The Times explains:

After 14 years of legal indecision, during which several immigration courts and three attorneys general considered Ms. Alvarado's case, the Department of Homeland Security cleared the way for her in a one-paragraph document filed late Wednesday in immigration court in San Francisco. Ms. Alvarado, the department found, "is eligible for asylum and merits a grant of asylum as a matter of discretion."

One of the issues at play in the case was about how we define persecution:

The large legal question in the case is whether women who suffer domestic abuse are part of a "particular social group" that has faced persecution, one criteria for asylum claims. In a separate asylum case in April, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to some specific ways that battered women could meet this standard.

In a recent filing, Ms. Alvarado's lawyers argued that her circumstances met the requirements that the department had outlined in April. Now the department has agreed, in practice making the case a model for other asylum claims.

However, Alvarado was able to strengthen her case by pointing to the environment facing women in Guatemala:

In a declaration filed recently to bolster Ms. Alvarado's argument that she was part of a persecuted group in Guatemala, an expert witness, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, reported that more than 4,000 women had been killed in domestic violence there in the last decade. These killings, only 2 percent of which have been solved, were so frequent that they earned their own legal term, "femicide," said Ms. Paz y Paz Bailey, a Guatemalan lawyer. In 2004 Guatemala enacted a law establishing special sanctions for the crime.

"Many times," she said, violence against Guatemalan women "is not even identified as violence, is not perceived as strange or unusual."

Opening up claims for asylum to situations like domestic violence and femicide would be a huge boon to women in conflict situations around the world. In addition to providing a path for women to exit a country when the local authorities fails to rectify widespread violence against women (like the situations in Juarez, Mexico and Guatemala City), it also increases the chances for females fleeing violent situations to be able to make a complete break with their pasts and start over.

Though the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department warn that they will look at domestic violence claims on a case by case basis, it's still a major step forward.

U.S. May Be Open To Asylum For Spouse Abuse [NY Times]
In Ciudad Juarez, Young Women Are Vanishing [LA Times]
The Price Of Life [Guernica]

Earlier: Obama Adminstration Opening Doors For Women Fleeing Abuse

• A London man found the album from Amy Winehouse's wedding to Blake Fielder-Civil in a dumpster with some photos torn out and Amy's beehive colored in.

