• 51% of Women Live Without Spouse. [San Francisco Chronicle] For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results. In 2005, 51% of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35% in 1950 and 49% in 2000. Coupled with the fact that in 2005, married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape a range of social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits. Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods of time. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom. In addition, marriage rates among black women remain low. Only about 30% of black women are living with a spouse, according to the Census Bureau, compared to about 49% of Latino women, 55% of non-Latino white women and more than 60% of Asian women. In a relatively small number of cases, the living arrangement is temporary, because the husbands are working out of town, are in the military or are institutionalized. But while most women eventually marry, the larger trend is unmistakable.

• Women Changing Work, Not Leaving. [Chicago Tribune] Headlines suggest women are abandoning careers in droves, most often to stay home with children. This "opt out" revolution is being led by highly educated graduates of some of the nation's elite colleges, according to studies and media reports. A new survey challenges this popular wisdom by suggesting that women's career decisions have been misunderstood. Rather than opting out, professional women are choosing to stay employed by negotiating flexible arrangements such as shortened hours and restricted travel. "Women are trying to ‘make work work,’" concludes the study from Simmons College School of Management in Boston. An added shocker: Women who said they used flexible arrangements at some point in their careers were not hit with a "mommy tax." Holding constant for age, educational level and other differences, they earned as much as women who asked for no special flexibility, the study said. "It sends a message that women can use flexible work arrangements as a means of staying employed, and the impact on their income may not be as onerous as some studies suggest," said co-author Mary Shapiro, an assistant professor at Simmons. Conclusions were based on a survey of more than 400 professional women who attended a Simmons leadership conference in Boston in April 2006. Respondents averaged 43 years of age and had 20 years of work experience and an average salary of $116,000. 85% had college degrees and 61% had children. An overwhelming 90% reported having negotiated flexible work arrangements at some point in their careers.

• Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Seems Stuck. [The New York Times] Throughout the 1980s and early '90s, American women of all economic levels — poor, middle class and rich — were steadily gaining ground on their male counterparts in the work force. By the mid-'90s, women earned more than 75 cents for every $1 in hourly pay that men did, up from 65 cents just 15 years earlier. Largely without notice, however, one big group of women has stopped making progress: those with a four-year university or college degree. The gap between their pay and the pay of male graduates in the United States has actually widened slightly since the mid-'90s. For women without higher education, the pay gap with men has narrowed only slightly over the same span. These trends suggest that all the recent high-profile achievements — the first woman to serve as an American secretary of state, as the lead anchor of a nightly newscast, as president of Princeton and, next month, the first to be speaker of the House of Representatives — do not reflect what is happening to most women, researchers say.

• Male/Female Wage Gap Narrows Nationally, Widens in 15 States. [East Bay Business Times] The wage gap between men and women narrowed from 27.3% in 1999 to 23% in 2005, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research. In 15 states, however, the wage gap widened. The smallest wage gap was in Washington, D.C., where women make 85.5% as much as men. Nationally, women who work full time had median annual earnings of $31,800 in 2005, compared with $41,300 for men. At the present rate, it will take 50 years for women to reach earnings parity with men, according to the institute. The percentage of women in managerial and professional occupations increased from 33.2% in 2001 to 35.5% in 2002. D.C., at 52.5%, led in this category as well, followed by Maryland, Virginia and Massachusetts. Only 28.9% of men worked in managerial and professional jobs in 2002. All states saw an increase in the percentage of women with at least a bachelor's degree.

• Retirement Has a High Price Tag for Women. [Canton Repository] Like millions of upwardly mobile women of the generation, Tucker Emerson faces the danger that retirement will bring a sharp downhill slide in lifestyle. Many of these women could suffer a greater decline in living standards in later life than their mothers did. To a degree, the retirement security of women is jeopardized by the same trends affecting men, such as cutbacks in corporate pensions. But experts say the threat to women is amplified by a confluence of factors, including: Higher rates of divorce and singlehood. Record numbers of women are heading toward later life without the backup of a partner's savings and income. Unmarried older women have higher poverty rates than their male counterparts and much higher poverty rates than married women, according to government data. Interrupted working years. Although baby boom women generally have more education and work skills than their mothers, many quit jobs or work part time to care for children or ailing relatives. Such efforts may be cherished by family members, but they slash retirement benefits. Long lives. At age 65, women are expected to live an average of three years longer than men. This greater longevity magnifies risks to retirement security, including the danger that a woman will outlast her savings or incur medical costs without help from a spouse. In addition to these factors, women overall still earn less than men and have less in the way of retirement benefits for old age.

• Women Who Made the News in 2006. [Jamaica Observer, Jamaica] Condoleezza Rice is the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W Bush to hold the office. She is the first black woman, second African-American and second woman (after Madeleine Albright) to serve as Secretary of State. In 2004 and 2005, she was ranked as the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine and number two in 2006. She is also one of only two African-Americans to have been repeatedly ranked among the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine. Recent polls show Rice as the most popular person in the Bush Cabinet (some 59% of Americans hold a favorable view of her as against some 29% for President Bush).

• Larry King Questions Whether Public Can Accept Female Anchor. [Contactmusic.com, UK] Larry King has suggested that no amount of tinkering with the format of the CBS Evening News is likely to overcome an inherent problem the news program faces -- the gender of its anchor, Katie Couric. "It might still be hard for a woman to anchor the evening news," King told Broadcasting & Cable magazine. "And that's sad." On the other hand, he indicated that a major news event that would show off Couric's strengths could change the public's perception of her. "Hurricane Katrina made Anderson Cooper," he remarked. "It could happen to Katie that way."

• Rita N. Singh Named to Enterprising Women National Advisory Board. [Carolina Newswire] Monica Smiley, publisher and CEO of Enterprising Women magazine, has named Rita N. Singh as an Enterprising Women National Advisory Board member. Singh owns S&A Consulting Group LLP, a consulting firm involved with global resource management. Members of the Enterprising Women National Advisory Board provide advice to the publication’s staff to tailor the publication to meet the needs of entrepreneurial women. "Members of the Enterprising Women National Advisory Board are among the nation's finest women entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 leaders," Smiley said. "We are honored to welcome Rita to this distinguished board and appreciate the valuable role she will play working with Enterprising Women to advance women's entrepreneurship for this generation and the generations to follow.”

