When Paula Tuffin and her family moved to Essex Fells, N.J., a village of huge homes and hilly landscapes, they were unbothered by the fact that they were the only black folks for miles around. But soon Tuffin, a divorce mediator, began to worry. Her children Drew, 7, and Sarah, 4, were well accepted by their white friends, but they were barely being exposed to the black community at all. Thus Tuffin got together with 40 other black mothers, many ...

One afternoon when Joanne was nine years old she came home from school and noticed something missing. Her father's jewelry box had disappeared from its usual spot on her parents' bureau. Worse, her mother was still in bed. "Daddy's moved out," her mother told her. Joanne panicked. She began to sob. And even though Joanne is 40 now, a married Los Angeles homemaker with children of her own, she clearly remembers what she did next that day. Her vision blurred ...

"Welcome to the 21st century!" That was how one Facebook user responded to the news that Malta, the only country in the E.U. that still prohibits divorce, had voted to allow married couples to officially split. In a country reported to be 95% Catholic, the results of the May 28 referendum took many on both sides of the issue by surprise. But for supporters, the vote is a sign that the island nation, located 55 miles ...

For months residents sensed that all was not right at the Oxford Apartments, a 49-unit low-rise building on Milwaukee's crime-infested west side. A power saw buzzed at odd hours. The putrid odor of rotting meat flooded the corridors. Occasionally, a tenant would hear a cry or the thump of a falling object on the second floor. When police entered Apartment 213 last week, they were shocked to find a freezer covered with Polaroid photographs of mutilated men. Inside they discovered ...

Only eight major nations in the world, all Catholic, do not allow divorce. They are Italy, Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay. Of the eight, the one closest to ending its prohibition is the home of the church it self. Italy's Chamber of Deputies last week began full debate on a bill that would allow civil divorce for one of seven reasons. Parliamentary observers predict that the bill will pass, probably before the end of the year. Divorces ...

On April 20, Major League Baseball took control of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team whose overleveraged owner is going through a humiliating public divorce and steering the franchise towards bankruptcy. The Dodgers' financial situation had been so dire that last week Frank McCourt, who is fighting for ownership of the team with his estranged wife, Jamie, needed a $30 million loan from Fox, the team's television partner, to make payroll. That's right, the Dodgers, one of ...

AMERICANS do just about everything a bit more spectacularly than most other people. That includes marriage and divorce. The U.S. has the world's highest divorce rate, but it also leads in the rate of remarriage after divorce, an occurrence that frequently boosts the statistics by leading to yet another breakup. Americans, in short, appear to be marrying more and enjoying it less. This situation distresses clergymen, sociologists and anthropologists, who rightly regard stable marriage as the foundation of society. But ...

Juanita Bynum's story may read like soap opera, but her travails are a reminder of the longtime magnetism between celebrity Pentecostal preachers and scandal. The 48-year-old regular on the Trinity Broadcasting Network made her reputation with a sermon renouncing pre-marital sex to search for a holy partner. She appeared to find one in a minister named Thomas Weeks III, wed him in a $1 million on-air ceremony, and together they went ...

They say that breaking up is hard to do, especially when millions of eyes are there to witness every caustic comment and verbal volley. No one knows that better than Jon and Kate Gosselin, whose divorce is playing out on a world stage, complete with tabloid covers, he-said-she-said television appearances and court orders. Such public spats can do a great deal of harm, said divorce attorney Randall M. Kessler, who's handled several celebrity cases. "I just gave a presentation where ...

An American man who had been accused of trying to take his children from his ex-wife was released from jail on Thursday and charges against him were dropped. Police in the rural southern town of Yanagawa said Christopher Savoie was let go, but did not say whether authorities set any conditions for his release, such as requiring that he leave the country immediately. Savoie, 38, a Tennessee native and naturalized Japanese citizen, allegedly abducted his children -- 8-year-old Isaac and ...