• The man said, "I don't know if Amy threw the album away or her ex (did), but my wife said that's what she would do if we ever divorced, so it could have been the actions of an angry woman... Whoever threw it away obviously never wanted to look at that album again." Amy's rep issued a statement that she wanted it back, and the man returned it. [The Daily Express]
• A 44-year-old woman has accused Dr. Phil or sexually molesting her when she was being treated by him and interning for him in the summer of 1985, according to The National Enquirer. "He profoundly affected the course of my life. The world should know this man is a predator and a bully. He shouldn't be telling Americans how to live their lives, how to improve themselves." said the woman. [The National Enquirer]
• Vanessa Hudgens lawyer says she's considering filing criminal charges against websites that publish nude photos of her taken when she was underage. She took the photos herself and believes her computer may have been hacked. [TMZ]
• Tony Curtis claims in his new book The Making of 'Some Like It Hot' that he and Marilyn Monroe had an affair while filming the movie. They were both married to other people, and he says she was pregnant with his child, but miscarried. [The Daily Mail]
• Despite recent rumors that Katherine Jackson is so convinced foul play was involved in Michael Jackson's death she wants a third autopsy done on his body, a family source says, "there is neither a plan nor a need for another autopsy." [E!]
• The Jackson family has finally decided to bury Michael Jackson at Forest Lawn cemetery six weeks after his death. [WENN]
• In a federal complaint filed in New York, DEA agents say Michael Douglas' son Cameron Douglas has moved "pounds" of crystal meth since 2006. He was investigated for three years and allegedly tens of thousands of dollars of crystal meth. Three of his former clients are cooperating with prosecutors in the hope that the sentence for their narcotics convictions will be reduced. [TMZ]
• Miley Cyrus has been granted a temporary restraining order against Mark McLeod, the man arrested on Tuesday for allegedly attempting to stalk her. [TMZ]
• Wrigley's has "formally terminated" their relationship with Chris Brown. When news of his assault on Rihanna originally came out the company just suspended his campaign. [TMZ]
• Many American Idol staffers are excited to see Paula Abdul go according to a "veteran key Idol staff member" who said, "Can't you hear our celebration? We broke out the good champagne tonight." [Chicago Sun-Times]
• Paula says Simon Cowell already misses her and claims she hasn't heard that Nigel Lythgoe of offered her a guest judge spot on an episode of So You Think You Can Dance. [TMZ]
• Some American Idol sources say there's a good chance Paula Abdul will come back to the show next season. [TMZ]
• Victoria Beckham will guest judge one episode of American Idol next season. [The Daily Mail]
• Tom Sizemore was arrested on domestic violence charges after an altercation with a woman in L.A. last night and is still in custody. [TMZ]
• Polish fire emergency services have to approve evacuation routes before Madonna's Warsaw concert can take place. Some Polish Roman Catholics are protesting the concert, which is scheduled to take place during the feast of the Assumption of the Holly Virgin Mary because they say Madonna is anti-Christian. [UPI]
• A lawyer for Samantha Burke, who is having Jude Law's baby in October, responded to an interview request saying, "At this time, Samantha has decided not to give an exclusive story," which Radar thinks is news. [Radar Online]
• Does the following sentence mean anything to you? "Leonardo DiCaprio went on a mad bender in Ibiza last night - with Jodie Marsh's ex-hubby Matt Peacock." We know how to say, "Where is the library?" and "Did Peter Andre cheat on Jordan?" but are still not fluent in British. [The Sun]
• Kid Rock sent over $1,500 to a pizza boy who was beaten by a gang and needed emergency reconstructive surgery after reading about his story in The Cincinnati Enquirer. [The Daily Express]
• Steven Tyler was dancing onstage and fell off the stage at a show in South Dakota. He was taken to the hospital and treated for minor head, neck, and shoulder injuries. Video at the link. [TMZ]
• Kate Gosselin will be on Today on Monday for her first interview since she and Jon Gosselin announced that they're divorcing. [Associated Press]
• On August 15 Alyssa Milano will marry talent agent David Bugliari at a private home in New Jersey. [Radar Online]
• Milla Jovovich and director Paul Anderson will marry on August 22. "It's going to be small," she said, "It's just going to be family and close friends. And it's at our home and it's going to be kind of like Havana/Cuban, like very California-Spanish feeling. It's going to be nice." [People]
• The Jay Leno Show will premiere on September 14 with musical guests Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West. [Variety]
• Britney Spears will appear at the Teen Choice Awards on Monday night. [BritneySpears.com]
• Kristen Wiig bought a Manhattan co-op from Mad Men and Sopranos director Alan Taylor. [N.Y. Observer]
• In the video at the link RHOA's NeNe Leakes says, "I TiVo a lot of things I'm on. I'm just the bomb," and discusses her love for Anderson Cooper and Maxwell. [Entertainment Weekly]
• In Paul Giamatti's new film Cold Souls he plays "an angst-ridden actor who is also Paul Giamatti and who literally has his soul surgically removed to help him cope with the stress of his career and life." He says of playing a fictional version of himself, "The only time it really struck me as very weird was when someone said my whole name during a scene, and I'd go, 'We should cut and start again because there's obviously a mistake there.' Then I'd remember I was actually playing me." [Reuters]
• Molly Ringwald says of her new twins Roman Stylianos and Adele Georgiana, "You get up with one of the babies and feed and change that one and get the baby back to sleep, and the other wakes up, and then you feed and change that one. It is exhausting, but it's wonderful," [People]
• "My friends love coming over [to my house], because they get fed," says Jennifer Aniston. "It's the best restaurant in town." Her personal chef adds, "Jen's a homebody. It's been so much fun to create a place where everybody feels comfortable, like one big family." [People]
• Sienna Miller says she "probably looked awful" for dating married father of four Balthazar Getty. "I probably seem like not a particularly nice person, not a girl's girl," she said. "I do think sometimes people get morally superior without understanding situations and the situation I got into was not ideal, but it happened and if I could go back and be more responsible, I would." [Us]

Caffey, her 19 year old boyfriend, Charlie James Wilkinson, and two others were charged with the planning and execution of a crime that left Caffey's mother, Penny, and her two brothers, Matthew, 13 and Tyler, 8, dead of multiple stab and gunshot wounds. Caffey's father, Terry, was shot five times, but somehow managed to escape, even as Wilkinson and company set fire to the family home.

