“When you’re at the supermarket,” he said, “and you’re going to the checkout and you look at aaaaall the different cashier lines and you try and pick which one to get on the end of, how do you choose?”

“The shortest line,” I answered.

“The shortest line, right,” Friedman continued. “That’s how most people choose. I on the other hand scan for the line that does NOT. HAVE. CHILDREN IN IT! BECAUSE I AM NOT GETTING IN LINE BEHIND SOME MOTHER AND HER TWO KIDS WHO ARE RUNNING AROUND AND THROWING CANDY BARS AT EACH OTHER! If I’m standing in line and someone gets in line behind me, say at the movie theater or something with their kids, I’m stepping OUT OF LINE and I’M MOVING. If a kid bumps into me while he’s running around getting chased by his sister and then starts screaming — ‘THAT MAN TOUCHED ME!’ — Yeah, I’m staying as far away AS I CAN from children. Everywhere. Any time. I’m not going to stay in the proximity of children. It’s not safe.”

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I am a 27-year-old female. I was sexually abused on several instances when I was very young (and raped on one of those occasions). I've otherwise had a stable upbringing and have fantastic parents, but I never received any help for the past abuses and kept everything to myself until last year when I began seeing a therapist after a series of stressful events. As you can imagine, growing up I experienced long stretches of depression and anxiety, and I always felt that I was different in some way. I've also had trouble establishing and maintaining relationships of any kind but never really understood why or the extent to which my past was affecting my behavior.

It was only when I started dating fairly recently that I realized how difficult it was for me to fully reveal myself to others and trust that others would accept me. I receive a decent amount of interest from men, but it is usually short-lived. Things tend to fizzle out when I become extremely anxious and insecure, which in turn make me very closed off and avoidant, and by this point men realize (I assume) that there is something not quite right or normal about me.

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He didn’t want me visible. I knew that, even as I knew that making myself visible -- somehow, even in a teeny way, like a set of child’s toes peeking over the lip of a car door -- was something I had to do. I also knew that this man who had just kidnapped me on my walk to school was in charge, and that he had the brawn, the choice and, let’s face it, the desire to hurt me.

I was sure of these three things in that moment; two of them should have compelled me to keep my feet tucked away. Even now, as an adult practically the same age as he was then, I’ve got a gut feeling to chastise my childhood self for not knowing better. Why try something so risky, so stupid?

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I have been reading your column for the last year and it has helped me a lot. Your insights have deeply inspired me. Thank you!

Please forgive me if I make some mistakes in this letter, English is not my native language.

I had a troubled upbringing and my teenage years were hell. My relationship with my parents was a nightmare. My mother was very violent, controlling, manipulative and volatile. I suspect now that she has narcissistic personality disorder. I spent most of my time as a child being afraid of her, trying my best to be invisible to her, but when I hit puberty I became extremely rebellious. She had a very clear idea of who I should be as a person. I had to fight very hard to keep being myself, and I have had to fight even harder not to feel worthless by being me. Even now, after a lot of years, when she is in a rage she tells me I am nothing just because I don't fit in with her ideas of success. I have very limited contact with her for sake of my sanity.

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Over the past few months, I have written this letter a dozen times. At moments, I would give anything for someone to wave a wand and let me know what I should do, but at the same time, I cannot bring myself to believe there is an easy solution to my issue.

Apparently, I am unlovable on certain levels. When I write this, I do not just mean as a person, but also the efforts of my hands.

My parents were both pedophiles, and I grew up feeling less real than that life-sized doll my mother bought me at age seven so I could have a "friend." When puberty finally rendered me into a monster to them, I was relieved -- but the abuse never stopped. It just changed character. Suddenly I became irredeemable and disgusting. My older brother spent most of my childhood tormenting me, which typically made my parents laugh or chastise me for not fighting back. Even though it pained me beyond words, his uncontrolled anger made me cut off contact with him when I did the same with my parents. My ex-husband spent 12 years of our 14-year marriage encouraging me to be on fertility meds while he knew he had taken measures to never have children (measures about which I knew nothing) because "God told him that He wanted me to be alone." I only found out what he had done when I hit menopause early. God's hatred was how he rationalized his actions when asking me for the divorce. For six months between that request and the marriage ending, he told me nearly every day that he had never loved me or wanted me or even liked me. He had married me out of pity. Given my family, no one else would ever be able to want me. It has been four years since then, and I have only now begun to date again. Finally, I thought I had found someone with whom I could at the very least enjoy physical contact and to whom I could give some delight, and yet he broke up with me so he could go back to the woman who had pureed his heart.

