Washington Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud, mid-oath.
Washington Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud, mid-oath.

Credit: OnceAndFutureLaura on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

(WOMENSENEWS)–

Cheers

For the first time, Washington state’s Supreme Court features a female majority and a female chief justice, reported . Newly elected Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud was sworn in Jan. 14 at the Temple of Justice in Olympia. McCloud is the fifth woman on the court and defeated former Justice Richard Sanders in the November election for the seat being vacated by the retiring Tom Chambers.

More News to Cheer This Week:

President Barack Obama unveiled on Jan. 16 an aggressive set of gun-control measures, supported by many mothers’ organizations, as he launched a push for the most sweeping changes to firearms laws in nearly two decades, reported . Read the proposal reported by the Associated Press .

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will remain at her post during Obama’s second term, reported . She will be the only woman to occupy a top cabinet post after the departure of Hillary Clinton from the State Department, replaced by John Kerry, and the recent nomination of Chuck Hagel to the Pentagon.

Women in England and Wales with a strong family history of breast cancer could be offered medication by the National Health Service to try to prevent the disease, reported .

Jeers

Daming Sanusi, a candidate for the Indonesian Supreme Court, has fueled outrage in the predominantly Muslim country by suggesting that rape victims enjoy being violated, reported . News of his comments quickly spread on social media, prompting anger, disgust and calls for ending Daming’s candidacy for the Supreme Court.

More News to Jeer This Week:

The mother of 11-year-old Caroline Pla has launched a demanding the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Catholic Youth Organization reverse its decision to kick Pla off its football team because she’s a girl and was told “football is for boys,” Change.org said in a statement Jan. 16.

Single women in Iran will need the permission of their guardians to be able to leave the country if a new bill secures enough votes in parliament, reported .

Anti-choice measures in the United States go beyond limiting access to abortion, according to a study by the published in the . They provide the basis for arresting women, locking them up and forcing them to submit to medical interventions, including surgery. Read a fuller summary of the findings in this article on .

A 29-year-old woman, who was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state, was gang raped, reported . This new case happened only four weeks after a deadly attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital that outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.

Rape is a “significant and disturbing” feature of the Syrian civil war, with women and girls citing sexual violence as their main reason for fleeing the country, a report by the found, reported .

Male jurors are more likely to find obese women guilty than lean women, but they don’t show the same weight bias against their own gender, a study found, reported .

A radical Salafist preacher shocked Egyptians when he appeared on primetime television to urge women to wear headscarves to avoid being raped, reported .

In her appearance on Fox News channel’s “Hannity,” conservative commentator Ann Coulter mused that Republicans should retaliate by banning abortion clinics if Obama attempts to regulate guns by executive fiat, reported .

Noted:

A report released by addresses the impact of incarceration on women and the effect it can have on a woman’s physical health, emotional well-being, family life and economic stability, Wellesley Centers for Women said in a statement Jan. 15. Read the report .

NARAL Pro-Choice America announced Jan. 14 in a that Ilyse Hogue has been chosen to succeed Nancy Keenan as president of the organization.

Dozens of Saudi clerics staged a rare protest in front of the Royal Court Jan. 15 against King Abdullah’s decision to appoint women to a body that advises the government on new laws, reported . On Jan. 11 King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the Shura Council, giving them a fifth of the seats in the consultative body — a move he promised to make in 2011.

The attorney for one of two Ohio high school football players charged with raping a 16-year-old girl says he’s seeking to get the trial moved and close it to the media and the public, reported .

, a site that helps broke “sugar babies” find wealthy, older men, announced in a press release that more and more young women from New York University and Columbia University are signing up, reported .

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered the molecular switch that allows aggressive triple negative breast cancer cells to grow the amoeba-like protrusions they need to crawl away from a primary tumor and metastasize throughout the body, reported . Read more on WeNews: .

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