Caffey was not present during the actual murder; she and a friend, Bobbi Gale Johnson (who received 40 years for her role), waited in a car parked nearby while her boyfriend and two others went on their gruesome rampage. Caffey was upset with her parents because they didn't like Wilkinson, and the group plotted the murders as a result.

Caffey's plea deal allows the teen to avoid being tried in an adult court. "I think it was a just sentence," says defense attorney William McDowell, "Everyone is pleased with it."

Erin Caffey, 17, Gets 2 Life Terms In Family Deaths [HuffingtonPost]

Angel Chandler's partner, who has been with Ms. Chandler for nearly 10 years, was given a "paramour" restriction by the family court, despite the fact that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation deemed Ms. Chandler's partner to be "a positive influence on her children." According to Jeanne Sager of Strollerderby, "The ACLU has stepped into the fray, filing a brief this week that urges the court to remove the paramour restriction, calling it unconstitutional for interfering with Chandler's abilities to raise her children as she sees fit."

For now, Chandler and her partner are getting around the ruling by living side-by-side in a duplex, though the sad fact remains that the State of Tennessee seems to be making a point here as to what they consider to be "family"— Chandler's ex-husband, Joseph Barker, remarried 5 years ago; there are no restrictions on him or his new wife.

Court Bans Divorced Mom's Partner From Sleeping Over[Strollerderby]

Dinsale was raped by her father from the ages of 6 to 13, when she ran away from home; after raping her, he would often bribe her with money. Her mother knew about the abuse, and even started sleeping in her daughter's room to protect her. However, the secret was regarded as so shameful that Dinsale didn't come forward until after her mother's death. As she said to Daily Mail, "In the end I felt that the only way I could really move on was to face up to this, and ensure that the person who caused all of my pain would pay. That day has arrived today and now I can look forward to Christmas, and to the future." Dinsale also hoped going public with her identity would encourage other victims of abuse to come forward.

As the Daily Mail's headline attests, this openness - "Abuse victim waives anonymity to reveal her ordeal as tormentor is jailed" - is noteworthy. But why? While one can certainly understand anyone being publicity-shy, there has always been something which Joan Didion, in a 1991 essay on the rape of New York's "Central Park Jogger" called "quite specifically masculine assumptions." Rape is, after all, the only case in which identity is treated so gingerly.While, as she says, the practice "derives from the understandable wish to protect the victim, the rationalization of this-special protection rests on a number of doubtful, even magical, assumptions."

The convention assumes, by providing a protection for victims of rape not afforded victims of other assaults, that rape involves a violation absent from other kinds of assault. The convention assumes that this violation is of a nature best kept secret, that the rape victim feels, and would feel still more strongly were she identified, a shame and self-loathing unique to this form of assault; in other words that she has been in an unspecified way party to her own assault, that a special contract exists between this one kind of victim and her assailant.

Is this practice doing women a disservice, "self-fulfilling, guiding the victim to define her assault as her protectors do" as Didion would have it? Does it stigmatize the victim, tacitly identifying the crime as something to forget quickly, swept under the rug, because of women's fragility? If, after all, Dinsale's openness can serve as a positive example, is not the converse true? That said, wouldn't it be equally fraught to expose their identities at will? It would be disingenuous to suggest that rape is not a fraught and particularly horrible violation. And there is a certain arrogance in suggesting a unilateral commonality of experience: the sad truth is that cultural concerns also make rape a more complicated issue.

