Education

The man whose former stepdaughter revealed a history of rape in a college application essay has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. The young woman now feels "a lot happier" and has a sense of closure knowing that her abuser will spend time behind bars.

"Getting closure and justice on this horrible situation is the best thing I could have gotten from this experience," the young woman wrote in a statement after the sentencing. "I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I feel a lot happier than before. I will not forget what happened, but I will move on from it."

According to the testimony of the young woman, her stepfather raped her repeatedly and she never spoke a word to anyone about it. She wanted to protect her mother, but once the marriage dissolved and her mother remarried, the young woman felt she could begin "speaking" about it. The victim wrote about the rape in her application essay to a Christian college in Florida in order to answer the question about what made her who she is. more >>

Three students at Calhoun High School in Georgia have turned themselves in to police and were indicted with charges of aggravated sexual battery of a fellow student at an after-prom party. The young men were banned from their graduation and now face criminal charges after the alleged assault.

A young woman said that she was raped on May 11 by multiple men whom she could not identify. The assault took place at a cabin rented for an after-prom party. She told authorities that she passed out around 2 a.m. in the cabin's bathroom after the rape. Police immediately began investigating her claims and narrowed the list down to 25 suspects who were at the party.

Fields Chapman, Avery Johnson, and Andrew Haynes turned themselves in to police 18 days after the assault. Chapman and Haynes were charged with sodomy, and Chapman has a separate 28-count indictment involving sexual exploitation of a minor, Glenda Sue Johnson, clerk of the Gilmer County Superior Court told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. more >>

Duchess Kate Middleton surprised parents and children when she showed up at Blessed Sacrament School to speak about a project to help keep children away from addiction. Middleton's visit was not announced to the public even though the press still found out about it and managed to get plenty of photos.

Middleton, husband William, and brother-in-law Harry, all funders of The Royal Foundation, work together to support the project, entitled M-PACT Plus, which works to support children who are affected by a parent's drug or alcohol abuse. The program seeks to provide early intervention and support in any way necessary so that children have the best possible chances to succeed.

"MPACT-Plus came about as a result of the Duchess of Cambridge's desire to help children of addicted families break the cycle of addiction, and she has taken a close interest in its progress," a Kensington Palace spokesman told Daily Mail. "Through her patronage of Action on Addiction, the Duchess of Cambridge became aware of the shattering impact of addiction, not only on those addicted, but also on their families. Today's engagement is an opportunity for the Duchess of Cambridge to meet those delivering the programs and discuss how the pilot is progressing." more >>

The city of New York recently agreed to fund full day, pre-kindergarten programs for religious schools in the city in an attempt to make more space for preschool attendance by Fall 2014. Multiple religious schools in the area have questioned the full-day funding, as it prohibits religious teaching from being taught during school hours.

The new policy, approved by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, extends the previous half-day prekindergarten programs at religious schools into a full day program funded by the government.

Previously, religious schools offered a half-day of secular prekindergarten funded by the government, contributing religious teaching to the latter part of the school day that they paid for using their own school funds. more >>

Members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology community are in mourning and shock after the body of one student, Kaitlin Goldstein, 28, was found in India. The student had been missing since June 14 and it allegedly looks that she fell off of a cliff while jogging.

Goldstein was working on her doctorate in architecture at MIT in Cambridge. She arrived in India on June 7 to participate in a workshop on energy and development near the city of Leh. She was a competitive runner and simply out for a jog when she allegedly slipped on loose gravel and fell off of a cliff. Her body was found this week in a ravine.

"She was passionately interested in energy solutions for the developing world, a subject she was exploring in a remote region of northern India at the time of her death," MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in an email to students. "The death of someone so young and promising is a terrible loss; we should all take time to reach out to those around us." more >>

A Connecticut high school student is claiming his school blocked him from viewing certain conservative websites, including ones related to the National Rifle Association, the Republican political party, and Christianity.

Andrew Lampart of Woodbury claims that he was recently unable to visit a variety of conservative websites while using the library computers at Nonnewaug High School. The senior student had initially searched for the National Rifle Association while he prepared for a class report on gun control, only to find it had a firewall that prevented him from accessing the website.

As a test, Lampart proceeded to search other pro-Second Amendment websites, only to find that they too had been blocked. Suprisingly, websites that were pro-gun control, including Moms Demand Action, were unblocked. more >>