False confessions:Why experts need to conduct investigations

NYTimes

Eddie Lowery lost 10 years of his life for a crime he did not commit. There was no physical evidence at his trial for rape, but one overwhelming factor put him away: he confessed.
At trial, the jury heard details that prosecutors insisted only the rapist could have known, including the fact that the rapist hit the 75-year-old victim in the head with the handle of a silver table knife he found in the house. DNA evidence would later show that another man committed the crime. But that vindication would come only years after Mr. Lowery had served his sentence and was paroled in 1991.[...]

Belgian Catholic Church struggles with abuse charges

CNN

Catholic priests who abused children should tell their superiors, leaders of the church in Belgium said Monday.

"We want to repeat this call with force," Bishop Johan Bonny, the bishop of Antwerp, said. "It is to everyone's advantage that the abuser in a pastoral relationship communicates this fact to his superior" or to a new "center for investigation, healing and reconciliation" which he announced Monday.[...]

Domestic abuse

YNET

Once I realized I was about to do an article about a shelter for battered religious and haredi women, I was brimming with stereotypes. I imagined a narrow staircase leading down to a gloomy alcove lit by emergency lighting and crowded with beds, women wearing old, worn-out wigs, bruised children, and air laden with pity and desperation.
However, Rabbi Attorney Noach Korman, founder and manager of the Bat Melech organization which started the shelter, assured me I would be surprised after hearing my colorful description, I was still unprepared for the pastoral bed-and-breakfast atmosphere nestled among the citrus groves, the petting zoo, the playground, and the coffee corner. I was even more surprised when I met the women: mostly young, good looking, friendly, and intelligent – women who could be at their peak if it weren't for the difficult reality to which they had fallen victim. [...]

Medical treatment costs :New is not always better

New York Times

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that an astonishing half or more of the increased spending for health care in recent decades is due to technological, surgical and clinical advances.
For the most part, such advances are a cause for celebration. But an expensive new drug is not always better than an older, cheaper drug, and sometimes a new technology or treatment that is highly effective for some patients is unnecessary or even dangerous for others.
The system almost seems designed to keep driving up costs.[...]

Houston rabbis condemn use of internet for slander & lashon harah

American Jew teaches Gazans stress management

New York Times

Tough-looking ambulance drivers in this central Gazan city are drawing images of their fears with crayons. In the northwestern village of El Atatra, in an overheated hall without electricity, 10-year-olds are closing their eyes and imagining a reassuring place. In Gaza City, women who have lost children to political violence are dancing away their tensions, their black abayas shaking and flowing.

Gaza, the Palestinian coastal strip filled with refugees and hardship, is not generally thought of as a center of New Age sensibilities. But through the intervention of a classically trained but alternative-seeking American psychiatrist, nearly 10,000 people here have been taught techniques to reduce anger, ease family tensions and give them a sense of control in an environment known for helplessness. [...]

Rav Sternbuch Rosh HaShannah - preparation