• Tervis Looks Ahead with Female CEO. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune] The new 6-foot-tall chief executive officer of Tervis Tumbler is one of only a handful of female top executives in Southwest Florida. At 42, she's also one of the youngest. Spencer rose through the ranks of an industry -- manufacturing -- almost entirely foreign to female managers. She also is heading a real darling of a business success story, a drinkware maker that has nearly tripled its work force and more than tripled its sales in the last 10 years. It remains entirely local even as its national presence blossoms. It also has one of the more progressive employee benefit plans around.

• Women Business Leaders Pessimistic about 2007 Business Climate. [Business Wire] Boston’s women business leaders are entering the New Year pessimistic about the business climate in Massachusetts according to a new survey conducted by The Boston Club. Sixty-seven% of the survey respondents said that they are not optimistic about the business prospects for the Commonwealth in 2007. One hundred and fifty-six people responded to the survey, or 26% of The Boston Club’s 600 members. Despite their pessimistic view of the overall business climate, 88% of the respondents expect their income to increase or stay the same in 2007. Almost 60% plan to stay in the same job; 92% will make charitable donations at the same or higher levels, and 85% will take the same or more vacation time as in 2006. Four% of the respondents plan to retire in 2007.

• The Possibility of Harvard's First Woman President Emerges. [The New York Times] Could Harvard be preparing to select a woman as its new president? A scientist? A female scientist? Only the nine members of the university's secretive presidential search committee know for certain — or whether they are leaning in any direction at all. The search to replace Lawrence Summers is as opaque as the selection of a pope and has posturing worthy of a political campaign. Summers resigned last February amid fierce faculty discontent that had erupted in part over his suggestion that intrinsic aptitude could help explain why fewer women than men reached the highest ranks of science and math in universities. So what could be more delicious, Harvard watchers and Harvard faculty members say, than naming a woman for the first time in the history of the 371- year-old university? A list of several dozen potential candidates that the search committee shared with the 30 members of the Board of Overseers during a closed meeting in December included three women who are presidents at other Ivy League universities, The Harvard Crimson reported and university officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed: Shirley Tilghman of Princeton, Ruth Simmons of Brown and Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania.

• Virginia Capitol Police Names First Female Chief. [Virginian Pilot] After nearly four centuries, the country's oldest police force will try something new: a female police chief. Kimberly Lettner will be sworn in Jan. 5 as chief of the Virginia Capitol Police, founded in 1618 in Jamestown. Capitol Police officers provide security for state legislators and visitors to the Capitol and keep a close eye on the state's most valuable art, including the marble statue of George Washington that stands in the Rotunda. Lettner, 47, is a 21-year veteran of the State Police, where, as a captain, she is the highest-ranking sworn female supervisor.

• Lenawee Spotlight: Sheriff’s Department Gains First Female Detective. [Adrian Daily Telegram] Ever since she started a career in law enforcement 30 years ago, LuAnn Bearden has wanted to be a detective. Today she realized that dream. Bearden, who was the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Department’s first female road patrol deputy, started her first day as a sheriff’s department detective today. “My career goal has always been to be a detective,” she said last week as she wrapped up her five-year tenure working as a bailiff and head of security at the Rex B Martin Judicial Building. “I’d drive my daughter nuts because I’d always watch ‘Cold Case Files’ (on television). It bored her, but I loved it.

• City's First Female Police Chief is Retiring. [Pioneer Press] Milwaukee Police Chief Nannette Hegerty announced her retirement, following a problem-filled tenure that included the beating of a biracial man by several off-duty police officers outside one's home. Hegerty became the city's first female police chief when she was appointed to the position in October 2003. Milwaukee became the largest city at that time to have a woman as its top cop, but several other cities followed months later, including Detroit and Boston, said Margaret Moore, director of the National Center for Women and Policing. In a memo sent to her staff, Hegerty, 56, said she would leave after completing her four-year term as chief. Hegerty's retirement means only three of the country's largest cities will have women police chiefs — San Francisco, Detroit and Washington, D.C., Moore said. Overall, there are about 200 women police chiefs in the U.S., which has about 18,000 police departments, she said.

• First Female Santa Barbara County DA to Be Sworn In. [KSBY] History will be made as an Orcutt woman takes the oath of office to become the Santa Barbara County District Attorney. Christie Stanley has worked for the Santa Barbara County District Attorney since 1980. But she'll be the boss. Although she won by a landslide, it's something she once considered out of reach. Of the 58 district attorneys in California, only 9 are female. "When I told my mother I was going to run ... I wish my father was still alive to be there tomorrow ... she said 'people are so mean and it is going to be so tough,'" recalls Stanley. "And I know that." Stanley -- who has worked for the Santa Barbara County District Attorney since 1980 -- calls herself "a reluctant role model." She says it's noteworthy that she's the first female D.A. in county history. But that's about it.

• Iowa's First Female Chief Justice. [WHO-TV] She's the first woman to become Iowa's top judge and she wants children to be everyone’s priority. Marsha Ternus, a Vinton, Iowa native and University of Iowa and Drake graduate, laid out her plans as chief justice to state lawmakers. More women and minorities than ever began the week as lawmakers. Ternus now makes Iowa the 16th state to have a female chief justice. Ternus says, "We know children are shaped for the rest of their lives by the successes and failures we have as parents. Our responsibility as a society is no less important." Ternus told lawmakers in the condition of the judiciary she'll make the courts work more and better for children. One of the simplest, but most beneficial ideas she says, makes sure children get the same judge throughout court proceedings. The chief justice is also making a push to make the courts more e-friendly. She'll work to put divorce and child custody forms online and let jurors fill out questionnaires online. She also wants to triple jurors' pay. The state has paid them ten dollars a day for the past 33 years.

• Will County Gets First Black Female Judge. [Chicago Daily Southtown] Will County's first black female judge, Carmen Goodman, a 50-year-old mother of two, will take the bench Jan. 19. "I am humbled and honored," the Romeoville resident said. "As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be in the legal profession. ... The law is everywhere. It affects everything we do." The Illinois Supreme Court chose Goodman to fill a judicial vacancy, but to keep the seat, she must run for election in November 2008.

