Category: News

The Italian Constitutional Court held Friday that the law barring single-parents from adopting foreign children is unconstitutional. The matter was referred to the top court following the 2019 request from an unmarried woman, Raffaella Brogi, who approached the juvenile court to seek a declaration of eligibility for international adoption of a minor.

The Court’s holding concerns Article 29-bis, paragraph 1, of law number 184 of 1983, which excludes single parents from consideration in the adoption process. The Court determined that this law is unconstitutional on account of its conflict with Articles 2 and 117 of the Constitution.

Article 2 expressly states: “The Republic recognises and guarantees the inviolable rights of the person, both as an individual and in the social groups where human personality is expressed.” The Republic expects that the fundamental duties of political, economic and social solidarity be fulfilled.” Article 117 states: “Legislative powers shall be vested in the State and the Regions in compliance with the Constitution and with the constraints deriving from EU legislation and international obligations.”

The Court also confirmed that Italy is bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, and particularly, Article 8 related to the right to “respect for private and family life.” The Court clarified that this decision is not to be taken as a guarantee for an individual to adopt a minor. Instead, it represents an opportunity to express the freedom of self-determination in choosing to begin the adoption process and not having an individual’s relationship status impede their decision to have a family.  They will however still be subjected to the usual evaluation of the interests of the child before being granted the ability to adopt.

This decision comes in the wake of a rapid decline in adoption rates in Italy, with the Court determining that it is in the interest of the minors to be adopted. In the Court’s view, limiting the eligibility of an individual to adopt based on their relationship status impedes the children’s quality of life and ability to assimilate into a loving family environment. According to the Court and in considering the benefit to the child, it is undeniable that having one parent is considerably better than the alternative of having no parental figure whatsoever.

 

Face-to-face counselling for families who suffer baby loss is being introduced at a hospital.

James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough has hired its first specialist bereavement counsellor to support families who have experiences the loss of a from the early stages of pregnancy onwards.

Francesca McDougall, who recently started in the role, said the service meant families cared for at the central delivery suite could get support quickly and in-person, or via phone and videocall if they preferred.

“Within my new role, families will be able to access specialist support during one of the most difficult times of their lives, for as long as they need to,” she said.

The post was funded through donations from Our Hospitals Charity, the fundraising arm of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust which runs the hospital.

Lisa Meehan, fundraising manager for the charity, said it took about three years for them to reach the £120,000 target.

She said: “We have we have met lots of families who have sadly suffered the loss of a baby and who have been instrumental in helping us to raise enough money to improve our maternity bereavement services.”

• If you have been affected by any of the issues raised, help is available through BBC Action Line.

New Delhi:

Elon Musk’s estranged daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson outrightly rubbished the “convenient narrative” that the world’s richest person’s political views changed because of her. “That’s just not the case,” she said.

Ms Wilson discussed her personal life in an interview with Teen Vogue, wherein she was asked how her parents’ politics changed and whether Elon Musk was always the way he is today. Ms Wilson said she was not going to answer that question, adding that Musk’s views were “not because of me”.

“It’s such a convenient narrative, that the reason he turned right is because I’m a f**g t***y, and that’s just not the case. That’s not what that does to people. Him going further on the right, and I’m going to use the word ‘further’ — make sure you put ‘further’ in there — is not because of me. That’s insane,” Teen Vogue quoted her as saying.

Ms Wilson claimed she had not been in touch with Musk since 2020. “That was almost half a decade ago at this point. Thank God,” she stated.

Further, she noted that a person’s profile on Twitter (now X) was not “who they are in reality.”

She asserted that the perception of someone was a “very small glance of what they’re choosing to let you into,” adding that judging everything that a “person says or someone says online as what they really believe is dumb.”

Musk’s politics has evolved over the last two decades. After making a massive fortune during the dot com boom. Musk invested in Tesla. He launched and invested in SpaceX, OpenAI and The Boring Company — almost all of them with the vision of improving humanity’s future, The Guardian reported.

He would speak at length about climate change and other risks to the planet. But it all changed around 2020 when he became a frequent user and poster on X, which was Twitter at the time. His take on the Covid-19 pandemic also came under scrutiny. 

According to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, Musk started sending “rightwing memes and conspiracy theories” to Canadian musician Grimes, his partner at the time. She replied: “Is this from 4chan or something? You’re actually starting to sound like someone from the far right.”

