the levels of bute that have been found, a person would have to eat 500- 600 100 one hundred percent horse meat burgers a day to get close to consuming a human’s daily dose,” she said.

“And it passes through the system fairly quickly, so it is unlikely to build up in our bodies,” she added.

"In patients who have been taking phenylbutazone as a medicine there can be serious side effects but these are rare. It is extremely unlikely that anyone who has eaten horse meat containing bute will experience one of these side effects."

The widening scandal began when beef products on sale in several European Union countries were found to contain horse meat. Suppliers have said that the questionable meat originated at processing plants in Romania.

Read More..

Kim Kardashian & Kanye West Involved in Security Breach at JFK

By Tim Nudd

02/14/2013 at 08:00 AM EST

Kim Kardashian and Kayne West

Splash News Online

Sorry, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. You'll have to endure the normal hassles of air travel, too.

The couple, returning from Brazil, were involved in a security breach at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday morning, when a TSA employee allowed them to skip a security checkpoint while transferring flights.

"An airline employee escorted the two travelers through a non-public area in order to provide expedited access to their domestic flight," a TSA spokesman said, according to New York's Daily News.

The spokesman said the employee was to blame – not Kardashian, 32, and West, 35.

The couple, who are expecting a baby, had returned from Carnival in Brazil and were transferring to a flight to Los Angeles. They made the connection but were forced to disembark and be screened privately, delaying the flight for an hour.

TMZ.com first reported the incident.

Read More..

Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.

The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went on the market and adults still needed a prescription.

The increased popularity is probably because it is easier to get now and because of media coverage of controversial efforts to lift the age limit for over-the-counter sales, experts said. A prescription is still required for those younger than 17 so it is still sold from behind pharmacy counters.

In the study, half the women who used the pills said they did it because they'd had unprotected sex. Most of the rest cited a broken condom or worries that the birth control method they used had failed.

White women and more educated women use it the most, the research showed. That's not surprising, said James Trussell, a Princeton University researcher who's studied the subject.

"I don't think you can go to college in the United States and not know about emergency contraception," said Trussell, who has promoted its use and started a hot line.

One Pennsylvania college even has a vending machine dispensing the pills.

The morning-after pill is basically a high-dose version of birth control pills. It prevents ovulation and needs to be taken within a few days after sex. The morning-after pill is different from the so-called abortion pill, which is designed to terminate a pregnancy.

At least five versions of the morning-after pills are sold in the United States. They cost around $35 to $60 a dose at a pharmacy, depending on the brand.

Since it is sold over-the-counter, insurers generally only pay for it with a doctor's prescription. The new Affordable Care Act promises to cover morning-after pills, meaning no co-pays, but again only with a prescription.

The results of the study were released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's based on in-person interviews of more than 12,000 women in 2006 through 2010. It was the agency's first in-depth report on that issue, said Kimberly Daniels, the study's lead author.

The study also found:

—Among different age groups, women in their early 20s were more likely to have taken a morning-after pill. About 1 in 4 did.

—About 1 in 5 never-married women had taken a morning-after pill, compared to just 1 in 20 married women.

—Of the women who used the pill, 59 percent said they had done it only once, 24 percent said twice, and 17 percent said three or more times.

A woman who uses emergency contraception multiple times "needs to be thinking about a more regular form" of birth control, noted Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that does research on reproductive health.

Also on Thursday, the CDC released a report on overall contraception use. Among its many findings, 99 percent of women who've had sex used some sort of birth control. That includes 82 percent who used birth control pills and 93 percent whose partner had used a condom.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Emergency contraception info: http://ec.princeton.edu/index.html

Read More..

In San Francisco, there's little life for his party

SAN FRANCISCO — Think you've got it rough? Meet Howard Epstein.

He's a longtime Republican activist in a city that hasn't had a Republican mayor in nearly half a century, where a GOP endorsement is an epithet and party registration is vanishingly small, trailing far behind the ranks of Democrats and people who prefer no party at all.