• Jane Bolin, First Black Female Judge, Dead. [Playfuls.com, Romania] Jane Bolin, who became the first black female judge in the United States in 1939, has died in New York at 98. Bolin, who was also the first black woman to graduate from Yale University Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to work in city's legal department, has died. The judge said her law career was inspired in part by that of her father and by images of lynching she saw in the media. "It is easy to imagine how a young, protected child who sees portrayals of brutality is forever scarred and becomes determined to contribute in her own small way to social justice," she wrote when she retired in 1978. Bolin was born in Poughkeepsie. N.Y., in 1908.

• Alabama Installs Female Forester Appointee. [The Decatur Daily] Linda S. Casey was sworn in by Gov. Bob Riley as Alabama’s first female state forester and will begin work Feb. 1. The Alabama Forestry Commission selected Casey to oversee state forestry programs, and Riley approved her hiring. Casey, who had managed fiber supplies for the east region of International Paper in Georgetown, S.C., becomes the first female forester in the Deep South. Casey, 56, will oversee an agency with 330 employees scattered across the state.

• Hospital Welcomes First Female Director. [Bridgewater Courier News] Bridgewater resident has become the first woman physician to head Somerset Medical Center's 600-member medical and dental staff in the hospital's 107-year history. Oncologist Kathleen C. Toomey was elected last month to serve as medical director of the Steeplechase Cancer Center at Somerset Medical Center. "I think I did it for women, really," she said. "I think a woman's voice and point of view need to be heard. I actually resisted it for a few years, but finally I said, 'We have to do this for others, for the community, so that our voices get to be heard.'"

• Top Wall Street Jobs Still Elude Women, Minorities. [Gulf Times, Qatar] Even though Wall Street investment banks have made diversity a top priority for the past decade, it may take several more years before women and minorities gain a foothold in the ranks of senior management. That forecast comes from industry experts, investment bank diversity chiefs and trends in hiring data. Minorities and women continue to be squeezed in Wall Street’s promotion pipeline when it comes to attaining senior positions – those at the managing director level and above that reaped multi-million-dollar bonuses this year. “The numbers indicate the squeeze is real,” said Subha Barry, head of diversity at Merrill Lynch & Co.

• JC Penney Fires Its Female COO. [Philadelphia Inquirer] Department store operator J.C. Penney Co. Inc. said that it fired its chief operating officer, but it gave no reason for the move. Catherine West, 47, who also held the title of executive vice president, had been COO since July. She had no retail experience, according to the biography Penney’s issued at the time. A two-sentence news release from Penney’s gave no explanation for West's firing, and the company declined to make chairman and chief executive officer Myron E. Ullman III available for comment. "Her dismissal has nothing to do with performance of the company or holiday sales," said Penney’s spokeswoman Darcie Brossart. She declined to comment further.

• Board Loses Only Female Freeholders. [The Express Times] The only women ever to serve as Hunterdon County freeholders bid farewell to the board. Neither Marcia Karrow nor Nancy Palladino sought re-election. Their terms expire at the end of the year. "I'm very sad that there are no female freeholders left on this board," Karrow said after the meeting. In 1999, Karrow was the first woman to fill the post since the county was formed in 1714. She's been freeholder director and this year served as freeholder deputy director. Palladino joined the board in 2004 and served as freeholder director this year. Rather than seek re-election, she tried unsuccessfully for the GOP nod for county clerk.

• US: Mothers Work Settles Employment Lawsuit. [Just-style.com] Citing the likelihood of lengthy and expensive litigation, Mothers_Work, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based maternity apparel retailer, has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the Miami office of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that alleged discrimination against its target market – pregnant women. Mothers Work has instituted a “secret applicant” program through a third party to help it detect and end any discriminatory practices against pregnant women applying for positions in its stores. The EEOC agreement required Mothers Work to institute a training program for its staff in Florida. The company said, however, that it would adopt the standards established by the agreement on a nationwide basis and disclose its practices to others in the retail industry. Both the “secret applicant” and training programs already are underway. “I was shocked and upset at the allegations raised in this lawsuit and we vehemently deny the implication that as a company we have a policy to discriminate against pregnant women,” said Rebecca Matthias, who founded the company when she was pregnant and serves as its president. “Our business revolves around serving the apparel needs of pregnant women and we encourage having team members who are also pregnant and can provide first-hand product knowledge to our customers.”

• Death Toll of Female Troops ’Troubling’. [PakTribune.com, Pakistan] The number of military service women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has reached 70, more than the total from the Korean, Vietnam and Desert Storm wars. "Some have argued that the women who have died are no different than the men," according to a report noting the 70 casualties from the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes women in combat. "But deliberate exposure of women to combat violence in war is tantamount to acceptance of violence against women in general." The reasons for the historical high casualty rate are multiple. Women now make up more than 14% of the volunteer force, performing a long list of military occupational specialties they did not do 50 years ago. Women in earlier wars were mostly confined to medical teams. Today, they fly combat aircraft, drive trucks to resupply fighting units, go on patrol as military police (MPs) and repair equipment.

• First Indiana National Guard Female Injured in Iraq Receives Purple Heart. [Journal and Courier] An Indianapolis-area soldier, believed to be the first female Indiana National Guard member wounded in Iraq, was presented a Purple Heart this morning. She received the award for injuries she suffered during a mortar attack in Ramadi, Iraq. Spc. Heather Holden was hurt on April 16, 2006 at the Node Center Operation Area at Forward Operating Base Al Taqaddum Iraq when her unit came under fire. Authorities said 12 mortars were fired at Holden’s unit. A press release from the Indiana National Guard Office of Public Affairs said Holden received shrapnel wounds to her leg and arm when a mortar round hit a wooden structure above her position. Holden is a member of Company A, 138th Signal Battalion.