This was also the same time Vivian came out as transgender and changed her name. Speaking with psychologist Jordan Peterson, Musk cited Vivian as a reason for his political shift, saying he “lost [his] son essentially”, and concluding that his son “is dead, killed by the woke mind virus”.
 

The mother of the jailed British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has said she will go on hunger strike again by the end of the month if no substantive progress is made to release her son.

Laila Soueif, 68, said: “I know the step will mean I have a week or fortnight left to live.”

She collapsed a fortnight ago after being on hunger strike for 150 days and was admitted to Charing Cross hospital in London. During her hunger strike, which began on 29 September last year, she had consumed only herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts.

In hospital doctors warned her she was close to death, while she herself wrote a letter to the Egyptian ambassador in London asking for her daughters to be given permission to take her body back to Cairo to be buried close to her deceased husband.

Soueif said: “I did not, I admit, feel physically close to death but as a scientist I knew since I was told my blood sugar levels were critical, and the nurses told my daughters to try to prevent me sleeping.” In hospital it was agreed by her daughters to put her on a glucose drip and boost her blood sugar levels.

She relented further by agreeing to take 300 calories of food supplements a day to give time for negotiations for her son’s release to start, after a phone call on 28 February to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, by Keir Starmer in which the British prime minister pressed for Fattah’s release. The phone call, one of the family’s main requests, coincided with the fourth day of Soueif’s hospitalisation.

There is still hope that Fattah could be freed as part of a wider amnesty linked to the end of Ramadan on 30 March. He has served more than his five-year sentence, but was not released last September on completion of his sentence because the Egyptian authorities chose to ignore the two years he spent in detention before his case was heard.

Soueif said her condition had stabilised after leaving hospital, but there had been no evidence of progress in the release of her son.

She said: “So I have now written to the prime minister that unless there is dramatic change soon and things are moving, I will go back to the previous hunger strike. I will see my medical team on the 25th to be told the consequences, but I think I know them.”

One of her daughters, Sana’a, said: “My mother looks better since she was released from hospital, but her muscles are so weak and her glucose levels are low.”

She said the frequency of contact with the Foreign Office had dropped off since Starmer’s phone call, and that she would be meeting department officials to inform them of her mother’s decision.

Fattah himself went on hunger strike in prison on 1 February after hearing news of his mother’s hospitalisation. He has been visited twice recently by family members, but says he is determined to show support.

He has been asking for consular access to be given to British diplomats, but Egypt has been stalling on recognising his British citizenship, making visits impossible despite numerous requests for the British ambassador to Egypt to visit him.

Most recently on 26 February, Starmer told MPs: “I will do everything I can, to ensure the release in this case, and that includes phone calls as necessary. I’ve raised it before. I’ll raise it again. We raise it, and will continue to do so. I gave my word to the family that that’s what I’d do. That I will do, and I will.”

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Their baby’s bedroom remains untouched since the stillbirth and they find it unbearable to stay in their home due to the painful memories

A Birmingham couple have spoken of their unimaginable heartbreak after their baby girl was stillborn due to admitted failings in NHS care.

Hazha and Bahroz Ghafoor, who had longed for a big family, endured multiple gruelling rounds of IVF before their first child was born in 2022.

When they conceived naturally, they were overjoyed but this turned to devastation when baby Maily was stillborn at 6.4lbs at Birmingham Women’s Hospital on 27 September 2023.

Read More: Armed police swarm Moseley Village as locals warned of ‘disruption’

Mum Hazha, aged 39, who is currently more than 20 weeks’ pregnant, said: “I can’t do anything but cry at her grave.

“Being pregnant again, I am scared for my life as well as my unborn baby’s life. They didn’t listen to me and because of that, our baby died.”

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Originally from Iraq, Hazha’s first language is not English, meaning she required translation support throughout her pregnancy.

Despite this, when she was admitted to the hospital, her husband Bahroz was told to go home for the night – which would have left her alone and struggling to communicate her fears and symptoms to medical staff.

Hazha fought for Bahroz to stay, fearing she would die if he left.

Bahroz said: “Nobody was there to fight for her when she needed help the most.

“She was in pain, she was scared and I had to fight to be able to stay there to make sure she was heard.”

Having previously suffered two ectopic pregnancies and with a history of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes and other complications, Hazha was a high-risk pregnancy.

Despite these risk factors and multiple visits to the hospital with concerns about her baby’s movements and increasing pain, Hazha’s symptoms were not properly escalated.