No matter. Epstein smiles. He shrugs.

"I'm used to it," he says, after a bite of corned beef sandwich at a saloon in the city's Financial District. Not just to losing, but to being pulverized, election after election after election.

"If I moved into town from somewhere else that had a majority, maybe I'd say different," Epstein, 65 and the rare San Francisco native, adds. "I'm pretty practical."

At a time when the battered Republican Party is looking ahead to a worrisome future, GOP leaders could do worse than to listen to someone who knows adversity the way, say, Sisyphus knew frustration. Surely someone doomed to spend eternity rolling a boulder uphill, only to watch it tumble back down, understands a few things about physics.

"Listen to some of these guys; they sound almost mean," Epstein says of the party's leading voices. "We need to get away from that. There are some people, 'If you're not with us on every conservative thing, on every social issue, every political issue, we don't want you around.' We've got to get away from that, too, or weed some of those people out."

He continues: Lay off the social issues — "two guys get married, two gals get married, I'm not going to turn gay the next day" — quit beating up on illegal immigrants and stop trying to impose the religious views of a particular faith on voters.

"You have fundamentalist Christians, Jews of all type," Epstein says. "It's tough to say everybody's got to believe in our Christian values."

Epstein is vice chairman for communications, which is to say pitchman, for the San Francisco Republican Party. Since converting to the GOP in his late 30s, Epstein has cycled through a variety of unpaid leadership roles and played the occasional sacrificial lamb when Republicans needed someone, anyone, to stand for public office. (Personal best: 18% of the vote in a failed 2000 bid for state Assembly.)

It can be difficult, he allows. Not just the election results, but the disdain. While party leaders in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, which start the presidential nominating process, or battlegrounds like Ohio, Virginia and Florida can count on all manner of blandishments from big-time candidates — personal visits, Christmas cards, fundraising help — it's hard even to get a lowly staff member to return a phone call that comes from San Francisco.

"Emails," Epstein says. "Sometimes."

Still, it's a hobby of sorts. Epstein worked hard his whole life, he said (a paint distributorship, a janitorial supply company) and never found the time to marry and start a family. The Republican Party speaks to him with its philosophy of self-reliance and letting people keep more of what they earn, so they — not the government — can decide how to spend it.

Some people travel or golf. Epstein pushes a boulder up San Francisco's vertiginous hillsides, an hour or two a day during the slow season and much more during election years.

He's used to being politically outnumbered. His grandfather, who fled the persecution of Russian Jews at the turn of the 20th century, was a registered Socialist. His father was a staunch liberal: Discussing the haves and have-nots, he sounded "a lot like Obama," Epstein says, with a soft laugh. The elder scolded his son when he switched parties and voted for President Reagan's 1984 reelection, drawn by the GOP mantra of lower taxes and less regulation.

"How the hell could you do that?" Epstein recalls his father demanding. He laughs again, though it was no joke at the time. In his extended family of 17 first cousins, Epstein is one of just two Republicans.

Though his prescription for the national party is bold, essentially abandoning GOP orthodoxy of the last 30-odd years and ignoring social issues in favor of fiscal matters, Epstein is a soft-spoken messenger. Gray-haired and retiring to the point of shyness, he apologizes when a waitress tries to whisk away his sandwich, saying he's not quite finished: "I'm talking too much."

His political goals are similarly retiring. Any serious candidate for elected office in San Francisco actively shuns the GOP.

"They're lepers," says Ben Tulchin, a Democratic strategist who has used the Republican endorsement as a weapon against opposing candidates.

But San Francisco Republicans, who make up less than 9% of the city's registered voters, can occasionally make a difference in local elections, especially on ballot measures pertaining to taxes and spending or in close contests. (It is Republicans, to their everlasting chagrin, who first sent Nancy Pelosi to Congress in 1987 in a free-for-all, 14-candidate special election.)