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I've followed your advice columns for quite some time now and have been compelled to write for quite some time.

I am a woman in my early 20s, just getting my start in the creative field of my dreams in a large city 800 miles away from home. I've fought my way to the top of my class in every instance, and the past year has been filled with amazing opportunities and work that I never imagined would come my way. I have a long-distance boyfriend and several wonderful friends in this city. The eight months or so that I've been working have been some of the greatest, and worst, months of my life.

The transition from school to work was very rough, and I spent much of my summer holed up in my bedroom and attempting to shut out the world. Not being around other people daily as in college was, and is, quite hard and my relationship with my boyfriend suffered as I spiraled emotionally. Shortly after, I began seeing a therapist and for the first time in my life brought up the sexual abuse that I suffered at the hands of my older brother when I was around 6 years old. The abuse continued for many years, even after my parents walked into a compromising situation in the first few months of the abuse. They have never spoken about it since.

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Though staggering, the files do not include all alleged abuse incidents within the organization. "Experts say many cases probably were not reported to the national office, and the Scouts say the organization destroyed an unknown number of files over the years," reports the Times.

All of the victims' names have been redacted from the files, which the Times has released to the public.

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Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news and current affairs, and her deputy, Stephen Mitchell, have handed over their responsibilities to others for the time being "to address the lack of clarity around the editorial chain of command," the corporation said.

"Consideration is now being given to the extent to which individuals should be asked to account further for their actions and if appropriate, disciplinary action will be taken," the statement said.

The BBC, meanwhile, faced criticism for agreeing to a 450,000 pounds ($715,000) payoff - a year's salary - for George Entwistle, who resigned as director general on Saturday after a BBC news program bungled reports that powerful Britons sexually abused children.

Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman on Monday criticized the payoff for Entwistle, who led the BBC for just 54 days.

"Clearly, it is hard to justify a sizeable payoff of that sort," spokesman Steve Field told reporters, but added it was for the BBC to justify the decision.

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Prosecutors also added counts against two of Spanier's former underlings, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who were already charged with lying to the grand jury that investigated the former Penn State assistant football coach.

"This was not a mistake by these men. This was not an oversight. It was not misjudgment on their part," said state Attorney General Linda Kelly. "This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials to actively conceal the truth."

Spanier's lawyers issued a statement that asserted his innocence and described the new charges as an attempt by Gov. Tom Corbett to divert attention from the three-year investigation that began under his watch as attorney general.

"These charges are the work of a vindictive and politically motivated governor working through an unelected attorney general ... whom he appointed to do his bidding," the four defense lawyers wrote.

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Right Wing Watch flags that in 1992, Akin opposed the bill, which would have established a "'statewide child abuse review board' and tighten[ed] the standard for proving child abuse from 'reason to suspect' to 'credible evidence.'"

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at the time:

"Akin said he was concerned that ‘the department could come into your home and if your kid had just fallen off his bike and skinned his knee…take your kid away.’ Akin also said that with a loose definition of abuse, neighbors might use child-abuse reports ‘as a tool to harass, a way to get even with’ someone they dislike."

The editorial board of the Post-Dispatch slammed Akin's opposition to the bill, saying that he "resorts to extreme and unlikely examples to bolster his case."

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Officer Chris Webb was attending "career day" at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School when he sent 50,000 volts of electricity into the child's chest on the playground. The young boy blacked out and has, according to his legal representative, been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder ever since; the officer faces a civil suit.

According to the complaint, Webb shot his Taser at the child (referred to only as "R.D.") after he said he did not want to join fellow classmates in cleaning the officer's patrol car. Courthouse News reported:

"Defendant Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, 'Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.'"

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The family at the kitchen table is an indelible image, classic Americana. It sells pancakes and life insurance, and every four years, it peddles politicians. Each election cycle, the steely female narrators of campaign ads ask us to consider which candidate is best for American families, families that might’ve looked like mine until my father’s hand left me deaf and reeling for days.

