By ROBERT T. GARRETT/ The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN — Pinched household budgets are probably helping ignite more domestic violence, Vice President Joe Biden said today after touring an Austin-based national hotline for battered women that he helped create.

“One of the sadder byproducts of the economic downturn – and you’re beginning to track this – is that some anecdotal evidence is emerging that there has been an uptick in domestic violence,” Biden said.

Last year, calls to the hotline increased by 20 percent over 2007, he told employees and women’s rights activists at the National Domestic Violence Hotline Center in the Austin suburb of West Lake Hills.

Dallasnews.com

By Jennifer Stone

Walking a mile to show they’re the ‘good guys’

CLARINGTON — Councillor Willie Woo looked quite dapper in his black suit, white shirt, ruby tie and … red stilettos?

Yes, the Clarington politician’s footwear did, indeed, consist of a pair of size 13 red pumps as he helped promote the upcoming Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event being organized by Bowmanville’s Bethesda house, a women’s shelter and outreach centre.

The event, in which men will wear or carry women’s shoes, is aimed at raising both money and public awareness, said Bethesda House executive director Jaki MacKinnon.

Newsdurhamregion.com

National Organization for Women responds after Rush Limbaugh targeted them on his radio show Tuesday.

The National Organization for Women has responded after Rush Limbaugh made a brash comparison of terrorism torture and domestic violence. On his radio show Tuesday, Limbaugh said the Obama administration watering down their definition of torture is akin to the women’s rights group NOW’s assertion that “a man shouting at them equaled domestic violence.”

NOW’s vice president of action, Melody Drnach, tells wowOwow that the day Limbaugh understands that domestic abuse comes in all forms — physical abuse, mental abuse and verbal abuse — is when NOW and other advocacy groups have made an impact.

Wowowow.com

AUSTIN, TX (AP) – The House gave tentative approval Tuesday to waiving the state’s 60-day waiting period for a divorce if there’s sufficient evidence that family violence in the case makes an earlier divorce necessary.

In a non-recorded voice vote, House members backed a measure by Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Laredo, who said the bill would potentially help saves lives.

Kcbd.com

by Bryan Kirk | Killeen Writer

FORT HOOD – The row of T-shirts hung in the foyer at III Corps Headquarters on Wednesday, and scrawled on the front – some in magic marker or paint – were the painful messages of sexual assault, incest and domestic violence.

“Why don’t you love me? What did I do?” one T-shirt read.

III Corps and Fort Hood commanding general, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, acknowledged more has to be done to bring awareness to sexual assault and to decrease incidents on post.

“You can’t just have a month that you focus on sexual assault prevention. It has to be every day,” Lynch said.

Sexual assault, incest and domestic violence are a painful reality in today’s world and on Fort Hood, but to Lynch that just doesn’t wash.

Tdtnews.com

Cornerstone, a Bloomington-based nonprofit with a mission to prevent domestic violence, is trying to go national with a service that allows domestic violence providers to share real-time information about who has open emergency beds.

The program is called Day One, and it has been running in Minnesota for about a dozen years. In the rough and tumble world of nonprofit funding, it has had its ups and downs. This latest growth spurt could fulfill a dream of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who wanted to replicate the program for domestic violence shelters across the country.

Minnpost.com

By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News

Maria “Carmen” Cerda called her husband’s co-worker to say she feared he’d kill her and himself.

But her husband is Sgt. Gil Cerda, a Dallas police spokesman, and the fellow officer who answered the phone almost immediately told him about the phone call.

That was an “egregious act” that potentially endangered Carmen Cerda, said Carla Bean, prosecutor in the case in which a judge last week issued a one-year protective order prohibiting Gil Cerda from approaching his wife.

Dallasnews.com

by Jamie Belnap

Many point to hard economic times as a cause — and a reason why women are staying in abusive relationships

Although the beating of pop singer Rihanna by boyfriend Chris Brown has brought more attention to the problem of domestic violence recently, advocates say the crime has been a longtime problem locally. And the severity of the cases showing up on their desks has become increasingly more traumatic as the recession wears on.

“I don’t know if my numbers show an increase in the number of cases I’ve worked recently,” said Lynne Smith, domestic violence advocate for the Tooele City Police Department, “but the cases have certainly become more severe. I’m seeing more women who are being threatened by weapons, more victims that are being choked by their intimate partner. The violence is more frightening. It’s more intense. Instead of going in and seeing women who have been knocked around a little, I’m seeing women who are fighting for their very life and their children’s lives.”

Tooeletranscript.com