• A Peculiar Version of Friendly Fire: Female Troops Face Double Danger. [Progressive.org] Shortly after arriving in Iraq in April 2003, Sergeant Kelly Dougherty was stunned to find herself in an argument with her squad leader about pornography. She’d just walked into the common tent shared by her ten-member military police squad to find two lower-ranking guys watching porn, which is against the rules but ubiquitous in Iraq. She told them she didn’t want to see any of it. One of them apologized, but her squad leader overheard the exchange and stepped in. “He wanted to argue with me, so I was forced to defend why I didn’t want them looking at women engaged in acts of sex when I’m in the tent,” Dougherty says. If she hoped for help from the platoon sergeant in charge of her squad, she was soon disappointed. He watched porn in the tent, too. It was a minor incident during a year of service in Iraq in which the Colorado native came to understand what it means to live as a woman in a decidedly masculine environment. From the moment she set foot in Kuwait, where she and other women were warned never to walk to the showers alone, she had the uneasy feeling that she wasn’t safe among her fellow soldiers. The danger faced by female troops is not in dispute. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are common enough in the military that the Veterans Administration has a new acronym. “Unwanted, uninvited sexual experience during military service” is officially known as Military Sexual Trauma, or MST. It’s a blanket term that spans a wide range of experience, from off-color jokes to rape. A VA report dated October 2003, never officially released but leaked by a House staffer in September 2005, estimated that among military reservists, 60% of women and 27% of men had experienced Military Sexual Trauma. Given its broad parameters, that might be easy to explain away, except that the same study found the prevalence of actual sexual assault—“unwanted sexual contact of a physical nature”—to be 23% among female reservists. Some commanding officers recognize the reality. Once installed at Tallil Airbase near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, American servicewomen were instructed to go on their daily run in pairs because someone had been raped on the base. At night, Dougherty found the camp an unnerving place. To get to the showers or the telephone, she walked past “row upon row of tents full of people you didn’t know.”

• West Point Cited by Pentagon for Sexual Assault of Female Cadets. [Times Herald-Record] For the second year in a row, the nation's proudest military academy is the most dangerous service school for women. According to the Pentagon's Defense Manpower Data Center, 10.5%, or 63 of the academy's 596 female cadets, experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact during the 2006 school year. The assaults included sodomy, fondling of genitalia and rape. That compares to 9.5% of 744 female cadets at the scandal-plagued Air Force Academy in Colorado, and 8.2% of 753 female midshipmen at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Last year, the first-ever DMDC analysis of service academy sexual abuse and harassment concluded that 6% of women at West Point were assaulted during the 2005 academic year. That year, 5% of female midshipmen at the Naval Academy reported similar experiences. Sexual assaults were lowest at Air Force, with 4%.

• Women After War: The Casualties. [Washington Post] All 59 are women. They are casualties in a conflict that has seen women serving in larger numbers than before, in a wider array of jobs, amid violence that heeds no front line. As the U.S. death toll in the Iraq war approaches 3,000, the memorial at the U.S. Army Women's Museum is a solemn acknowledgment that women have quietly taken a place in the nation's procession of flag-draped coffins and military funerals. In all, 62 service women from all branches have died in Iraq, about two-thirds of them in hostile fire. By comparison, in World War II, historians say, 16 women were killed in action. In Vietnam, one woman's life was claimed by enemy fire; in the Persian Gulf War, five.

• Female GI Killed in Kabul Didn't Let Her Age Stop Her. [Inside Bay Area] In death, Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard made headlines for something she rarely talked about in life: her age. The U.S. Army reservist and former Alameda resident was killed Sept. 8 in Kabul, Afghanistan, when a suicide car bomber attacked the Humvee in which she was riding. At 52, she became the oldest female casualty of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She may have been the oldest U.S. woman ever killed in combat. A portion of Howard's ashes will be spread over San Francisco Bay. A fireworks show honoring her is scheduled in Marina Green Park in San Francisco. The rest of Howard's ashes will be scattered over Corpus Christi Bay in Texas, where she grew up.

• Second-Oldest Female Veteran Turns 103, Publishes Book. [Myrtle Beach Sun News] Few are those women who, just months shy of their 40th birthday, enlist in the U.S. Army during time of war. Fewer still are those who serve with distinction in overseas campaigns and then author a memoir about the experience six decades later. But fewest yet are those who belong to the proud group of which New Bern resident Laura Mae DuFore is a member. DuFore turned 103 on Dec. 22 and is America's second-oldest female veteran and the oldest surviving member of the now-defunct Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. DuFore published her candid, "A Life So Full," to chronicle her life and service as a WAAC supply clerk in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II.

• Domestic Violence Rates Down Sharply but Racial Disparities Remain. [International Herald Tribune, France] Domestic violence rates fell sharply between 1993 and 2004, the Justice Department said, noting that American Indian women and native Alaskan women are far more likely to be victimized than whites and other minorities. The Bureau of Justice Statistics said that "intimate partner violence" rates fell by more than 50%. The decline mirrored a decade-long trend in other violent crimes, and the department did not suggest a cause. "There's still generally no consensus about why any crime in general has dropped," said Shannan Catalano, the study's author said. "It's safe to say it's more than one factor that went into it."

• Firing of Female Football Coach Outrages Parents and Students. [NY1] A female football coach has been fired by her Manhattan high school, and as NY1’s Education reporter Michael Meenan found out, outraged parents and players want some answers. Parents, alumni and football players at George Washington High rallied for their high school football coach. The coach, Jessica Poseluzny, or Miss P, still teaches Biology at the school but says she was the state's only female varsity boys' football coach, until she was recently fired from that post. "They put a bunch of lies down on paper, saying my team is undisciplined, I don't have a defibrillator at games, and that I come late to my practices," said Poseluzny.

• School Board Member Censured For Scolding Female Employee. [NBC4.TV] Jurupa Unified School board member Michael Rodriguez was censured by his colleagues for pulling aside a female employee at a July 3 board meeting and scolding her for being confrontational, it was reported. Based on an investigation of allegations made by the assistant superintendent of personnel, Rodriguez was found to have engaged in improper, unprofessional behavior with female district employees, The Press-Enterprise reported.

• Female Teachers Punished. [Deseret News] It seemed like a bad week for female educators in Utah — three of them appeared in court over charges of sexual misconduct with underage male students. For prosecutors, this is a simple matter. A crime is a crime. But for some people, the idea of a female teacher engaging in sexual activity with a boy does not strike them as criminal. Following the sentencing this week of Melinda Lee Deluca to 90 days in jail, several bloggers on the KSL-TV comment board cracked jokes about how "lucky" this boy was and wondered where such teachers were when they were in high school. Deluca, 30, was sentenced by 3rd District Judge Stephen Roth after pleading guilty to third-degree felony attempted sexual abuse in connection with sex with a 16-year-old student. Her teaching license has been revoked. Meanwhile, in Tooele, 3rd District Judge Mark Kouris ordered former math remediation lab coordinator Leslie Baird, 42, to spend three months at the diagnostic unit in the Utah State Prison. She will be sentenced April 17. She previously had pleaded guilty to second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse involving two male students, both 17. She was not a certified teacher. And, Kathryn Louise Parmley, 42, was scheduled for a roll-call hearing in Farmington before 2nd District Judge Rodney Page. Parmley, who formerly worked at the Davis County School District's Family Enrichment Center in Kaysville, has not been convicted of any crime. The Davis County Attorney's Office has charged her with two third-degree felony counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old.