Maily died due to placental abruption – a condition that should have been identified and acted upon much earlier.

Now, the couple are determined to ensure no other family suffers the same heartbreak.

Bahroz said: “Of course, we just want our baby back but we can’t so the least we can do is raise awareness to make sure this never happens to another family again.”

An independent investigation found serious failings, including staff who had not completed mandatory foetal monitoring training and a failure to recognise the urgency of Hazha’s condition.

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, has admitted that had Hazha received appropriate care, Maily would have survived.

The family have taken legal action and instructed law firm Lime Solicitors to investigate the failings that led to baby Maily’s death and the extent of damage the negligence had on Hazha.

Medical negligence associate solicitor Wioleta Dworak, who is leading the case with the assistance of paralegal Tara Pooni, said: “This was a completely avoidable tragedy.

“Bahroz and Hazha raised concerns time and time again, yet they were dismissed.

“The trust has already admitted that correct care would have saved Maily’s life, and that is simply unacceptable. No family should have to go through this heartbreak.

“Sadly, we are seeing more and more cases like this across the UK. Maternity services are stretched, underfunded, and in some cases, dangerously inadequate.

“Too often, we see the same patterns of failings – missed warning signs, poor communication and a lack of properly-trained staff.”

Daljit Athwal, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We further extend our deepest sympathies to the family on the loss of their daughter and our teams continue to support them.

“Our training compliance has consistently met national standards over the last six years.

“Following this MNSI investigation, we have new arrangements for staff returning from absence whereby refresher training is completed before they start back at work in areas where this is required and we have also changed the way our staff process urgent tests out of hours.

“We take our role in continuously improving maternity safety and health inequalities very seriously; whilst previously we offered a choice, we now strongly advise all families whose first language isn’t English, to accept support from our extensive interpreting service, which includes face to face and 24/7 video link.”

“Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum Teddi Mellencamp shared that her father, famed musician John Mellencamp, has been helpful amid her cancer battle.

During a March 2025 episode of her podcast, “Two Ts In A Pod,” co-hosted by Tamra Judge, Mellencamp shared that she was surrounded by loved ones during her hospitalization following her February 12 brain surgery.

She said that while her father “pretended he didn’t know” the names of her many visitors, he “was really a Godsend” during her time in the hospital. According to Mellencamp, she “was wretched” while she was confined to her hospital room at Cedars-Sinai.

Mellencamp also said she “begged” her father to relocate her to “a post-care center” inside of the hospital, as she was “coming unhinged” and “losing” her sense of self. She said she was eventually able to get “out of Cedars” and “got to be with a nurse in a hotel.”

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Teddi Mellencamp Gave an Update Following Her Surgery

After her February 2025 brain surgery, Mellencamp, who was diagnosed with Stage II Melanoma in 2022, underwent scans. In a March 6 Instagram upload, Mellencamp shared the results from said scans with her social media followers. In the caption of the post, she said that she has “multiple tumors in [her] brain that weren’t able to be removed via surgery.” She also shared that she has “2 tumors in [her] lungs.”

In addition, Mellencamp said that the tumors “are all metastases of [her] melanoma.” In addition, Mellencamp said, “doctors are hopeful that immunotherapy will effectively treat them.” Mellencamp, who is currently undergoing immunotherapy and radiation, also shared that she felt positive about the situation.

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Bravo Stars Have Supported Teddi Mellencamp

Bravo stars have showered Mellencamp with support after she announced she had brain cancer. For instance, when she shared she would be undergoing emergency surgery in a February 2025 Instagram upload, several Bravo celebrities shared their well-wishes in the post’s comments section.

“Strongest woman I know ❤️ You have so much love and support around you. You’ve got this! 👊🏼❤️,” wrote Mellencamp’s friend and former RHOBH co-star Kyle Richards.

“Oh Teddi, thinking of you. You’re so so so strong,” added “Vanderpump Rules” alum Stassi Schroeder.

“sending you all positivity ❤️,” shared Bravo producer Andy Cohen.

“Teddi- I’m so sorry. Praying for you. You are so strong 🤍,” chimed in “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Melissa Gorga.

“Sending you all the prayers, love and strength for a full healthy recovery 🙏❤️❤️❤️,” wrote Gorga’s co-star, Margaret Josephs.

Related

As a parent, it is hard to imagine the utter devastation of losing your child to murder.

