ACL compiles a daily media monitoring service of stories of interest to the Christian constituency relating to children, family, drugs and alcohol, marriage, human rights, religious freedom etc. Visit the ACL’s website each day to see what’s of interest in the news. Please note that selection of the articles does not represent ACL endorsement of the content.



 



Abortion

New video series documents pro-life concerns about girl scouts

Steven Ertelt - LifeNews.com

A newly-released, three-part video series, produced by former Girl Scouts members and their families, offers compelling evidence of the Girl Scouts’ ties to abortion advocacy groups. The producers say the videos demonstrate how the Girl Scouts’ official curriculum and website connects girls to pro-abortion role models and groups, as well as explicit sexual content.

Children & Family

The kids come first for more stay-at-home dads

Samantha Malagre - The Daily Telegraph

They have shunned the corporate lifestyle and, instead, immersed themselves in playdough and facepaint. According to the latest census data, there has been a surge in the number of men who choose to stay home, with 17.6 per cent of all Australian families with children under 15 now being raised by men.

Historic transformation of state's foster care system

Adele Horin - SMH

NSW foster care system will undergo an historic transformation with the announcement today of 38 non-government agencies that will take over the role traditionally carried out by the Department of Community Services. Up to 6800 children and young people in foster care with the department will be transferred to the non-government agencies over the next four years.

A terrible tragedy, a young man killed by just a single hit

Daniel Piotrowski - The Punch

Parents of young adults everywhere in Sydney hate it when their children go to Kings Cross, the city’s party district. They loathe it. They’ve got reason to. Every few Sundays local 6pm news bulletins broadcast vision of young people “going wild”, roaming the streets; the occasional fight. And now a tragedy. Thomas Kelly, 18, was king-hit just walking down the street with a couple of female friends, one of them his new girlfriend, at 10pm on Saturday night. Totally unprovoked. He hit his head on the ground. He died last night.

US: Agencies place unqualified, possibly criminal caregivers in homes of vulnerable seniors

Medical Net

If you hire a caregiver from an agency for an elderly family member, you might assume the person had undergone a thorough criminal background check and drug testing, was experienced and trained for the job. You'd be wrong in many cases, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.

Families burdened by dementia

Sky News

Alzheimer's disease could place a considerable burden on Australian families with many unable to look after a relative diagnosed with the disease, a Newspoll survey shows. The survey of 1,225 Australian adults found almost 80 per cent said their personal circumstances would not allow them to care for a family member diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Drugs & Alcohol

Call for inquiry into drugs in prison system

Melissa Brown - ABC

The Victorian Opposition is calling for an inquiry into drug trafficking in the state's prison system. It follows an eight-month police investigation into allegations a drug ring was operating at the high-security Barwon Prison, near Geelong. Late yesterday Victoria police charged two prison officers in connection with an alleged drug ring at the prison.

Fighting against the meth monsters

Janet Fife-Yeomans and Henry Budd - The Daily Telegraph

On the front line at St Vincent's Hospital, the doctors and nurses in the emergency department are regularly faced with six to 10 of them a week: the meth monsters. Off their heads on as little as $50 worth of crystal methamphetamine, they have lost all ability to control themselves but are incredibly strong, violent and thrash and buck like animals.

Education

Not-so-smartphones: students caught cheating

Al Baker - The Age

In an episode that has left a blemish on one of the most prestigious public schools in the US, 70 students at New York's Stuyvesant High School have been involved in a pattern of smartphone-enabled cheating. It involved several state exams and was uncovered after a mobile phone was confiscated from a 16-year-old student during a citywide language exam on June 18, according to a Department of Education investigation. Mobile phones are not permitted in city schools.

Environment

Supertrawler brings global problem to Australian waters

Andrew Darby - Fairfax Media

Say hello to our fishing future. It's called Margiris. If ever Australians needed convincing that the global appetite for fish is our problem too, this supertrawler is it. Twice the size of the previous largest vessel ever to fish our Commonwealth waters, it measures 142 metres in length and weighs 9600 tonnes.