When I was in college, a young woman in my dorm from a very conservative religious background was raped near the urban campus. Her family found the incident so shameful that they repudiated her, and not long after, she committed suicide. Such awful things happen, and we can't pretend such a family would have taken kindly to her name being made public, even if they should. Women like Dinsale coming forward is indeed empowering, and it should be applauded. But whatever the legal ramifications, it's an act of courage and should always be treated as such.
Raped by my father: Abuse victim waives anonymity to reveal her ordeal as tormentor is jailed [Daily Mail]
New York: Sentimental Journeys [New York Review of Books]

According to Thomas Erdbrink of the Washington Post, "an Iranian court ordered that five drops of the same chemical be placed in each of her attacker's eyes, acceding to Bahrami's demand that he be punished according to a principle in Islamic jurisprudence that allows a victim to seek retribution for a crime." Though the sentence has yet to be carried out, Bahrami says that she hopes the punishment will set an example throughout Iran: "At an age at which I should be putting on a wedding dress, I am asking for someone's eyes to be dripped with acid," she says, "I am doing that because I don't want this to happen to any other women." [WashingtonPost]

Abedin, who had been studying in London and had planned to begin a residency in August, returned to Bangladesh after being told that her mother was seriously ill. This turned out to be a lie designed to lure Abedin back home for the purposes of forcing her to marry against her will. Abedin protested, and the London High Court, using the Forced Marriage Act, demanded that she be released. A Dhaka court agreed, much to Abedin's father's dismay: he "collapsed from shock after the ruling." Abedin will fly back to the UK at some point this week. ""We're delighted with the result, the rights of a Bangladeshi woman have been protected as they should be," says Abedin's lawyer, Sara Hossein, "Dr. Abedin looks very relieved, she's a very brave woman." [BBC]

• Maria Sharapova is denying that her controversial tennis getup had anything to do with her upset loss to Alla Kudryavtseva (dressed in a simple skirt and red-trimmed top). [Guardian]
• Recessionistas take note: Richard Chai for Target is cute. First look! [Nylon]
• No, seriously, Donatella. You need to stop talking. Now. [Radar]
• Justin Timberlake…Givenchy model? “The black and white images features Timberlake looking pensive or playful in a series of ads which has him in a recording studio, on a balcony, and of course lounging around on his private jet.” [Sassybella]
• And wait, Emile Hirsch is the face of Valentino?! [Fashion Week Daily]

• …aaaand Jude Law for Dior Homme Sport. [JustJared]
• I, too, am sick of Agyness Deyn and hate myself for giving her more exposure. That said, AGYNESS DEYN MODEL FEUD!!! Agy's been replaced at Burberry by younger and "more aristocratic" Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who, in addition to being "a distant relative of Queen Victoria and currently dating Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’s son Tyrone", dishes: "Agyness used to be really sweet but when she became big she dropped me. I tried being her friend and texted her repeatedly for six months but she never replied, so I just gave up. Personally, I think Agy’s look is a one-off season look." [The First Post]
• Oh yeah. Some record Agy "inspired" is out now. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Beauty junkies cut back. [WWD]
• Elle MacPherson parts ways with her long-time manager. "In Elle's position she doesn't really need a manager. She has her own team of people looking after her and really that's all she needs," he says. What is this "looking after" of which you speak? [SMH]
• Bangladeshi human rights crusader fights for rights of garment workers. [Christian Science Monitor]
• Devil Wears Prada writer Lauren Weisberger is not at all into clothes. “The image I try to convey is casual, while still being neat and a little bit stylish. I'm a writer and I don't ever want to get super-dressed up.” [Wall Street Journal]
• Bumble and Bumble revamps curl line: (it's already pretty darn good.) [WWD]
• Can everyone swallow their pride so Hedi Slimane can get back to Dior, already? [fashionista]
• Luxury labels’ recession woes. [Wall Street Journal]
• Suspicious-sounding “micro-capsule” perfume “embedded in fabric” cures smelly socks? [Financial Times]
• "They wanted orange, and I wanted her not to look like a dancing pumpkin." New York City Ballet gets avant-garde. [Style.com]
• Responding to the demands of the harsh economic climate (?) Giorgio Armani launches pen collection. [WWD]
• To wear with your skort and wedges! Man-purses. [New York Magazine]
• Gareth Pugh crosses the channel. [ElleUK]