So it would be nice, Epstein says, to get a little respect at the Democratic fortress that is the city's beaux-arts City Hall. "When they bring everyone in to discuss, say, the budget, they don't call us and say, 'What do you think?'" he laments.

There is no trace of bitterness, no hint of anger. Epstein even has kind words for the Democrat, Leland Yee, who beat — no, bludgeoned — him in a 2002 cakewalk into the state Assembly. "I disagree with him," Epstein says, "but I gotta tell ya, Leland's a good guy."

Still, in the face of overwhelming rejection, Epstein and his fellow Republicans persist.

Party recruiters are a regular presence at San Francisco's summer street fairs, their folding table set a prudent distance from the Democrats', and clipboard-wielding adherents sometimes mingle with the crowd outside the Giants' waterfront ballpark, seeking new registrants. They may be met with puzzled or dirty looks, and occasionally "someone will come up and start swearing at us, or getting really rude," Epstein says. But mostly they are ignored, he says, the typical fate of a San Francisco Republican.

As for what might constitute victory in a national election, Epstein says he would be thrilled if the GOP nominee won 30% of the San Francisco vote. (Mitt Romney and John McCain received 13% and 14%, respectively, against President Obama.)

That fond hope would constitute a stomping in most places. But Epstein imagines a 2016 scenario in which a Republican takes back the White House and, out of gratitude, offers the party's dogged San Francisco promoter a congratulatory ride aboard Air Force One. (The closest he has come was shaking Romney's hand last year at a Silicon Valley fundraiser.)

Epstein finishes his sandwich and smiles. He can dream.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

Read More..

IHT Rendezvous: Mario Draghi Takes the E.C.B.'s Message to Spain

MADRID—The European Central Bank and its president, Mario Draghi, want to ensure that their voices get heard beyond the financial district of Frankfurt.

But their efforts to travel around Europe and spread their message more directly to its citizens have ended up backfiring, at least when it comes to visiting Spain, one of the countries at the center of the Continent’s debt crisis.

Last May, the E.C.B. held one of its regular meetings in Barcelona, under the kind of police surveillance worthy of a city at war and in a convention center on the outskirts of the city, in order to shield Mr. Draghi and his fellow central bankers from anti-austerity street protests. About 7,500 police officers were deployed around Barcelona, with helicopters hovering above, while only a few hundred students gathered in the city center to protest spending cuts by the Spanish government in areas like health and education.

On Tuesday, Mr. Draghi was again in Spain, this time in Madrid to address lawmakers in Congress. The security was less fearsome, but the meeting was held behind closed doors, and Parliament did not provide the usual transcript of such an official session. As a result, regardless of what was said inside, Mr. Draghi’s visit ended up generating more controversy because of its format than its content.

Afterward, Spain’s opposition lawmakers lambasted the president of the Parliament, Jesús Posada, for using frequency-scrambling technology to block any cellphone transmissions within the chamber during Mr. Draghi’s session, to thwart the plans of some parliamentarians who had promised to send Twitter messages and upload videos to keep people informed about what Mr. Draghi was saying.

Valeriano Gómez, the spokesman on the economy for lawmakers from the main opposition group, the Socialist Party, said the restrictions surrounding Mr. Draghi’s appearance had done “no favor to the E.C.B., nor to the prestige of our chamber.” Other leftist lawmakers denounced the format of the event as a violation of parliamentary rules and an insult to democracy.

Mr. Draghi, meanwhile, later spoke to reporters to detail his views on the Spanish economy, while the E.C.B. also published the text of Mr. Draghi’s opening speech to Spanish lawmakers.

Asked about the lack of transparency, Mr. Draghi insisted that that he had not set the rules and would have had no problem speaking more openly before lawmakers if the Spanish Parliament had wanted. Given that videos of his session were eventually released by some frustrated lawmakers, Mr. Draghi concluded that, “I don’t believe anybody missed out on anything.”