Yet for Peta and Jamie James, this was their reality on discovering their beautiful 21-year-old daughter Lilie James was killed by a colleague Paul Thijssen in October 2023.

Thijssen and James had been in a short relationship that ended just days before he brutally murdered her in the bathroom of the prestigious Sydney school where they both worked.

At a coronial inquest into the murder this week, Lilie’s parents took to the stand to share a statement.

“If we are not teaching boys how to accept and value a woman’s opinions and choices and accept rejection, we may be setting them up for failure,” they began.

“Or, in our case, a moment of time we will never recover from.

“That night will stay with us forever.

“It was absolutely devastating. We have lost a wonderful daughter that we are so proud of.

“To Lilie, we can promise you one thing: we will forever love you and never forget you.”

The pain of her family is searing and unimaginable.

Yet their words about what happens if we don’t teach boys to “accept and value a woman’s opinions and choices” serve as a stark reminder.

Warning us all that a man’s lack of respect for a woman’s decisions and opinion could eventually lead to violence. Reminding us parents – and the wider community engaged in raising the next generation – that we must not be complacent.

As a mum of two boys myself, this really hit home.

I feel more worried than ever about raising good men at a time where according to statistics by Our Watch, Australia’s leader in the primary prevention of violence against women, one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner.

The Our Watch stats also reveal that one in three women has experienced physical violence by the age of 15, and that men aged 18 – 30 who identify with rigid stereotypes of masculinity – are 17 times more likely to say they have hit a partner.

This week while stewing on these facts I decided to watch the Netflix smash hit Adolescence with my husband and 14-year-old son.

It centres on 13-year-old boy Jamie Miller who is arrested for the murder of his female classmate Katie.

The show explores violence against women and the online world of incels and Andrew Tate while also seeing the horror unfold through the eyes of Jamie’s parents as they confront the behaviour of their only son.

While it made for challenging “family watching”, it has enabled us to have some really deep conversations around our worries as parents, and my son’s reality as a teenage boy growing up with so many influences that we did not have back in the 90s.

It was not easy viewing, nor did it generate easy discussions, but it felt important to be able to discuss the big themes of misogyny and masculinity – both toxic and healthy versions – with our son.

I would encourage other parents to do the same: keep talking and keep listening.

We owe it to our boys to help them grow to be good men who understand and accept women’s opinions and choices.

We owe it to our girls so they can grow up feeling respected and safe.

Most importantly of all we owe it to the James’ family and so many just like them who have lost their loved ones in such horrific ways.

If you are seeking support, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732.

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The experts at Nameberry have revealed a list of ‘endangered’ baby names, as well as those that are ‘almost extinct’ – and there are a few surprises

New baby name trends emerge every year, with some being more predictable than others. However, parents may be taken aback to discover which names are on the brink of disappearing.

The experts at Nameberry have revealed that some names you might think are going extinct aren’t as unpopular as people imagine. In a blog post about “the names really in danger of extinction,” the experts said: “Gary, Karen, and Nigel are the most commonly cited ‘extinct’ names.”

However, the names are still in use in the UK and US, according to the pros. “Names like Gary, Karen, and Nigel are falling in popularity, but it’s too early to tell if they’re headed all the way to extinction,” they added.

Of course, there are other names that have already hit the ‘extinct’ list. On its blog, Nameberry categorised names as ‘endangered’, ‘almost extinct’ or ‘truly extinct’. For people with names like ‘Bob’, ‘Carole’, ‘Mel’, or ‘Matt’, it could be bad news.

Thankfully, many people enjoy having a rare name. Parents picking a baby name might also be happy to see their chosen moniker on the list if they’re looking for a standout name. After all, the lists feature lots of beautiful names, they’re just not for everyone.

According to Nameberry, the list of endangered names includes former favourites that are now less popular. Names such as Cheryl and Hubert, for example. Other names on the list include Becky, Bill, Brad, Cathy, Debra, Greg, Jim, Justine, Kim, Matt, Robby, Shelly, Stuart, Ted, Tom, Tracy, Vicky, and Woody.

Similarly, you can expect to find lots of names favoured by the Baby Boomer generation on the almost extinct list. The names include Bob, Dusty, Ed, Gayle, Howie, Jeanine, Jill, Kris, Mel, Nicky, Sandy, Terry, and Val.

As for the extinct baby names, the list includes Barney, Carol, Fran, Meg, Stu, Trish, and Wilkie. However, there’s always time for a comeback.