• NOW Presses Women's Agenda. [Women's eNews] The National Organization for Women is pressing forward with a pro-women agenda in preparation for the 110th Congress and a change in party control, the Washington-based advocacy organization announced Dec. 21. Primary goals for the legislative session include reducing the poverty of women, promoting family-friendly work policies and expanding reproductive health services. Efforts to raise the minimum wage are expected to be revived next year. "Increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour will have a dramatic impact on the quality of life for women and their families," NOW president Kim Gandy said. "Women are the majority of those working at minimum wage, and many are working two and three jobs to make ends meet. We deserve to be paid fairly for the work that we do." California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi will lead the House during the new Congress and has laid out an ambitious legislative agenda to be introduced during the first 100 hours, including efforts to negotiate lower prices for drugs for seniors, rolling back tax breaks for the oil and gas industry and reducing the costs of student loans. Pelosi has pledged a return to bipartisanship on Capitol Hill and a civil tone among legislators.

• Why Being a Feminist Does Not Mean Backing All Women. [AlterNet] It's OK not to care if Condi Rice goes down with a sinking ship or if Katherine Harris, the woman who handed Florida's electoral votes to Bush in 2000, enters history as an unprincipled crook. There is still a false idea out there that feminists back every woman, regardless of how she behaves. Let's leave that behind right along with 2006. In fact, feminism is just the belief that all people have the full circle of human qualities combined in a unique way in each of us. The simplistic labels of "feminine" and "masculine" are mostly about what society wants us to do: submerge our unique humanity in care giving and reproducing if we're women, and trade our unique humanity for power if we're men. So yes, I believe that women have the right to be wrong, with no double standard of criticism. But when we have the power to make a choice, we also have responsibility. Biology isn't destiny, and it isn't a free pass either.

• Web Site Gives Car Dealers a Woman's View. [Kentucky.com] Women flat-out decide or in some way influence most of the car and truck purchases in the United States -- more than 80%, say some estimates. But talk to women candidly about their auto-buying experience, and you'll find many aren't thrilled with the experience in showrooms. Auto salesmen are still from Mars, it seems, and female car buyers are still from Venus. "When are you going to bring your husband in? When are you going to bring your dad in?" Women still report being asked those types of disrespectful questions, said Fara Warner, author of the 2005 book The Power of the Purse.

• Here Are Ways Women Can Improve Their Finances. [Reading Eagle, PA] Women live, on average, seven years longer than men. But they often don't have enough money to live on during those extra years. Women face different financial challenges than men do. They still only make about 76 cents for every dollar men do, and they are also more likely to take time off during their careers to raise children. Furthermore, women also invest less aggressively than men do. All this results in financial hardship for many women later in life. Susan Black, director of financial planning at eMoney Advisor, offers these tips for women hoping to improve their finances: If you're married, don't leave the financial planning to your husband. “If your husband is taking the lead, that's fine,” she said. “But stay involved as an equal.” Discuss your savings options with your husband and learn your financial options. While the rule of thumb is that you should save 10% of your gross income each year, Black said that women should save 12%. This is to account for their longer life expectancy and the loss of wages many women face when they raise their children.

• Two Jordanian-Born Women Face Terrorism Charges in White Powder Incident at Police Station. [Associated Press] Connecticut: Two Jordanian-born sisters face terrorism charges after a white powder believed to be salt fell out of one of their pockets at police headquarters, triggering a hazardous materials scare. Cari Altayeb, of Fairfield, Connecticut, and her sister Anaahn Altayeb, who lives in Jordan, were arrested and charged with "acts of terrorism" in connection with the incident. The women were being held in lieu of $1 million bond each. Their lawyer, Robert Berke, accused police of overreacting. "The (terrorism) charge is extreme. The bond is extreme," Berke said before he had a chance to talk to his clients. The sisters also face charges of first-degree breach of peace and threatening workers at the Bridgeport offices of the state Department of Children and Families over a child custody dispute. In August, DCF workers removed Cari Altayeb's children from her Fairfield home after a domestic violence incident in which her husband had allegedly threatened to pour gasoline on her and set her on fire, police said. Police said the husband and the two sisters had been harassing DCF workers in Bridgeport for the last couple of days. Police said the two women were acting suspiciously and dropped white powder, possibly salt, outside the DCF office.

• Woman Jailed over Flour-Filled Condoms Settles Lawsuit. [The Associated Press] A young woman who was arrested and jailed for three weeks on drug charges for what turned out to be flour-filled condoms has settled a lawsuit against the city for $180,000 (€136,000), according to a media report. Janet H. Lee was a first-year student at Bryn Mawr College in 2003 when she tried to take three condoms filled with flour — used as a toy by students at the women's college to squeeze when they were stressed about exams — in her carry-on bag on a flight to Los Angeles. Airport screeners found the condoms, and authorities said initial tests showed they contained drugs. Lee, now a 21-year-old senior, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she did not know that drug dealers often carry drugs in condoms, and that she had just packed them because she thought they were funny and wanted to show friends at home.

• Women Accused of Selling a Different Kind of Real Estate. [Today's THV] Two women were arrested for what police called “high end prostitution.” Investigators said the women were real estate agents by day and prostitutes by night, operating out of one of Gwinnett County’s most affluent areas. The two women, 42-year-old Lisa Taylor and 30-year-old Nicole Probert, were charged with prostitution, racketeering and conspiracy to possess cocaine and they were allegedly operating out of a home in the Sugarloaf subdivision in Gwinnett County. Investigators said the pair was running a high-end prostitution ring out of a home at 2800 Sugarloaf Club Drive and charging prices up to $10,000 for sexual acts.

