Lawyers Speak About Phoebe Prince Case • Tripping Over Dogs A "Household Hazard"

• Defense lawyers have asked that the public stop vilifying the six teens charged with in the death of Phoebe Prince. Several of the accused bullies have received death threats, and one has even been driven from her house.

“Not to minimize what happened to Phoebe Prince in any way, but translating this into death threats and public harassment has got to stop,” says Colin O’Keefe, who represents Sharon Chanon Velazquez. O’Keefe also claims that “public opinion will change drastically when the fully story is out.” • Doctors in Florida report treating more cases of sexually transmitted disease in retirement communities than in the city of Miami. Residents of The Villages report overhearing talk about Viagra, and one doctor interviewed by the local station claims the little blue pills, along with inadequate sex education, can be blamed for the outbreak. • A lawyer for three of the U.S. missionaries charged with kidnapping children in Haiti says charges have been dropped against 9 out of the 10 Americans. Only the group’s leader, Laura Silsby, remains in jail. • Author Anna Quinlden will be honored at the upcoming Barnard Scholarship Dinner and Auction, which is intended to raise funds for financial aid. Zuzanna Szadkowski (who plays Dorota on Gossip Girl) will serve as the emcee. • Italian prosecutors are seeking to increase the sentence of Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaelo Sollecito. Knox is currently imprisoned for the murder of Meredith Kercher. While she has already been handed 25 years behind bars, Giuliano Mignini has requested that her sentence be increased to life. • Recent research found that gay, lesbian, and heterosexual adults who have had one same-sex partner, are more likely to suffer from PTSD than life-long straights. They are also one and a half to two times more likely to have experienced a violent event in their childhood. The authors of the study advise medical professionals to be sensitive to the issues effecting patients with minority sexual orientation. • Prosecutors say they have “overwhelming evidence” in their case against Phillip Garrido, who has been charged with kidnapping and rape. Garrido is accused of holding Jaycee Duggard hostage for years and fathering several children with her. The public defense attorney representing Garrido simply says “that’s his take on the evidence,” when asked about the comments. • California police are investigating an L.A. restaurateur who may have drugged his former girlfriend in attempts to induce a miscarriage. She went to detectives after losing her pregnancy, and claimed that Joshua Woodward had rubbed a white powder on her skin before she experienced her miscarriage. Forensic tests showed traces of misoprostol, a drug used to induce labor, on Woodward’s hands. He denies the allegations. • A new Guttmacher Institute report says that the rate of unintended teen pregnancy has probably been understated in recent statistics, because they measure all teens and not just those who are sexually active. • Boys as young as nine months apparently prefer cars and “masculine” colors like black over dolls and more “feminine” colors. Says one researcher, “Children of this age are already subject to a great deal of socialisation, but these findings are consistent with the idea of an intrinsic bias in children to show interest in particular kinds of toys.” • A New Jersey man intentionally vomited on an eleven-year-old girl at a Phillies game, after her family asked him to stop cursing. He also punched her dad in the head. • Good news on the abortion rights front, for once: the governor of Kansas has vetoed a bill that would have limited access to late-term abortions, and may have been aimed at preventing abortion provider Leroy Carhart from moving his practice to the state. • A three-year-old may become the world’s youngest tattoo artist when she gets a tattoo kit from her dad in October. Let’s hope she learns to spell before she starts inking herself. • A family has been detained in Turkey for killing a baby girl after they found out her mother was unmarried. Disturbingly, the mother herself is also in custody. • Susan Schwartz was one of the first babies born at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Schwartz’s parents survived the camp, and while she doesn’t remember anything from her life before immigrating to Toronto, she says she hopes the next generation will keep the memory of what happened alive. “The survivors are going to be gone, so it will be my job, as a survivor’s child, and that of my children to make the story of the Holocaust real,” she said in an interview. • A new study found that people sometimes trip over their pets, which apparently makes them a “household hazard.” Also: dogs are worse than cats when it comes to fall-factors, so count this as one for the cat ladies. •