Clintons Launch 'Too Small to Fail' For US Kids Infants To Age 5 | Charles Saatchi Accepts Caution

1. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is the first sitting member of Congress to back a grassroots effort to elect Hillary Rodham Clinton president in 2016. McCaskill posted this statement on the website of the political action committee Ready for Hillary.

McCaskii was an Obama supporter in 2008. “Regardless of who you supported for president back then, we can all agree today that there is nobody better equipped to be our next president than Hillary Clinton,” McCaskill said.

“It’s important that we start early, building a grass-roots army from the ground up, and effectively using the tools of the Internet – all things that President Obama did so successfully – so that if Hillary does decide to run, we’ll be ready to help her win.”

AOC also supports Hillary Clinton for 2016 and also Allyson Schwartz in her bid to unseat Pa Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014.

2. A new poll released by Quinnipiac University puts Democratic Rep. Allyson Schwartz in the lead of hopefuls to unseat GOP Gov. Tom Corbett in 2013. Schwartz beat the sitting governor by 10 points, 45 percent to 35 percent.

Schwartz also had the most support among a mostly unknown field of Democrats vying to run against Corbett, with 18 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for her. No other candidate had more than 5 percent support.

The National Journal reports about the poll in which 48% of Keystone State voters said they disapprove of Corbett’s performance as governor.

“Asked if Corbett deserves to be reelected, 52 percent of voters, including 25 percent of Republicans, said he doesn’t deserve a second term, while only 32 percent said he should be reelected.”

3. Hillary Clinton is a longtime advocate for children and a supporter of the concept that Americans as a whole have a vested interest in the nation’s children. Now Clinton has joined a new initiative ‘Too Small to Fail’, created to explore ways that parents, businesses, and communities can promote the positive development of kids  who are newborns to age 5.

“The campaign will help publicize research on the relationship between babies’ and toddlers’ experiences and brain development. It will provide guidance to parents on simple steps to enhance children’s health and early learning opportunities. And it aims to secure commitments from private businesses, both through financial investments and through structures that help working parents spend quality time with their children,” writes Christian Science Monitor.

4. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation has named Judith A. Salerno as its new president and CEO. Salerno will succeed the group’s founder, Nancy G. Brinker, in running the embattled, embroiled in controversy organization.

Salerno is the executive director and chief operating officer at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, she was deputy director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging, where she oversaw more than $1 billion in research on issues such as Alzheimer’s disease.

“Judy’s years of proven leadership in public policy and research make her the right choice to lead all aspects of Komen’s mission,” Linda Custard, the board chairwoman, said in the statement. “We are delighted that she will be heading our leadership team and guiding Komen now and into the future.”

5. British ad tycoon, now art collector Charles Saatchi has accepted a ‘police caution’ after published photos showing him grabbing his wife Nigella Lawson’s throat.

Saatchi, 70, came to fame helping Margaret Thatcher become Britain’s prime minister in 1979. Under British law, a caution is a formal warning given to someone who admits the offense. There is no penalty, but the caution can be used as evidence of bad character in a future legal proceeding for a different crime.

Police grilled Saatchi for five hours yesterday, over a week after receiving a complaint about the incident.

Read Sarah Ditum’s excellent piece for the New Statesman: Nigella Lawson pictures: We must not look away from domestic violence, but we can do more than just gawp.

Is Chef Nigella Lawson Another Abused Wife? Charles Saatchi Calls Throat Choke Hold 'A Playful Tiff'

women’s rights,

The face of domestic violence took a most public turn this weekend, as Britain’s billionaire art dealer and advertising, 70-year-old Charles Saatchi was observed with his hands around the throat of wife and celebrity chef Nigella Lawson. Scotland Yard seeks “to establish the facts” of an apparently violent argument at the well-known Scott’s seafood restaurant in London’s Mayfair neighborhood eight days earlier.

Just A ‘Playful Tiff”?

As friends and pundits weigh in on the now infamous photos of Charles Saatchi with his hands around the throat of his wife Nigella Lawson, a classic picture of domestic violence begins to emerge. For those who caution against a rush to judgement in the case, AOC asks: Under what circumstances would it be appropriate that a man is choking his wife in private or in public?

For women living as victims of domestic violence, the focus of this case should not be the journalistic ethics of London’s Sunday people or the paparrazi photographer JEAN-Paul who took the images. Only men like Roy Greenslade focus on this aspect of the Lawson-Saatchi situation.