• Massage Parlors Forced Women into Sex-Slavery. [DigitalJournal.com, Canada] Several massage parlors in Clayton County, Georgia were not only fronts for illegal prostitution, but also forced newly immigrated women to become sex slaves. Officers raided several 'spas' last month and arrested several people in connection with illegal prostitution...however, they found something much more sinister as well--women being forced to sell their bodies to stay in this country. The Sheriff said he was appalled that women who came to this great nation for a better life were forced into sex-slavery. He said an investigation determined that several Asian women were being kept against their will. One of the women had actually escaped at one point but was caught, raped and beaten, given an STD and then forced to perform other sex acts. At least one was forced to perform sex acts for over four years.

• Six Women Employees Sue Rite-Aid Over Sex Assaults. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] Several women who were sexually assaulted by a former Rite Aid manager in Clairton, Pa., who knocked them out with stolen drugs have sued their attacker and the pharmacy chain for $18 million. The lawsuit, filed last week by six of the seven women Donald E. Preik Jr. pleaded guilty to assaulting, accuses Rite Aid Corp. of negligence and recklessness for inadequately supervising Preik and giving him access to prescription drugs, including the "date-rape" drug triazolam.

• Maine Changes Mind: Santa's Butt, Women's Breasts OK on Beer Labels After All. [The Associated Press] It's a bit late for the holidays, but the state's beer sellers are now free to let Santa's Butt Winter Porter sit on their shelves. The Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement had blocked a beer importer from selling the brew, along with two beers with labels depicting bare-breasted women. Those decisions were reversed after the state attorney general's office determined that the company probably would win the lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed on its behalf last month. Chris Taub, an assistant state attorney general, said a court probably would find the beer labels in question to be protected under the First Amendment. The other previously banned beers feature paintings of bare-breasted women on their labels. One of the paintings hangs in the Louvre — Eugene Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" — and the other was commissioned by the importer, Belchertown, Massachusetts-based Shelton Brothers.

• Alabama Strippers Wearing Spray-On Bikinis Under Deal with State. [The Associated Press] The strippers at Sammy's have a few tools of the trade: thongs, garter belts stuffed with US$1 bills, 6-inch heels — and spray-on bikinis. Under a settlement between 18 adult nightclubs and the Alabama attorney general's office, dancers statewide are spritzing their buttocks and breasts with flesh-colored latex to comply with the state's anti-nudity law, one of the most restrictive in the United States. The head of a group composed of adult clubs, Angelina Spencer, said Wednesday the settlement is similar to agreements and practices in other areas where nude or topless dancing has become a legal issue, although Alabama requires more coverage than other states. Under Alabama's law regulating exotic dancers, any skin that would normally be covered by a modest bikini must be swathed in an opaque covering. But the law doesn't specify what kind of material must be used, so, in the legal sense, a nylon swimsuit and spray-on latex are virtually the same.

• Sacrificing Dignity for Attention. [AlterNet] These were the general admission policies for many clubs in New York as the city was getting into the holiday spirit. These policies were advertised on club promotion Web sites or barked at patrons waiting in line to be admitted to the bars and clubs. But the warmer welcome that young and underage women -- those under 21 -- get at bars is not special to the holidays or New York. Throughout towns and cities across the country bars and clubs often offer discounts to young women. "Bars give away free drinks, then guys offer to buy girls even more drinks and then girls dance erotically with them," says Kate Morris, a 19-year-old from Massachusetts, who says she often goes to bars and clubs with her friends in New York City.

• Women As Club Commodities. [AlterNet] Most people would probably agree that women, particularly young women, face certain risks in bars and nightclubs. What they can't agree on is why this happens, how big the risks are, and what the solution is. Most of our readers would probably also agree that empowering women is a good thing, but they have drastically different ideas of what empowerment means. An article called "How Bars Exploit Underage Women as Commodities" drew a wide range of responses -- some quite heated -- from AlterNet readers. Written by Liz Funk, the article asserts that some bar and nightclub tactics such as admitting underage women, offering women free drinks, and using women to attract business can put them at an increased risk for harassment or rape. Funk, who considers herself a feminist, quotes a source who says this is exploitation. To that, some readers gave applause, calling it "empowering," while others recoiled and said it "reinforces myths" and is a "disservice to women."

• Percent of Female Hunters is Growing. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review] Twenty years ago, a female hunter like Anderson might have been considered an oddity. That's no longer true. A recently-released National Sporting Goods Association study determined that women account for about 16% of the nearly 21 million active hunters in the United States. What's even more noteworthy is that women represent one of the fastest growing segments of the shooting and hunting industries. That offers some real potential economically. Female hunters tend to spend less on gear than do their male counterparts, said Thomas B. Doyle, vice president of information and research for the association. Still, sales of firearms, ammunition and a few accessories, excluding clothing, amount to about $3.4 billion total annually. "If women are 16% of that market, they would account for $500 million, which is a good chunk of change," Doyle said.

• Senior Women Choose Basketball To Keep Fit. [DigitalJournal.com, Canada] In 1961, Jewel Chapman’s high school principal told her that basketball wasn't ladylike, and he banned the girls' basketball program, leaving Chapman and her teammates extremely frustrated. It's now almost 50 years later, and 62 year old Chapman is back on the court and playing for the Hot Pink Grannies, a senior women's basketball team consisting of about 10 other women. The Hot Pink Grannies are a part of the Iowa Granny Basketball League, and their uniforms are black bloomers and hot pink socks. This league is one of dozens of "women over 50" basketball leagues that have spread across the country. Some of the women see it as a chance to get some exercise. Some as a chance to socialize. And others simply see it as a "once-denied" chance to compete.

• Panel's Meddling No Help to Women. [Cincinnati Post] Over the years, bearing in mind her ambitions, I've urged Emily to go up against guys whenever possible. It's the route by which the NCAA receives a great many of its female players, and one that generally continues - in fact, broadens - when they reach their college campuses. Most colleges see to this by inviting male students to regularly practice against the women. And that, declares the NCAA, is a terrible thing. Specifically, it was the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics which, in December, issued a position paper recommending that - because of the "archaic notion of male pre-eminence that continues to impede progress toward general equity and inclusion" - men no longer be permitted on the women's practice floors. The rationale is that the fellows take practice time away from the young ladies who are left standing on the sidelines, which not only degrades the team members but also violates the spirit of Title IX. The latter point is the most curious of all. As we well know, Title IX has done wonders for women's athletics, raising their profiles to levels that even the most ardent feminists might not have contemplated when it was enacted in 1972. And the movement has been led by basketball. More than an elevation by numbers, it has been one of quality. With ever-gaining momentum, women's basketball has leapt from the mechanic age to the improvisational. It has captured imaginations. It has altered stereotypes. It has imprinted history. And all because it keeps getting better.

