Children in highly developed countries suffer abuse and neglect much more often than is reported by official child-protective agencies, according to the findings of the first in a comprehensive series of reports on child maltreatment, published Dec. 2 in the British medical journal The Lancet. Based on a review of research conducted on child abuse between 2000 and June of this year, researchers estimate that 4% to 16% of children are physically abused each year in high-income ...

The Rev. Amy DeLong, a Methodist pastor from Osceola, Wisconsin, decided to come clean. She brought to the attention of her local bishop that she had officiated over the same-sex union of a lesbian couple. It is a rite prohibited by her religion and having performed it, DeLong could be put on trial by the church. She also told the bishop that she might as well be prosecuted for something else: she is in a lesbian partnership. And ...

After her husband left her, Jennifer Santana lost her job. When she was evicted from her apartment, Santana, 37, held her family together by living with a friend and then in her van. But as the nights grew cold in early December, she stood huddled with her three children in front of the Orange County cold-weather shelter in Santa Ana, Calif. "There were long lines of men and women, and the people were laying out mats on ...

On paper, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for United Nations ambassador has much in common with another boundary-breaking, African-American, Stanford-affiliated, female foreign policy expert with the same surname. But the similarities with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice end there. Susan Rice brings to the U.N. job a career devotion to African affairs and eight years of experience in the Clinton administration. Fast Facts: • Age 44, Rice is married to Canadian journalist Ian Cameron, executive producer of ABC's This Week ...

How easy is it to buy illegal drugs on the Internet? Pretty darn easy, according to a new study by the United Nation's International Narcotics Control Board. The report, issued Wednesday, warns that drug traffickers are finding myriad ways to conduct their illegal transactions in cyberspace — leaving law enforcement officers struggling to keep up. The INCB study details the ways traffickers communicate with each other and with their clients, often commandeering unrelated chat rooms to set up deals, ...

Wilbur and Orville Wright were two brothers from the heartland of America with a vision as sweeping as the sky and a practicality as down-to-earth as the Wright Cycle Co., the bicycle business they founded in Dayton, Ohio, in 1892. But while there were countless bicycle shops in turn-of-the-century America, in only one were wings being built as well as wheels. When the Wright brothers finally realized their vision of powered human flight in 1903, they made the world a ...

On Thursday, as NATO war planes prepared fresh strikes against the compound of Muammar Gaddafi, his prime minister, Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, put in an urgent call to Moscow. After months of civil war, he said, Gaddafi was ready to negotiate a ceasefire and he needed Russia to mediate the talks. That same day in the French resort town of Deauville, the French and U.S. presidents, who have been leading the bombing raids against Gaddafi, reportedly came to their ...

Only three shows left. Can you stand it, America? Even in a pop-culture world oversaturated with grandiose farewells and memorial tributes, the thunderous countdown to the last episode of Oprah Winfrey's 25-year-old talk show is something to behold. For weeks, she has been revisiting old friends, replaying favorite segments, reliving teary memories. On Monday and Tuesday, she'll air two shows edited from last week's celebrity-packed extravaganza taped at Chicago's United Center. Then, on Wednesday, the really, truly last ...

On Saturday, May 14, as the final whistle ended a 1-1 draw in the English Premier League between Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United, a man looking perhaps a shade younger than his 69 years began dancing around and hugging everyone in sight. If Sir Alex Ferguson, United's manager, looked like a bit of a dork — as he usually does when celebrating — nobody cared. United had just won its 19th English League title, beating the record of its archrival ...

JUST BECAUSE ABORTION IS LEGAL in Illinois doesn't mean that Sheela Paine can easily get one. At the age of 30, she already has five children. Last week she was in the 19th week of a pregnancy she couldn't afford; her husband is unemployed and the family lives on welfare. She also couldn't afford the reduced $425 price of a second-trimester abortion at the clinic near her home in East St. Louis. During her last pregnancy Paine tried to induce ...