Euthanasia

ICU death sparks manslaughter claim and medical reform calls

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The children of a woman who died in intensive care are calling for the medical board system to change as a former investigator says the doctor responsible should have been charged with manslaughter. If God forbid you ever find a loved one on life support you will assume it's your right to tell the doctor if or when to turn off the machines. But in one alarming case in Queensland that's not what happened, as you're about to see.

Bill to legalize assisted suicide in UK will lead to euthanasia

Care Not Killing - LifeNews.com

Pro-euthanasia activists always make a great play of how their proposals to help people kill themselves are extremely modest and are bound by ‘robust safeguards’. Dignity in Dying, the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, is a world leader in this art and their new draft bill, championed by Lord Falconer, is a classic example. It’s only for the mentally competent, only for the terminally ill, only for adults they say.

Human rights

Canada: Bill to scrap section 13 ‘hate crime’ provision passes House of Commons

Thaddeus Baklinski - LifeSiteNews

A bill to scrap the controversial Section 13 “hate crimes” provision of the Canadian human rights code passed third and final reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 153 to 136 late Wednesday. Bill C-304, “An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act,” was introduced by Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth. It now goes to the Conservative-dominated Senate where it is expected to pass and be given royal assent. Critics of Section 13 have long argued that the clause created the precise equivalent of a ‘thought crime’ in Canadian law. The provision defined a discriminatory practice as “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” if the person or persons affected are “identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

Marriage

California’s scorched earth policy toward marriage

Austin Nimocks - TownHall.com

From the moment the push to redefine marriage began, the most militant of the would-be redefiners deployed a “scorched earth policy” toward marriage to achieve their goals. In other words, they proved willing not just to alter, but also to destroy marriage and the family in order to establish conditions where they could reconstruct marriage – and all of society – according to their own designs. And part of this scorched earth policy, as we’re now seeing it in California, is the effort to recognize more than two parents for children.

Overseas Aid

Focus on family planning as Carr doubles foreign aid

Adele Horin - SMH

As world leaders convene for a major family planning summit in London, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, said Australia would double its overseas aid for family planning programs to more than $50 million a year by 2016. Mr Carr, travelling in Cambodia, told the Herald: "Women have a basic right to reproductive health care … to decide whether, when and how many children they have."

Prostitution & Sex Trafficking

Sex trafficking increasing in Qld mining towns

David Lewis - ABC

It's feared the mining boom is leading to an increase in the exploitation of women in the sex industry. Increasingly, sex workers are travelling to Australia's remote mining communities, hoping to cash in on the lonely, mostly male workforce. But a senior Queensland police inspector says there's a growing problem with women from overseas arriving under-prepared and being exploited by criminals.

Religious Freedom & Persecution

Nigeria violence kills over 100 Christians

BosNewsLife

Nigerian authorities said Sunday, July 8, that at least 63 people were killed when suspected Muslim herdsmen armed with guns and machetes stormed Christian villages, while missionaries claimed over 50 pastors and missionary leaders died in separate violence. The attacks rocked Christian villages near the city of Jos in central Nigeria’s Plateau State since Saturday, July 8, said Mustapha Salisu, spokesman for a special taskforce made up of policemen and soldiers deployed in the area to curb years of violence.

Refugees

$1m a rescue for asylum seeker boats in distress

Ian McPhedran - The Daily Telegraph

Taxpayers fork out up to $1 million to rescue people smuggling boats that issue distress calls off Indonesia. Three boats have been "rescued" within 100km of the coast of Java in the past few weeks.

Other

Sex offenders policy dangerous: Qld police

Herald Sun

Queensland police fear life sentences for repeat child-sex offenders may push more attackers to kill their victims to eliminate witnesses. The Queensland government passed a two-strike policy against child-sex offenders on Tuesday. An adult already convicted of a serious child-sex offence will face a mandatory life jail sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years if they commit another serious offence against a child.