• 'Elite' Female Conquers 800 lb. Weight Lift Goal. [NSU The Current Sauce] It takes a lot for a female to lift 800 pounds in only three lifts, but not for Victoria Andrews, a freshman thrower on NSU's track and field team. Above an orange rack in the weight room of NSU's Field House, there is a sign that forbids anyone to touch it without being able to lift a total of 1,300 pounds for males and 800 pounds for women in a combination of three lifts, by penalty of 200 up-downs on the spot. Andrews was the first female to conquer the rack.

• Wie is Top Female Golf Earner. [Chosun Ilbo, South Korea] Teenage prodigy Michelle Wie was the biggest earner among female golfers last year, driving in US$20.23 million and ranking sixth on the combined men and women's list. According to the latest edition of Golf Digest, Michelle Wie earned US$735,224 in prize money and US$19.5 million in off-course money. That's US$7.22 million more than the next woman on the list, Annika Sorenstam with US$13.01 million. Tiger Woods topped the list with US$98.94 million, staying at the No. 1 spot for the fourth consecutive year. He earned US$11.94 million on the course plus a whopping US$87 million in endorsements. Phil Mickelson came in second with US$44.25 million, followed by Arnold Palmer and Vijay Singh. Korean male golfer Choi Kyoung-ju took 24th place with US$5.7 million.

• Women Willing to Redo Their I Dos. [Daily News & Analysis, India] Losing faith in relationships in a faithless world? Here’s reason for hope. 44% of 3,000 married women who participated in a poll said they would happily marry their husbands again if they got a chance to redo their ‘I do’. Only 36%, a small percentage considering the high rate of divorces, would definitely not marry their husbands if they had to do it all over again. Another 20% had trouble making up their minds. The poll was conducted by Woman’s Day magazine and AOL.com and published in the magazine’s February issue. Of the 3,000 married women surveyed, 76% admitted they keep secrets from their husbands. The poll also found that 84% of American wives would want to be told if their husbands were cheating, with 49% saying they had suspected or even caught their husbands having an affair. But there is also a flip side. A whopping 76% of the women polled admitted that they fantasize about a man other than their husband, while 39% said they flirt with other men constantly.

• Kansas Newspaper Launches Web Site for Female Baby Boomers. [Editor & Publisher] The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World has launched a new Web site BoomerGirl.com, targeting women in the Baby Boom generation demographic. The site offers news, travel stories, health tips, financial advice, and other information relevant to women ages of 40—60. "Women in this age bracket are busy. They don't have a lot of time to sit and surf the Internet," BoomerGirl director, Cathy Hamilton said in a statement. "Our goal is to make BoomerGirl.com the one-stop shop for the relevant content our readers really want and need."

• Pioneering Female Film Conductor Passes Away. [ShortNews.com, Germany] Shirly Walker was 61 years old when she passed away. She made a mark in the world of film by being one of the few female composers and conductors for film, and received numerous awards including Emmys during her career in Hollywood. She was famous for her work on several Batman movies, including scoring the music for the animated Batman series and other TV shows. She was the conductor for the first Batman film, leading the orchestra through Danny Elfman's famous composition. Her memorial service is being held in early January.

• Too Thin: A Serious Issue. [Salt Lake Tribune] In separate incidents on opposite coasts last month, the seriously thin became a serious issue. On Dec. 11, celebutante Nicole Richie was arrested for driving under the influence after she was spotted driving the wrong way on a Los Angeles freeway. According to the booking sheet, the 25-year-old star of ''The Simple Life'' is 5-feet-1 and 85 pounds. By coincidence, designer Diane von Furstenberg, in her capacity as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, sent the organization's members a letter urging them to take a position on the issue of underweight models. Her letter followed a meeting last week of industry leaders such as Vogue editor Anna Wintour, designers Derek Lam and Vera Wang, and health and nutrition experts.

• Do Skinny Girls Make the Subway Late? [that’s fit] One of the most annoying things about relying on public transportation is that it never seems to arrive on time when you need it to. According to an analysis of statistics from NYC's Metro Transit Authority, skinny girls could be one of the major reasons your train gets delayed. Huh? It's not as out there as it sounds. "Sick customer" is listed as the Number 3 cause of disruptions between October 2005 and October 2006. According to MTA personnel, these ill passengers are often women who faint during the morning rush hour after going on crash diets. As reported by New York's Early AM newspaper, "You have women trying to get their bodies tight for the summer and they won't eat," said Asim Nelson, a Transit emergency medical technician based in Grand Central Station. "Not eating for three or four days, you are going to go down. If you don't eat for 12 hours you are going to get weak." So have some breakfast, and quit holding up everyone else's commute!

• Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! This Mottled Neck Has Got To Go. [Ottawa Citizen, Canada] Woe is her wattle. When Nora Ephron lunches with her lady friends, they wear turtlenecks. Or scarves, like Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond. Or Mandarin collars that make them look like a "white ladies' version of the Joy Luck Club." In her new essay collection, I Feel Bad About My Neck, Ephron employs more adjectives to describe her neck than the Inuit use for snow. There are necks with wattles and creases, and those that are scrawny, fat, loose, creepy, banded, wrinkled, stringy, flabby, mottled and so on. Her dermatologist tells her the neck starts to go at 43. "You can put makeup on your face and concealer under your eyes and dye on your hair, you can shoot collagen and Botox and Restylane into your wrinkles and creases, but short of surgery, there's not a damn thing you can do about your neck." The neck is the giveaway.

