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ROME — Two and a half months of forced lockdown has pushed many married couples into crisis, Italian media report, and divorce filings have seen a whopping 30 percent increase since the outbreak began. Marriage counselors took to Skype and WhatsApp to help struggling couples cope with the stress of lost jobs and extended co-confinement during the 67 days of national lockdown but this did not stop the surge in requests for divorce, Corriere della Sera reported last week. According to accounts related by counselors, the irritation caused by everything from badly squeezed toothpaste tubes, socks left on the floor,...

Facebook is becoming a major factor in marriage breakdowns and is increasingly being used as a source of evidence in divorce cases, according to lawyers. The social networking site was cited as a reason for a third of divorces last year in which unreasonable behaviour was a factor, according to law firm Divorce-Online. The firm said it had seen a 50 per cent jump in the number of behaviour-based divorce petitions that contained the word ‘Facebook’ in the past two years.

Newt Gingrich is a phoenix. He's risen again and again from political ashes and appears to be ascendant once more. Rumored to be running for president in 2012, Gingrich is an icon in the Republican Party, an eminence grise at a time of lost leadership. His fall from grace in the late 1990s seems a blip, rather than a political ending. Thus the cover story in Esquire Magazine, September issue, written by John H. Richardson. If anyone knows something about Newt Gingrich, it is his former wife, Marianne, and Richardson scored an interview with her. She is someone with a...

The 2006 Democrat Party Suicide Pact for America 1. Raise Taxes 2. Re-implemented the Fairness Doctrine to destroy Conservative talk radio 3. Pass a new Campaign Finance Law to eliminate any opportunity of Democrats ever losing Congress again 4. Raise Taxes. 5. Unconditionally Surrender the War on Terror. 6. Create programs to appease North Korea and Iran by actively aiding them in developing nuclear weapons. 7. Raise Taxes 8. Double federal spending from it all ready grotesquely too high level in the name of "Homeland Security". 9. Repeal the Fence bill, the Detainee bill The NSA Bill and the...

Identifying communities of frequent churchgoers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber found higher incomes and education levels and less welfare participation, along with more marriages and fewer divorces than in the general population. Comparing national statistics on religion and income, Gruber found higher income and education levels in communities densely populated by a particular religion. In communities where the church attendance rate was double that of the general population, incomes were 9 percent higher, for example.

SPOKANE -- A woman in a long lesbian relationship is suing her estranged lover to divide assets they shared or accrued while living together. The trial started Tuesday before retired Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke II and is based on a court ruling last year that gay couples can be treated like married couples when they split up. Roseanne Day concedes Linda Kelsh is entitled to keep her home and business assets. Day wants part of the proceeds from the sale of undeveloped Lake Spokane property purchased in Kelsh's name while they were together, but sold after they split. Day...

In what must rank as one of the world's shortest-lived marriages, a Saudi husband divorced his new wife immediately after the ceremony over a photo taken of the happy couple, a newspaper said on Monday. The man was aggrieved at the bride's brother taking a photograph of the newly-weds to keep as a memento, Al-Madinah reported. After being dissuaded from attacking his brother-in-law, the man promptly divorced his wife of minutes. The strict form of Islamic law in force in the kingdom allows Saudi men to have up to four wives, whom they may divorce by simple repudiation without any...

<p>Is former Gov. Kirk Fordice's second divorce worthy of the media circus it produced?</p> <p>Nope.</p> <p>Newsworthy? Marginally. Fordice is a public figure and people remain interested in his life story. To that extent, the story was newsworthy.</p> <p>Did we need to see that?</p>