Ex-husband files without counsel for a downward modification of temporary alimony – because his ex allegedly secretly remarried a wealthy man.

She was gifted with an interest in a $2 million home, which was sold for a substantial profit.

She represented to the court that she was unemployed – when she allegedly wasn’t.

She allegedly blocked his access to the kids.

He’s in bankruptcy court fighting to keep his pension.

He wrote the check for her to go to law school – but she allegedly didn’t.

It’s all part of the slightly colorful aftermath of the divorce of a local former mayor of Miami.

Read more in this Miami Herald article: Former mayor says ex is hardly in distress.

Prenups are all over the news again, thanks to a super-wealthy celebrity who didn’t do one.

But prenups aren’t just for people like him.

Still more prenup tips are laid out in this Kiplinger’s article: A Primer on Prenups.

Highlights of the article are:

1. Bring it up early with your intended
2. Take inventory
3. Look ahead
4. Know the rules
5. Play fair

A twelve year old boy afflicted with autism was missing too much school.

So social services went to court to remove him from his father’s home and care.

An undoubtedly well-intentioned judge instead ordered that the boy stay with his father, but under social services supervision to ensure that he attended school more regularly.

While under child welfare system supervision, the boy’s father brutally snuffed out the boy’s life.

It was reported that the father was overwhelmed by his son’s autism-related difficulties.

Sadly, help and support for this boy and his father were at once so close, yet so far.

Read more in this Newsday article: Judge didn’t know of abuse of boy found killed.

What about the next child and parent in need?

Imagine living in a country where parents with children are absolutely barred from leaving the country – even for a short vacation to visit relatives abroad.

Every reader surely cringes at the prospect of such a prohibition on two parents of an intact family traveling together with their common children.

So, are we imagining a third world country? An extremist regime?

Try democratic Israel.

And maybe, just maybe, where US policy may be heading regarding relocation (or routine travel) with children born of now-broken relationships – even to another state in this country.

Read this chilling article on Israel’s Haaretz.com: When your new homeland becomes your prison.

In many states across the US, custodial parents today are finding it increasingly difficult to escape (either temporarily or permanently) the particular state where their divorce happened to have been entered, let alone the country.

Often, in practice, without any real regard to the circumstances imposed on the family in that particular state, the likely degree of risk of abduction or denial of access to children, or competing risks to the children and/or custodial parent. Certainly not without great expenditure of time and resources in the courts.

Does this policy serve the best interests of children?

The Hatikvah Foundation is fighting the prohibition in Israel. They are assembling an international panel of social workers and advocates of children’s and women’s rights to review and tackle the problem.

But what about here in the US?

Internationally, the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction already provides legal recourse in case of child abductions. Domestically in the US, there is legal recourse in the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and a host of federal and state kidnapping and custodial interference statutes.

Is the “cure” growing worse than the disease?

Of course, it was just a matter of time…

In 2004, a lesbian couple who had been living together in Rhode Island trekked to Massachusetts to get married after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage.

Well, now they’ve separated and filed in their home state of Rhode Island for … divorce.

Only Rhode Island doesn’t “recognize” gay marriage. So, can Rhode Island grant a “gay divorce”?

Or, more technically, does a Rhode Island court have subject matter jurisdiction over a gay marriage validly entered in Massachusetts?

It’s a good question…

All eyes are on Rhode Island as it becomes the first state to grapple with an issue sure to arise in other states in coming months and years.

Read more in this Fox News TV article: Rhode Island Judge Faces Legal Quandary as Gay Couple Seeks Divorce.

The Browns had been married for twenty-five years.

They enjoyed a very prosperous lifestyle, which went with their millions.

When in their seventies, they began their divorce.

It was a bitter divorce.

The tab for the legal maneuvers alone ran about $3 million.

Yet for all that trouble and expense, the Browns didn’t get their divorce.

Because Mr. Brown passed away … Then Mrs. Brown followed …

Before the divorce was finalized … So the case died with them.

Ironically, if their divorce had been more amicable, it would have been finalized before their deaths.

But it wasn’t.

So now their heirs and estates have taken up still more litigation.

An illustration of how not to conduct your divorce.

Read more in this Sify article: ‘Til death did they spar.

An editorial in Florida today highlights the sad story of how many children have languished far too long in foster care with no realistic prospect of either adoption or reunification with their biological family.

And how a recently adopted statute is shortening their stay there and freeing them up for adoption sooner.

In Brevard County, a local organization has displaced the Department of Children and Families in coordinating care of children in the system.

The group has also launched an ambitious new website to help match up kids in foster care with prospective adoptive parents, taking advantage of compelling, professionally taken photograph of the kids.

Read more in this Florida Today editorial, Our view: More homes needed.

Besides the obvious, the Thanksgiving holiday also kicked off this year’s annual Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence.

Organized by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, the Sixteen Days are an international series of social and political events begun fifteen years ago.

The campaign’s mission is to target violence against women as a violation of fundamental international human rights.

One thousand seven hundred organizations across one hundred thirty nations participate.

Read more in the Family Violence Prevention Fund NewsFlash article: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence and the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence at the Rutgers University Center for Women’s Global Leadership website.

Last July in Southwest Florida, a young couple allegedly left their 2 month old baby alone in their un-air-conditioned car while they shopped for over half an hour.

Had the baby died, the parents would have faced manslaughter charges or worse.

But, miraculously, the baby was alright.

As a result, the state elected to drop felony child neglect charges.

For the criminal case to have moved forward, the parents, at a minimum, would have to have understood that they were placing their baby at grave risk of harm, according to prosecutors.

According to authorities, that didn’t appear to be the case here. The mother reportedly forgot that the baby was in the car and the father thought that she was with friends. The couple were both found to be sober and to have a clean record.

And so the matter, as well as the baby, are relegated to the civil realm of the Department of Children and Family Services.

For DCF’s case, there need only be ignorance. For which their remedy is education.

Now, the parents are attending parenting classes at DCF’s direction.

Read more in this Sarasota Herald Tribune article: Proving child neglect isn’t easy.

New Zealand reportedly has a new law that affords children a large say in who should care for them – without regard to the age or maturity of the children.

The statute is not limited to situations where the children’s parents are embroiled in child custody disputes.

And so a 16 year old girl successfully petitioned a New Zealand court to live with her older sister – even though her mother was a perfectly fit parent.

‘The judge said the mother had been using her rights as a guardian to ensure, “no doubt for the very best of motives”, that the daughter complied with her wishes as the mother.‘

And a New Zealand appellate court held that a four year old’s wishes should have been given greater weight in a family dispute.

This is an enormous, questionable leap beyond conventional child emancipation and termination of parental rights laws in the US.

Only time will tell the social impact of the statute in New Zealand.

Read more in this New Zealand Sunday Star Times article: New Law Could Set Precedent.