• WFU Celebrates "Women of Proud Nations" at American Indian Conference. [WFU News Service] Wake Forest University will host a four-day conference titled “Celebrating Women of Proud Nations: Creating & Sustaining Hope for American Indian Women & Their Families” Jan. 18-21 in Benson University Center. The conference will open at 7 p.m. Jan. 18 with a cultural evening that is free and open to the public. Registration for the remainder of the conference is limited and costs $150 for the general public. The conference, which will focus on strengthening education, spirituality, health and entrepreneurship among American Indian women and their communities, will include cultural events, large group sessions, focus groups and workshops with American Indian community leaders and scholars from numerous Southeastern and other tribal nations. An American Indian Expo, featuring American Indian arts, crafts and cultural information on spirituality and religious dialogue, personal health, entrepreneurship and education trends, will also be held during the conference on the fourth floor of Benson University Center. Admission to the expo is free and open to the public.

• Federal Minister Not Welcome at Provincial Meeting on Women's Issues. [570 News, Canada] The Harper government has shown so little interest in women's issues that provinces have decided to meet on their own to plot a national strategy without bothering to invite federal Status of Women Minister Bev Oda. The snub follows two recent federal-provincial meetings on women's issues at which Oda put in only brief appearances and displayed "a complete lack of interest," according to Sandra Pupatello, Ontario's minister responsible for women's issues. At a meeting of federal and provincial ministers in Saint John, N.B., in October, Pupatello said Oda showed up for only an hour. "Because we have ministers who travel literally from coast to coast to coast, a couple of them that take two days just to get there, they were really quite offended that she would come for an hour," Pupatello said. Their frustration deepened on Dec. 15, when a federally organized teleconference, supposedly aimed at finishing up the agenda from the October meeting, was similarly cut short. Pupatello said Oda "attended for 20 minutes and then had to excuse herself and insisted that the meeting be over when she left the call."

• Support for Abused Women. [Stoney Creek News, Canada] Woman's Weekly, a supportive education group focused on issues related to the abuse of women by their partners, meets every Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Snacks and refreshments are provided and cultural interpretation is available on request. Bus tickets and free childcare provided and the location is wheelchair accessible. The schedule is as follows: Jan. 3, Women in Transition; Jan. 10, Regaining our Self Esteem; Jan. 17, Mental Health and Links to Woman Abuse; Jan. 24, Woman Abuse: Who is Responsible; Jan. 3, Racism and Woman Abuse.

• Women’s Conference to Explore Effects of Aging. [Nanton News, Canada] The Nanton Women’s Conference will be holding its third annual event on January 13. This year’s theme is Women: Through Your Ages. The event is organized in an effort to gather women in and around the Nanton area for the purposes of learning, networking and communicating amongst each other. Eileen Bahlsen, conference committee member, said the conference is truly a celebration of the female gender. “People always say women are the backbone (of society), and they truly are,” Bahlsen said. “The range of talents of women we have in this community is absolutely astounding.”

• Internet 'Advergames' Capture Female Audience. [Edmonton Journal, Canada] The same women who shun 15-or 20-second TV commercials are being lured by the thousands to play online games that stretch sales pitches over 15 or 20 minutes. Internet "advergames" incorporate sponsored products into such female-friendly formats as word scrambles, treasure hunts and art competitions, sugar-coating the promotional pill. And they're at the forefront of a trend that could be worth millions to corporate Canada in 2007. Despite the fact they represent 64% of the online gaming community according to Nielsen Entertainment and have enormous buying power, women have long been considered a "silent majority" by the electronic entertainment industry, which has failed to give them their due attention.

Mexico

• Detectives Identify Mexican Girl Found Dead Almost Four Years Ago. [The Associated Press] From the moment the girl's body was found stuffed in a duffel bag nearly four years ago, her image haunted detective Scott Dudek — her feminine pajama pants, the single ankle sock decorated with snowflakes, the butterfly clip in her hair. Yet so much was missing — she had no identification, and no one had filed a missing person report. "We had this beautiful child, and no one was coming forth to claim her," Dudek said. "But you knew instantaneously this was someone's little girl." The FBI's crime database lists about 6,000 unidentified victims nationally. Some of them have gone unclaimed for decades. But something about the girl abandoned among the weeds behind a Castro Valley diner struck a cord with Dudek and his team at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. For the next three years and eight months, the detectives spent long days and thousands of dollars tracking her identity. The teen known as "Jane Doe" became "their girl," and the case's ups and downs took an emotional toll. Dudek's wife asked him to stop discussing the case over Christmas. But the investigators' persistence paid off. Last week, DNA results gave their victim a name: Yesenia Becerra Nungaray. Interviews with her mother allowed detectives a glimpse into her life: the doe-eyed teenager had an adventurous streak but was close to her family. She left her small, quiet town in Mexico for the United States on March 14, 2003 — her 16th birthday.

• Wives of Jailed Dissidents Urge Activist to Visit Prisons. [The Associated Press] Wives and mothers of Cuban political prisoners urged U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan to visit the island's state-run jails during her weeklong trip to Cuba to call for the closure of the U.S.-operated Guantanamo prison. The Ladies in White, a group of women demanding the release of their loved ones, described what they called "inhumane" conditions at Cuba's prisons in a letter for Sheehan that was sent to international reporters. The group said it was trying to get a copy to Sheehan as well. In the letter, the Ladies in White said they are a peaceful group that faces constant harassment from Cuban officials. They also asked Sheehan to meet with them so she "could know this other reality of Cuban society." Their jailed husbands and sons are among 75 activists rounded up in the spring of 2003 and sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years. Sixteen of those prisoners have since been released for health reasons, but more than 300 human rights activists, independent journalists and members of outlawed political parties remain behind bars, according to rights groups.

• Women Who Made the News in 2006. [Jamaica Observer, Jamaica] Portia Simpson Miller replaced PJ Patterson, becoming Jamaica's first female head of government and the third in the Anglophone Caribbean following Eugenia Charles of Dominica and Janet Jagan of Guyana. She also holds the position of president of the PNP. Since being elected prime minister, Simpson Miller has been promoting herself as a mother figure who will be caring and compassionate; a unifying force that can bring Jamaicans from all walks of life to focus on nation-building and self-empowerment.

• Former Government Minister Sworn in as First Female Speaker. [radiojamaica.com, Jamaica] Sources close to the ruling United Workers Party have confirmed that Mrs. Flood-Beaubrun has been offered the position and has accepted. Some persons are however questioning the impact the appointment will have on opposition members of parliament, especially former Prime Minister Kenny Anthony. Three years ago Mr. Anthony fired Mrs. Flood-Beaubrun from her post as a government Minister.