Except perhaps Mr. Posada, the Parliament president, who may have hoped to see Mr. Draghi showing a bit more solidarity and helping to justify his communications strategy.

Read More..

One Direction, Taylor Swift Among Kids' Choice Awards Nominees

By Andrea Billups

02/13/2013 at 08:50 AM EST

One Direction, (from left) Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Harry Styles

Jon Furniss/AP

Time to get slimed!

Wednesday brought the nominations for Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards, set to air March 23 with Josh Duhamel as host.

For favorite musical group, nominees include Big Time Rush, Bon Jovi, Maroon 5 and One Direction. Favorite Song nominees include: "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen, "Gagnan Style" by PSY, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift, and "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction.

"We are delighted with our nominations for the Kids' Choice Awards," One Direction's Harry Styles said in a statement to PEOPLE. "It was amazing to perform 'What Makes You Beautiful' at last year’s show. Thank you as always to our incredible fans and supporters!"

Voting opens in 22 categories on nick.com on Thursday, allowing for a little Valentine's Day love for your favorite TV actors, musicians, sports and film stars. New categories added this year include favorite app and favorite villain.

Voters may also mark their ballots on Facebook using embeddable wall posts and on Twitter with custom hashtags.

This year mark's Nickelodeon's 26th annual awards. The show will be broadcast live from the University of Southern California's Galen Center on March 23, starting at 8 p.m. ET, on Nickelodeon, of course.

Read More..

SARS-linked virus may have spread between people

LONDON (AP) — British officials say a mysterious virus related to SARS may have spread between humans, as they confirmed the 11th case worldwide of the new coronavirus in a patient who they say probably caught it from a family member.

The new virus was first identified last year in the Middle East and the 10 people who have previously been infected had all traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan.

According to Britain's Health Protection Agency, the latest patient is a U.K. resident with no recent travel to any of those countries but who had close personal contact with an earlier case. The patient may also have been at greater risk of infection due to an underlying medical condition and is currently in intensive care at a Birmingham hospital.

"Although this case provides strong evidence for person to person transmission, the risk of infection in most circumstances is still considered to be very low," John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the Health Protection Agency, said in a statement. "If (the) novel coronavirus were more infectious, we would have expected to have seen a larger number of cases."

Six hospital staffers where the patient is being treated are being monitored for infection but none have so far showed any symptoms of the illness. The patient did not come into contact with any other hospital patients and is currently being kept in isolation.

The new coronavirus is part of a family of viruses that cause ailments including the common cold and SARS. In 2003, a global outbreak of SARS killed about 800 people worldwide.

Officials at the World Health Organization said the new virus has probably already spread between humans in some instances. In Saudi Arabia last year, four members of the same family fell ill and two died. And in a cluster of about a dozen people in Jordan, the virus may have spread at a hospital's intensive care unit.

"We know that in some of those cases there was close physical contact between family members caring for one another, so we can't rule out human-to-human transmission," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman.

He said there were still big gaps in the understanding of the novel coronavirus, which can cause acute pneumonia and kidney failure. Of the 11 cases to date, five people have died.

Health experts still aren't sure how humans are being infected. The new coronavirus is most closely related to a bat virus and scientists are considering whether bats or other animals like goats or camels are a possible source of infection.

Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota, warned the virus could be adapting into a more transmissible form. "At any moment the fire hydrant of human-to-human transmission cases could open," he said. "This is definitely a 'stay tuned' moment." He noted that before SARS sparked a worldwide epidemic, there were a handful of human-to-human cases, until something happened, like a virus mutation, which triggered an explosion of cases.

WHO says the virus is probably more widespread than just the Middle East and has advised countries to test any people with unexplained pneumonia.

Read More..

Dorner manhunt leads to deadly standoff

When authorities hemmed in the man they suspected of killing three people in a campaign of revenge that has gripped Southern California, he responded as they had feared: with smoke bombs and a barrage of gunfire.