Charles Saatchi has issued a statement to the Evening Standard, calling the incident that occurred a week ago “a playful tiff”.

Writes Tom Sykes: “The distressing incident, which reportedly left Nigella in tears, lends credence to those who say that the increasingly reclusive Saatchi, who recently turned 70, has become violently jealous of his wife’s successful career. Having conquered the U.K. with her TV shows and cookery books, Nigella has now turned her attention to the U.S., where her appearance as a judge on ABC’s The Taste received positive reviews.”

An accomplished chef for 15 years, Nigella Lawson has experienced plenty of tragedy in her life. Her mother died of liver cancer at the age of 49. Nigella’s sister Thomasina died of breast cancer in 1993 at age 32, while her first husband, the journalist John Diamond, died of throat cancer in 2001.

It’s reported that Nigella Lawson has struggled with questions of identity and self-worth, qualities that frequently define victims of spousal abuse who remain in the marriage. “I am so pathetic I even crave the approval of my toothbrush,” Nigella told the Financial Times magazine.

Nigella Lawson Leaves Home

Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi leaving Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair a week ago, after the terrible row occurred. Image By JEAN-Paul

Unlike Nigella Lawson, I left my husband the night he had his hands on my throat, pounding my head against the floor. Good friends were with us when he turned on me, annoyed that I overcooked the brussel sprouts. I was totally embarrassed over his attempts to ruin dinner, and I told him that in the future, he could cook his own brussel sprouts. The result of my response was a violent physical attack that would have been far worse, if our friends hadn’t been present. They stayed with us, until I left the house to seek safety with another friend of mine and her husband.

Just as Nigella Lawson’s husband Charles Saatchi has a history of outbursts and is known for his ‘mercurial’ personality, my husband — not nearly as successful — was known for the same trait. Angry that I was having drinks with coworkers one evening, he stood waiting at the window of our Brooklyn brownstone for me to come home. Furious that it was now 7:30pm and I was out enjoying myself, he slammed down the open window so hard, that the glass shattered.

Anna Maxted writes: “Nigella Lawson, handsome, clever, rich, who seems to unite some of the best blessings of existence, isn’t the sort of woman we expect to get hit by her husband. And yet, here we are, gawking at photographs which apparently show Charles Saatchi with his hands around our heroine’s throat, and her obvious, chilling terror.”

NY Model Law

The New York state legislature passed unanimously new legislation insuring that child models have the same protections as actors and performers. Previously, an exception had been made for child print models used extensively by the fashion industry.

The new legislation was launched as part of an initiative by New York’s The Model Alliance, ‘giving a voice to the faces of the fashion industry’. The Model Alliance was founded by Sara Ziff, modeling since 14 and represented by Marilyn Model Management. In 2009, she co-directed and produced the feature film Picture Me, which chronicles her and other models’ experiences of the modeling industry. Sara earned a B.A. in Political Science, with a focus on labor and community organizing, from Columbia University.

The law, which impacts models under 18, is expected to have significant impact on the faces of fashion, long dominated by child models posing as grown women. Moving forward, models won’t be able to work past midnight on school nights. They can’t return to work less than 12 hours after leaving. The law will also provide that models are allotted study time, tutors and a space for instruction. If a model is under 16, a “responsible person” must be designated to monitor the activity and safety of the minor, according to the legislation.

Additionally, 15 percent of the child model’s earnings must be transferred into a separate, restricted bank account, which must be set up by the model’s parent or guardian. If the law is broken, the employer will be fined $1,000 for the first violation, and that total will increase by $1,000 for every subsequent violation.

It’s expected that the law will significantly impact the careers of models over 18 in an industry known for churning through young women at an escalating rate.

Leona Binx Walton By Rory Payne For Clash Magazine June 2013 As 'The Darker Side of Silver Screen Sirens'

Stylist Matthew Josephs chooses sensual, feminine-inspired elegance elevating the estrogen/testosterone quotient of Leona Binx Walton while lowering the testosterone level of Simonas Pham for Clash Magazine’s June issue. Rory Payne produces an extraordinary set of images ‘The Darker Side of Silver Screen Sirens’ with religious overtones and a rare dose of human intimacy not grounded exclusively in sexuality. Jenny Coombs is the makeup artist.

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