Massachusetts senators to debate ban on child marriage

BOSTON (AP) — A bill that supporters say would end child marriage in Massachusetts could soon come up for a vote in the state Senate.

Under Massachusetts law, minors can marry with parental consent or a judge’s order. And unlike many other U.S. states, there is no minimum age for marriage.

The legislation to ban all under-18 marriages has been placed on the Senate calendar for debate on Thursday. Supporters say hundreds of minors as young as 14 have been married since 2000, most of them girls married to adult men.

https://whdh.com/news/massachusetts-senators-to-debate-ban-on-child-marriage/

TOKYO — Shinzo Abe declared victory in Japan’s national elections on Sunday, a win that would ensure his place in history as the country’s longest-serving prime minister.

Official results are not expected until Monday, but the public broadcaster NHK said that while Mr. Abe’s governing coalition had won a majority of seats in the upper house of Parliament, it had not secured the number of seats needed to fulfill his long-cherished ambition of revising a pacifist Constitution that has been in place since American occupiers created it in 1947.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/world/asia/japan-elections-2019.html

Georgia State Rep Walks Back Claim Man Told Her To “Go back to your country”

Georgia State Rep. Erica Thomas (D) claims to have been “verbally assaulted” by a white man at a Publix and told to “go back where you came from.” Apparently, Thomas was in the 10 Items or Less lane, and Eric Sparkes didn’t like that and commented to her about it.

Thomas went on Facebook and filmed a tearful tirade about how she was berated, called names, and told to go back where she came from. She also says that he told her to “go back to your country.”

As a result of Thomas’ video, the incident went viral and a range of people from Democrat presidential hopefuls to celebrities to random Twitter users all piled on. #IStandWithErica was formed, and everyone who was anyone was outraged by the outrage. Because Trump.

A lifelong Democrat who uses his own Facebook page to rail against President Trump and Republicans, Sparkes is upset because he feels that he is being smeared by Thomas “for political gain.”

Now Thomas is walking back her accusations and claiming that Sparkes “can’t get away” with the “simple assault” against her because “people just can’t go out in public and berate people.”

>>7121411

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/21/man-denies-telling-us-politician-erica-thomas-go-back-where-you-came-from

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/20/erica-thomas-georgia-lawmaker-claims-man-verbally-assaulted-her/1786405001/

https://www.newsweek.com/istandwitherica-erica-thomas-georgia-lawmaker-publix-go-back-man-responds-1450359