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This year my husband and I welcomed our first child.

I'm grateful to be mother to my little boy, more every day as I watch him develop into his own person. I'm writing because becoming a mother has dredged up some emotions, and I'm not sure how to act or feel. I am really confused.

As an adult I have developed a really close relationship with my parents. Things were a bit strained when I was a teenager, and I always assumed that was normal. However, during a recent visit, my mom brought up an ugly incident from my childhood, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that I have sanitized my childhood, because the distance I gained when I moved out allowed me to do so. The incident involved a heated argument in which my father, at the behest of my mother, punched my brother several times. This was not an isolated incident, but it was the worst of many violent arguments with my parents that we dismissed as "not abusive" because nobody's nose was broken and no teachers saw any bruises.

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The editor, Peter Rippon of the prominent "Newsnight" program, had not been forthcoming in his explanation about why the segment on Jimmy Savile did not run, the BBC said in a statement. The broadcaster said he is stepping down immediately while the matter is investigated.

The respected British broadcaster's decision has damaged its reputation and led to accusations it was covering up the crimes of one of its biggest stars, who died last year at the age of 84 after a long career in children's television.

Savile's actions are also being investigated by police and other agencies. Police say there may be more than 200 potential victims of the entertainer, the longtime host of "Top of the Pops" and "Jim'll Fix It," recognized for his garish track suits and platinum hair.

Rippon is the first BBC figure directly blamed for the broadcaster's failure to properly report on abuse claims.

The BBC says Rippon's explanation of his decision in a blog post earlier was "inaccurate or incomplete in some respects."

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I was researching a popular "jailbait" message board this week when I discovered a thread filled with webcam screengrabs and videos of what looked to be pubescent girls in various states of undress and sexual activity. I've come across "barely legal" porn before, but this was different: These girls looked like they weren't a day over 13. The intimate webcam context lent an additional believability to it: It was easy to imagine someone convincing each of these seemingly underage girls via video chat to take off their clothes, all the while recording the action to later distribute far and wide or even to use as a bribe to get future "shows" out of them.

That is what so-called "cappers" do -- and they are what brought me to the jailbait message board in the first place, and ultimately to the FBI. They screen-capture live webcam chats -- which can involve anywhere from two to several hundred people -- while pressuring girls and young women to strip down. It starts with "show your stomach!" and quickly progresses from there like an online game of Truth or Dare. Sometimes all they get is a quick bra flash; other times they get a full-on "bate" (when a girl masturbates on camera). In the capper community, the latter would be called a "win."

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Following lawsuits from young men (now adults) abused as boy scouts during this period, and requests from media companies, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the documents be made public last month. All victim names and personal details will be redacted from the files before release.

Recent, damning investigations by the L.A. Times revealed that, although much of the information in the "perversion files" was already public (such as police and newspaper reports), in hundreds of cases, allegations of child molestation were never reported to police, and more than 125 men named in the files were able to volunteer for other Boy Scout troops after allegations were documented by the institution. CNN reported that attorneys representing victims are also seeking the release of post-1985 files from the Boy Scouts. CNN noted:

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"This is not only a violation of China's labor law, it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions," a Foxconn statement announced, according to Reuters. The 56 underage interns found will now be sent back to their schools.

This is not the first labor scandal for Foxconn, Apple Inc.'s largest manufacturer. In Northern China in September a riot broke out at a Foxconn plant assembling iPhones over living conditions at the factory's on-site dormitories. Foxconn has been forced to improve working conditions at a number of its Chinese iPhone and iPad plants following numerous reports of labor abuses and the suicide of 14 Foxconn factory workers in China in 2010.

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The former Penn State assistant football coach was sentenced Tuesday to at least 30 years in prison for abusing 10 young boys. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, "The State Employees' Retirement System informed Sandusky on Wednesday that his crimes triggered forfeiture of his pension ... The retirement system told Sandusky he will no longer receive his $4,908 monthly annuity and informed his wife, Dottie, she is no longer entitled to a survivor's benefit."

The retirement system will not seek repayment of the money Sandusky received from 1999 to September 2012 -- more than $900,000.

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