Weird news - Punishing a father since his son not granting divorce

It seems like a weird case. After all, in cases of a divorce, legal matters are typically between the husband and wife, and parents are mostly not included; unless there is some kind of harassment that is also part of the overall separation and divorce proceedings However this divorce proceeding in Israel is different, since the divorce law over there (which in turn is based on religious laws) ensures that the husband gets a veto over the divorce. Unless the divorce is granted by the husband, it will not happen. Over a period of time, the rabbinical courts have been granted powers to 'persuade' the husband in case he is not willing.
However, in this case, the husband was not present in Israel, instead spending time in the United States, primarily due his rich father who provides his son a stipend and a job. So when the father came to Israel for a visit, he was prevented from leaving and his passport taken away. The father is protesting about the court doing a kind of extortion attempt on him to ensure that his son comes to Israel and grants the divorce, and it would seem that the rabbinical courts have no other leverage (link to article):

According to the court documents, the wife suffered the stroke on a visit to Israel with her husband in 2005. Shortly after, the husband returned to the U.S., where he remains. His wife and their two children stayed in Israel and she became an Israeli citizen. The court says the husband has ignored her request and a court ruling for a divorce as well as another ruling demanding he pay alimony. The father is in his late 60s and according to court documents is a wealthy member of New York's Hasidic community who runs a real estate company. He was in Israel last year on a family visit when he was summoned to the court, told to hand in his and his wife's passports and barred from leaving the country. He was later sentenced to 30 days in prison for contempt of court. The rabbinical court argues that by providing his son with a job and stipend, the father is responsible for his son's intransigence. His lawyers argue he is being used as leverage to pressure his son and are appealing to the Supreme Court.

Weird news - Girl cuts off father's head after he rapes her

Rape is such a brutal crime that it leaves women horrified, shakes up their emotions and their sense of security. Women can suffer severe emotional trauma over such a crime, and these feelings can be even more intense depending on other factors surrounding the crime, such as the violence of the crime, and whether the crime was committed by somebody known to the victim. And this is troublesome. In the family environment, there is a lot of trust involved, and for somebody to violate that trust and do such a crime would be very traumatic indeed.
When such a crime happened in the island of Papua New Guinea, the horror of the crime was increased due to the person who was doing such a crime; the rape was committed by the father on his daughter, which was a violation in many respects. The father is the one who is supposed to be a guardian to the children, the one who puts in a lot of effort to ensure the well being and growth of the children, and for a father to commit such a crime would be horrible indeed. In this case, after raping his daughter in the night, when he tried to do it again in the morning, she took a knife and cut his head off. The community has justified the death (link to article):

A teenage girl beheaded her father with a bush knife after he raped her at their home in Papua New Guinea, a report said Monday, with community leaders protecting her, saying the man deserved to die. The Post-Courier newspaper said the 18-year-old chopped her father’s head clean off after he repeatedly raped her last Tuesday night in their village in the poverty-stricken Pacific nation’s Western Highlands. The report cited a pastor as saying the father, in his mid-40s, had three other children and raped his daughter when they were alone in the house after the mother and the other siblings visited relatives. Pastor Lucas Kumi said the man went to his daughter’s room in the night and raped her repeatedly. “The father wanted to rape his daughter again in the morning inside the house and that was when the young girl picked up the bush knife and chopped her father’s head off,” he said.

Weird news - Father kills his own child for making too much noise

When you read news like this one, you wonder as to how somebody could do things like this. The bond between a parent and their children is extremely strong, where a parent could do anything to ensure the safety of the child. If somebody else says anything to the child, the parent can and in most cases, does react against such utterances by other people. Given all this, it seems impossible to believe as to how a parent could be so barbaric to their own children (link to article):

Enraged by the continuous bawling of his infant daughter, a man allegedly flung the two-month-old baby down a drain resulting in her death in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, police said on Monday.
"Mujibur Sheikh, a mason, was at his home and got irritated by the continuous crying of his baby. He asked the mother to calm the baby, but she failed. Enraged, he threw the baby into a drain which killed her instantly," said Jagannath Das, officer of Ragunathgunj police station.

Weird news - Man kills his own children after estrangement with his wife

In today's world, marriages are made easily, but can also get broken far more easily. This is a far cry from medieval times where the church refused to let divorces happen, and a bad marriage still meant an existing marriage. With the number of broken marriages increasing, there are more tensions due to children and the issues related to who gets to keep the children as part of divorce proceedings.
However nasty such divorce proceedings go, it is in the very rare case that such proceedings lead to violence, and even less so that the father actually kills his own children and that too in such a brutal manner, by knifing them to death (link to article):

A jilted man in Britain killed his daughter and son by slitting their throats to hurt his estranged wife as he was about to be evicted from their flat. Jean Francis Say, 62, murdered his eight-year-old daughter Regina and son Rolls, ten, when he had custody of them for the weekend, the Sun reported Thursday.
He carried out the killings shortly after receiving a letter confirming that he was being kicked out of the family's three-bedroom property where he lived alone. His estranged wife Adjoua had moved out with the children six months earlier. So, Say wasn't entitled to the flat any longer.