The suspect, who police believe is fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner, shot to death one San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and injured another Tuesday. He then barricaded himself in a wood cabin outside Big Bear in the snow-blanketed San Bernardino Mountains, police said.

Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear gas and called for the suspect to surrender. They got no response. Then, using a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot.

Then the cabin burst into flames. By late Tuesday evening, the smoldering ruins remained too hot for police to enter, but authorities said they believed Dorner's body was inside.

The standoff appeared to end a weeklong hunt for the former L.A. police officer and Navy reserve lieutenant, who is also suspected of killing an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer. But Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until a body was recovered and identified as Dorner.

"It is a bittersweet night," said Beck as he drove to the hospital where the injured deputy was undergoing surgery. "This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse. I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."

According to a manifesto Dorner allegedly posted on Facebook, he felt the LAPD unjustly fired him in 2009, when a disciplinary panel determined that he lied in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.

Dorner, 33, vowed to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families, the manifesto said. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago."

Last week, authorities had tracked Dorner to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside. The only trace of Dorner was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

On Tuesday morning two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding press conferences about the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.

A short time later, authorities said the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

"You can leave and you can take your dog," the man said. He then sped off in the Dodge extended-cab pickup — and quickly encountered two Department of Fish and Wildlife trucks.

As the suspect zoomed past the officers, he rolled down his window and fired about 15 to 20 rounds. One of the officers jumped out and shot a high-powered rifle at the fleeing pickup. The suspect abandoned the vehicle and took off on foot.

Police said he ended up at the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins, a cluster of wood-frame buildings about halfway between Big Bear Lake and Yucaipa. The suspect exchanged gunfire with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies as he fled into a cabin that locals described as a single-story, multi-room structure.

The suspect fired from the cabin, striking one deputy, law enforcement sources said. Then he ducked out the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb and opened fire again, hitting a second deputy. Neither deputy was identified by authorities. The suspect retreated back into the cabin.

The gun battle was captured on TV by KCAL 9 reporter Carter Evans, who said he was about 200 feet from the cabin. As Evans described on air how deputies were approaching the structure, he was interrupted by 10 seconds of gunfire.

Read More..

The Female Factor: Dancing on Behalf of a Billion

LONDON — Anyone who happens to be passing through Westminster at 11 o’clock on Valentine’s Day may — if things go as planned — catch an unusual glimpse of a few members of Parliament gathered somewhere in the shadow of Big Ben, dancing along the footpath.

The actress Thandie Newton will be leading members of the public and a few politicians in a flash mob dance on Thursday to mark the One Billion Rising day of action, highlighting violence against women. Rossana Abueva, the British event’s organizer, says she hopes a couple of baronesses from the House of Lords will also take part.

Some participants have been rehearsing moves for the newly composed anthem, “Break the Chain,” for weeks, but the occasion is meant to be inclusive. “People who don’t know the moves can sway,” Ms. Abueva said. Demonstrators will release 109 red balloons in memory of the 109 women killed in Britain last year as a result of male violence.

Elsewhere in London, volunteer dance troupes will be popping up in museums, at a spot near the London Eye, at theaters and at train stations, performing bursts of flamenco and contemporary dance, wearing One Billion Rising T-shirts, and trying to educate passers-by about the scale of domestic violence in Britain and abroad. Dancers aim to draw attention to the United Nations’ assessment that one in three women in the world suffers some kind of violence at the hands of men during her lifetime (a figure they have loosely rounded down to a billion).

While supermarket shelves bend beneath the weight of heart-shaped, praline-filled chocolates, campaigners internationally have co-opted Feb. 14 to highlight the global problem of violence against women. If the link between Valentine’s Day and violence seems somewhat puzzling, organizers explain that campaigning against violence toward women is a good way of showing women you like them.

