Faced with budget cuts, cash-strapped Topeka, Kansas made the shocking move to repeal their city ordinance banning domestic battery as a cost-cutting measure. Their city council voted 7 to 3 yesterday to repeal the local law that makes domestic violence a crime. Seriously. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported assistant city attorney Catherine Walter said Tuesday’s repeal [...]

Earlier today, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia announced that after deliberating with senior clerics, the government has decided to let Saudi women vote in elections and even hold elected office.

It’s not really a secret around here that I am a big fan of New York Times op-ed columnist and author Gail Collins. Collins, whose witty and sharp columns often add a measure of levity to the Times op-ed pages — particularly during last year’s sometimes fraught campaign season — has brought those same talents [...]

NYT columnist Gail Collins has followed up her best-selling America’s Women with the soon-to-be published When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey Of American Women From 1960 To The Present, an advanced copy of which landed on my desk last week. And I am just as engrossed as I was the last time. Welcome to the latest installment of the Mediaite Book Club.

Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese reporter whose column for the popular Arabic newspaper Al-Sahafa, “Men Talk,” regularly criticizes Islamic fundamentalists and the Sudanese government, was sentenced to 40 lashes for the crime of “wearing pantaloons.”