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Weird news - Father kills 7 year old son over matrimonial dispute

Disputes between parents and children is nothing new, but you hear of those typically when both parents and children are adults and both have their own views (and the disputes could be over monetary issues, or over differences of opinion); but when the children are young and defenseless, one gets horrified at scenes of violence between parents and children.
Consider the following case where a father killed his own 7 year old son since he was having a fight with his wife, and this led to his taking out the anger on his own son, hitting him hard with a hammer on the head (link to article):

In a gory fallout of a matrimonial feud, a property dealer from south Delhi killed his seven-year-old son with a hammer blow to his head on Sunday. The victim, Arpit Singh, a class I student of Greenfield Public School, fell dead instantly.
Though police remained tightlipped, it appeared that the attack was a result of a heated argument between Bhupender and his wife. Arpit's 11-year-old sister and his mother were not in the room when the incident took place. Bhupender also reportedly suffers from alcoholism. According to senior police officers, the couple had a bitter argument on Sunday after which Bhupender stomped back to his room. Sources said the argument was over an extra-marital relationship and the manner in which the accused conducted himself in public.

Weird news - 3 year old daughter goes to get rescue for collapsed dad, saves his life

How often can somebody expect that their 3 year old child can do something to save their life ? Seems a very difficult and chancy statement, but it happened in this case. You can train your children as much as possible, but whether it will ever work is a different matter altogether. And yet, when something like this happens, it seems remarkable. Consider the following case where the 3 year old daughter managed to recognize that her father was in danger due to some wrong medicines, and went to the nearby fire station, and got quick help for her dad. Something really remarkable, and validates all the teaching that the daughter got about how to get help in times of need (link to article):

Frank Tafoya told CNN affiliate KOVR that he "took a mixture of medication I wasn't supposed to at the time -- a bed-time dose -- and I guess I collapsed." Alesaundra did exactly what she was taught -- walking two blocks to reach Fire Station 243, a firehouse the family passes daily.
Once there, she told firefighters that her dad was "frozen" and wouldn't wake up, according to KOVR. "I've been here over 20 years," Capt. Robert Villalovoz said. "It's the first time I've had a 3-year-old walk up to the fire station."

Man hits infant son on the face, ordered to pay 50 pounds as compensation besides other damages

A baby is very fragile, needing constant protection and care from parents. It is also true that when a baby is born, the hormone systems of the parents push hormones through the body, imparting a protecting emotional feeling (much stronger in the mother), so one wonders what is it that makes a person be able to hit a 10 month old defenseless baby; hard enough that it left a mark on the face and also needed medical attention. Well, the case was as simple as something that babies do, knock things around. The after effects ? The father is now estranged from the mother and the son (the mother and father were not married) and defending himself in court (link to article):

A Briton, who slapped his 10-month-old son after he knocked down a photo frame, has been ordered to pay the baby 50 pounds in compensation, a media report said Thursday. The 24-year-old man lost his cool when his son hit the TV while jumping up and down in his baby bouncer, Daily Mail reported.
Rachel Bentley, defending the accused, said the man was now estranged from his partner and son after the incident, which happened two days before Christmas, and he was "sorry". He was also directed to complete 60 hours of community service, be supervised for a year, deal with his anger management and pay the baby 50 pounds in compensation.

Father criticized as being a pervert for photographing his own children on a slide

Sometimes paranoia can take a form that baffles people. Consider the normal scenario where a family goes out for a fun filled day where a loving father takes photographs of his children on a slide - 2 fun boys who are 5 and 7 years old. And when people see him taking these photos, they object, with some claiming that he is a pervert who is taking photos for selling on the internet, with the unstated claim being that he was involved in child pornography. Other parents objected, the person running the slide objected; this made the person so angry that he found policeman to back him on his right to take these photos - but this effectively ruined his day (link to article):

Yesterday he said: ‘What is the world coming to when anybody seen with a camera is assumed to be doing things that they should not? ‘This parental paranoia is getting completely out of hand. I was so shocked. One of the police officers told me that it was just the way society is these days. He agreed with me that it was madness.’
He said: ‘The children wanted to go on an inflatable slide and I started taking photos of them having a good time. Moments later the woman running the slide told me to stop.
‘When I asked why, she told me I could not take pictures of other people’s children. I explained I was only interested in taking photos of my own children and pointed out that this was taking place in a public park.

Pregnant man gives birth for second time

This is not a medical miracle the way you think about it. In this case, there was a woman, who got a sex change operation to become a man. The 'man' married (but obviously does not have the full set of equipment to become a natural father) and then became pregnant (not sure how he became pregnant, but could have done so through medical intervention) once last year and gave birth. The idea of a bearded man giving birth would have seemed strange to those who did not know the full details, and he has done so again, giving birth to a second child through natural childbirth (link to article):

LOS ANGELES: Thomas Beatie, the transgendered man who created history last year by giving birth to a baby girl, has done it again. ABC News reported that Beatie gave birth to a son early Tuesday in Bend, Oregon, and that the child would be nursed by his wife, Nancy.
ABC News quoted sources close to the couple as saying that it was a natural childbirth and not via Caesarean section. Beatie revealed last year that after giving birth to his first child he did not start again taking male hormones to allow him to get pregnant.