The initiative comes from Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues,” and aims to be a “feminist tsunami.” There will be events all over Britain, as well as 190 countries across the world, places as varied as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines and the United States. In India, the raw anger over the gang rape of a 23-year-old physical therapy student has given extra energy to the campaign. In Los Angeles, Jane Fonda will be dancing; Yoko Ono is also on board.

Ms. Ensler describes dancing as “a way of being very powerful and a little dangerous without being violent.” Promotional material promises that by participating in the Valentine’s Day dance, women “will join in solidarity, purpose and energy and shake the world into a new consciousness,” adding that dance is “contagious, and it spreads quickly.”

It is easy to feel dubious about whether this optimistic vision of the transformative power of dance will take off in London, which remains at heart reserved and staid in character. It is possible that, rather than making the not-totally-obvious connection between flash mobs and the complex issue of violence against women, most bystanders here will not be shaken into a new consciousness but will simply be bemused by the spectacle.

Organizers have thought about this. While they are cheerfully enthusiastic about the impact of celebratory dancing, there is also a drive to make sure the occasion ends up being more than an ephemeral day of protest, and a determination to combine the event with something practical and more enduring. Campaigners in most participating countries are also attempting to improve legislation protecting women against violence.

A Labour member of Parliament, Stella Creasy, who will be dancing outside the House of Commons on Thursday morning, has joined colleagues from all parties to organize a debate in Parliament later that day, calling for compulsory sex and relationship education in British schools.

“We need to do more than simply wring our hands and say violence against women is wrong. We need to do something about it,” Ms. Creasy said. After workshops held here in the autumn by the One Billion Rising campaign, there was agreement that a concerted effort to improve and expand sex education in Britain would be a pragmatic step toward preventing future violence.

The motion calls on the British government to “make personal, social and health education, including a zero-tolerance approach to violence and abuse in relationships, a requirement in schools.”

Currently, sex education does not embrace any discussion of relationships, and parents are at liberty to request that their children opt out of classes. Campaigners are proposing that lessons should include mandatory discussion not only of biology, but of relationships, discussing with children what kind of behavior is and is not acceptable, spelling out that there should be zero tolerance of violence in relationships.

Explaining why the vote matters, the campaign Web site says recent academic research has uncovered “worrying trends of increased sexual exploitation of young people by their peers.” It cites a 2010 YouGov poll that found that almost a third, or 29 percent, of 16- to 18-year-old girls said they had been “subjected to unwanted sexual touching at school,” as well as a finding by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children that a third of girls in relationships ages 13 to 17 had “experienced physical or sexual violence in relationships.”

The debate will not have the power to bring about legislation, but campaigners hope it will help focus politicians’ minds on a part of the curriculum that is due to be reviewed.

Will dance protests and the global day of action make a difference? The answer may be clearer on Friday. But as a romantic gesture, 10 minutes’ participation in a flash mob is certainly more original than a dozen roses.

Amelia Gentleman is a journalist with The Guardian. Katrin Bennhold is on sabbatical leave.

Read More..

The Bachelor's Sean Lowe Blogs About His Dates in St. Croix

Sean Lowe and Tierra on The Bachelor

Sean Lowe is the star of season 17 of The Bachelor, which airs Mondays on ABC. The hunky Dallas businessman and entrepreneur is blogging about his romantic journey for PEOPLE.com.

I'd developed really strong feelings for the final six women on The Bachelor – and I could hardly wait to take them to St. Croix. Our previous week in Canada was great! My heart and head were back on track, and I felt as though the women put their focus back on me. And because of that, each of my relationships grew stronger.

But it was time to leave the cold weather behind and move on to some sandy beaches. This was a huge week for all of us because I would have to decide whose family I was ready to meet.

I had three one-on-one dates and one group date in St. Croix. I decided to give the one-on-one dates to women I had questions for – and the group date went to the women whose hometowns I was ready to visit.

