An American woman has claimed to have had a third breast surgically added to her chest. The 21-year-old, who calls herself Jasmine Tridevil, wants to be a reality star. She posts videos of her daily life in Tampa, Florida, on Facebook to “show the struggles she faces because of her surgery.” Tridevil has also claimed she had the surgery because she didn’t want to appear as attractive to men….”
A man who allegedly drove his girlfriend’s car on to the former formula one circuit at Brands Hatch during a race was due to appear in court on Monday.
Jack Cottle, 21, was arrested after footage appeared on YouTube in June of a white Volkswagen Polo being driven into the middle of a Fun Cup race at the Kent circuit.
As the car enters the race track, she begins to scream, begging the driver to stop as he and a person sitting in the back holding the camera phone laugh.
From yesterday’s Sunday Times, Justine McCarthy wrote about the Children’s Ombudsman’s report on alleged physical and sexual abuse at a Co. Kilkenny primary school.
In March 2011, the administration office for the [Stay Safe] programme told the ombudsman’s office it had not provided training at the school since 1993.
The school’s child-abuse prevention policy, which was reviewed in March 2002 and applied at the time of the alleged abuse states: “The Stay Safe programme has been approved by the board of management as a teacher’s aid to be used in accordance with the Catholic ethos which demands that the law of God and of the church, and not the child’s feelings, be the guiding principle.”
In 2006, the year the abuse allegations began, a questionnaire was sent to all schools to determine how Stay Safe was being implemented. Had there been any difficulties in implementing it? The school replied “yes”, saying it had “examined it and use only what staff, parents and board deem suitable to [their] ethos“.
(l-r) Bernie Smyth, Kathy Sinnott, Dana Rosemary Scallon
An anti-abortion protester accused of behaving like a witch told a Belfast court: “I’m no witch, I’m a Catholic”.
Bernadette Smyth, who leads the anti-abortion group Precious Life, was replying to a prosecution lawyer.
Mrs Smyth, of Suffolk Street, Ballymena, County Antrim, denies harassing Marie Stopes clinic director Dawn Purvis.
The lawyer suggested she had laughed at Ms Purvis in a “cackling, jeering, mocking way, in a witch’s manner.”
Ms Smyth replied: “I can’t agree with this court that I’m a witch. I’m a Catholic.”
The case concerns two incidents involving the accused that happened outside the Marie Stopes Clinic, Great Victoria Street, Belfast, in January and February.
Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger raised the issue of repealing the Eighth Amendment in the Dáil yesterday.
Not to worry.
There’s a report pending.
Update:
This afternoon Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Ruth Coppinger challenged the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar on the Eighth Amendment.
Clare Daly told the Minister to:
“Wise up. You’re a young man. Ireland’s abortion reality and rates are pretty much the same as they are in every other country.”
Mick Wallace asked the Minister,
“Is the Government more focused on the next election than on the suffering caused by the denial of services to women seeking abortions due to rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormality or serious risk to health?”
Ruth Coppinger suggested the referendum on marriage equality and repeal of the Eighth Amendment be held on the same day and said:
“It would be a double endorsement of progress in this country. It would be a signal to the rest of the world that the Catholic Church’s writ doesn’t run despite the wishes of the majority in society and it would be a hammer blow to the Catholic Church’s domination of many areas of life in this country.”
Minister Varadkar replied:
“I think it would be a really bad idea in 2015 if in the run-in to a general election for us to have that kind of debate happening in that millieu because we’ve been there before. That’s exactly what happened in 1983. In the run-up to a general election people were put in a position where they made commitments in the run-in to a general election where maybe they shouldn’t have. So let’s not repeat the mistake of 1983 and have all that again in 2015.
…It shouldn’t be done on foot of a tragedy or a very hard case and it shouldn’t be done on the run-in to a general election.”
Senator Ronan Mullen speaking in the Seanad earlier on the issue of Direct Provision:
The treatment of women in the system is deplorable. There are several male-only reception centres in the State. But there are none which provide solely for women. Many women who seek asylum in the State are fleeing the most gruesome and most unimaginable conditions sometimes involving sexual abuse or rape. And for these victims to be placed in a system where there’s an underlying fear perhaps in some cases of a recurrence of abuse is really shocking.