My first date was with AshLee, who was a front-runner in my mind since we visited the theme park back in Los Angeles. She is sweet, loving and compassionate, and I knew she truly wanted to give her heart over to me. But I was still left with doubts about our relationship because I didn't seem to have as much fun with her as I did with the other women.

Given her traumatic childhood, it's understandable why AshLee has control issues. But I think that was preventing her from really letting go and allowing herself to have fun. I really want a partner that I can laugh uncontrollably with and someone who can make even mundane tasks feel exciting. I hoped AshLee had that quality in her, or that I brought it out in her, and I was ready to find out.

After taking the catamaran to the island, AshLee decided to take one for the team and tell me everything I needed to know about Tierra. Until that point, I had only heard the women say they didn't like Tierra, but they never gave specific reasons. It was actually a huge relief to hear all that AshLee had to say. It took a lot of courage for her to bring it up.

That evening, we ended our date with an oceanside dinner where she screamed her love for me while standing on a chair. For the first time, I felt like AshLee was finally letting go and stepping out of her comfort zone for me. I left that date thinking once again that AshLee might be the woman for me.

Connecting with Tierra

Next was my long-awaited date with Tierra. I had a lot of fun with her that day walking around the streets of St. Croix, but I couldn't shake what AshLee had told me. That night, as we had a romantic dinner in an old sugar mill, I tried to really figure out what my feelings were for Tierra, and if I could see a future for us.

I was nervous that if I ended up with Tierra, drama would follow her into our everyday lives. But when she told me she was falling in love with me, I softened a bit. She was always kind when she was with me, and I wanted to believe that the drama was circumstantial and that once she wasn't around a bunch of girls dating the same guy, she would be drama-free. I still ended the evening with questions, but remembering that my connection with Tierra was strong.

Group Date

The following day was the group date with Des, Lindsay and Catherine. I didn't have a lot of questions for these three women. They all have one thing in common: I always have fun with them. Since the beginning I've said that I want to marry my best friend, and they definitely fit that criterion.

We spent the day traveling and touring the island in a Jeep. At the end of the day, I really didn't know who I would give the rose to because they were all so deserving. But I decided to give it to Lindsay because she was so supportive, patient and encouraging throughout this entire journey.

My last date of the week was with Lesley. She was another person who fit the best-friend criteria, but I needed to see more from her. Lesley had a wall up and I always felt like she couldn't be completely vulnerable with me.

Our date was fun, but I needed more than fun. I desperately wanted to see her open up emotionally and allow me to see her true feelings, but that never happened. I was shocked to hear her say on TV that she loved me, and I was left confused as to why she didn't tell me that during our date. Had she told me, it could have changed everything.

Sisterly Advice

I flew my sister, Shay, to St. Croix for her birthday. She loves the show (she signed me up for The Bachelorette!), and I thought it would be a cool present for her. She is also a great judge of character and she knows me better than anyone else.

My sister's advice before I left Dallas for L.A. was to avoid the girl whom drama surrounded. After hearing everything that AshLee had to say about Tierra, I thought it would be a good idea to have my sister sit down and visit with Tierra so I could get her opinion.

I had no idea what I was walking into upon entering the women's suite. I was not aware of the big blowout AshLee and Tierra just had. I found Tierra crying on her bed with her head in her hands. I had already figured by this point that Tierra was not the woman I was going to marry, so when I saw how distraught she was, I knew I had to end it right then and there.

I still believe Tierra has more good in her than people see, but I also recognize that she doesn't have the maturity or social skills necessary to make it on The Bachelor.

When it came time to send someone home at the rose ceremony, I felt confident in my decision. As much as I enjoyed spending time with Lesley, I knew I had to send her home because she never allowed herself to open up emotionally.

I was sad to see Lesley leave, but I felt so confident in my final four. Knowing hometown dates were right around the corner, I was incredibly excited. I loved bringing Emily home to meet my family, and it changed everything for me, so I had really high hopes for the coming week. On to hometowns!

Thanks for watching!
Sean

Read More..