A 15-year-old girl has reportedly been indecently assaulted after being forced into a vehicle in the Hunter Region suburb of Cameron Park.
The girl had exited a school bus at approximately 4:45pm on Tuesday when she was allegedly grabbed by a man off of Blackwood Crescent. She was then reportedly pulled into a black four-door sedan, driven by a second assailant, and indecently assaulted.
“The girl fought back against the man punching him a number of times before she broke from his grasp and ran away,” read the police report about the incident, “She was not injured during the incident.”
The report continues to describe one of the alleged attackers as having a “tanned complexion and a solid build”. He was seen in a black hooded jumper, black jeans and a pair of black sneakers. Currently, police have not released a description of the second man.
Police are urging anyone with relevant information to come forth via either the Crime Stoppers online reporting page, or via the the public line 1800 333 000.
Just about every woman has them, yet many of us don’t know why!
For this reason, we’ve taken the liberty of providing you with a comprehensive guide to all things striae (that’s the medical term for stretch marks).
From what they are, why they occur and how you can treat them, everything you need to know is below.
What are stretch marks?
Stretch marks or striae are narrow, parallel lines that, depending on your skin colour, can appear a different colour to the normal, surrounding tone.
40-90% percent of all women will experience stretch marks. They can appear anywhere, but the most commonly affected areas include the hips, breasts, stomach, thighs and upper arms.
In their early stages, the lines appear raised with a pink, red or purple tinge. The dis-colouration will however fade over time to a scar-like pale white.
Though they are not medically dangerous, stretch marks are a common aesthetic concern among both women and men.
“Stretchies say hi!” Earlier this year, Chrissy Teigen proudly showed off her stretch marks on Instagram.
Why do they occur?
Linear scarring is thought to occur when the collagen fibres in the skin’s dermal layer tear.
This commonly happens during a rapid period of growth – be that due to puberty, pregnancy or weight gain.
First signs of stretch marks include itching and a pink flush to the area, which develop in length and colour over time.
The marks can take years to fade, and may never truly disappear – but don’t let that get you down!
Watch women get real about their stretch marks in the video player below, then scroll down to find out how to treat them!
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What can I do about them?
For one, you can own them! When you think about it, just about all of us are in the same boat so the more we embrace them, the more normal they become.
However if you find your stretch marks to be a source of concern or anxiety, there are a few medically-backed ways to reduce their appearance.
While we’re commonly told to turn to cocoa butter, several studies have found little or no significant evidence to suggest any truth to the treatment.
After giving birth, Reese Witherspoon mused, “I am covered in stretch marks and cellulite but it doesn’t bother me at all. My body will never be the same again but I really don’t care!”
Of course, you can look into laser treatments and microdermabrasion, but when it comes down to it, the best treatment is prevention.
There is evidence to suggest that massaging stretch mark-prone areas with moisturisers will prevent the development of new scars.
Vitamin C and Zinc has also been proven to create and strengthen collagen fibres, and Vitamin E has been linked to the reduction of their overall appearance.
The best thing to do is to maintain a consistently healthy weight when possible, and to learn to love them.
Because at the end of the day, we are all beautiful.
It’s never easy asking someone about the death of a loved one. Yet, as a journalist, it’s something that happens time after time. And everyone comes to the table differently. Some talk obliquely about their feelings, not sure whether they’d like to let another person in. Others barely keep their feelings under control, their emotions pouring from them like a torrent.
Terri Irwin, however, stands alone in my experience as an interviewer. Never before have I encountered a woman so willing to open her feelings in public, and for the best of reasons.
Terri, of course, is wildlife warrior Steve Irwin’s widow, the woman who has stepped into his shoes to become parent their children Bindi and Robert, as well as take up Steve’s mantle as a champion for wildlife and conservation.
It’s 10 years since Steve’s tragic death. Ten years since he was stabbed in the heart by the flailing tail of a stingray while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. Ten years since Terri felt the pangs of a grief that quite honestly has never left her.
I first met Terri in those awful days after Steve died. Sitting in a chair amidst an exhibit at Australia Zoo, the Irwin wildlife park in Queensland, she was calm and collected and ready to speak, not because she wanted to but because she felt she owed Steve’s many fans a duty to speak, to let them know how she and their children were coping with such an unpredictable, inexplicable, saddening event.
It was a harrowing experience, both for Terri and for me. Many times during our talk, we had to stop to wipe away our tears. There’s an old journalistic adage that says you should never get personally involved in the stories you tell. But in telling Terri’s story, that was an impossibility.
I’ve met Terri many times since then and interviewed her at various stages of what she now refers to as her “grief journey”.
I’ve witnessed her break down at the smallest things, once when she was having her hair trimmed for a Weekly photographic shoot when the prospect of cutting her hair – the hair that Steve liked her to wear long – became too much. It was a sudden, honest reaction, and so utterly human, that it took my breath away.
All of us experience grief in our loves. Every single one of us. But only a very few will ever have to endure that grief so publicly as Terri and her family.
That she is willing to discuss her feelings is remarkable. But she does so because she believes that in doing so, she may help others on the journey that she has experienced. The grief doesn’t go away. It might not even get any easier – Terri admits she still cries at the most inappropriate moments, such as giving a lecture – but time and circumstance do help you develop a way to cope, to adjust to a new way of life without your loved one.
That’s where Terri is now, in a new way of life without her loved one – the loved one with whom she expected to grow old. And I feel honoured that she has allowed me to share some of that journey with her and to tell her story to the readers of The Weekly. Very honoured indeed.
Read Michael Sheather’s emotional interview with Terri Irwin in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale August 4.
Apple is canning its gun emoji following the wave of gun violence to hit the US.
While it’s a minor change in the greater scheme of the tragic events of late, including the shootings of two black men by police and the resulting attacks on officers, but it’s still a step in the right direction regardless.
The replacement is a harmless toy water gun emoji in green and orange.
The change comes into effect next month, along with the release off 100 new emojis, including female athletes, a rainbow flag, policeman, construction workers and single-parent families.
According to Gap, little girls are passive and pretty, and little boys are active and clever. Well, that’s what the messaging on their advertising alludes to anyway.
In their latest kids’ collection, the brand features a little girl dressed in pastel colours and sparkly kitten ears. The text reads: “The social butterfly,” and with their chambray shirts and logo sweaters she’ll be the talk of the playground.
In contrast, the little boy in their campaign is a “genius”. Dressed in an Albert Einstein emblazoned T-shirt he is “the little scholar” and judging by the big smile on his face he is pretty pleased about it.
Unsurprisingly the T-shirts have been slammed for their blatant sexism. The criticism started when grassroots campaign group ‘Let toys be Toys’ tweeted about a picture of the shirts.
“For anyone who thinks that sexist marketing to children isn’t a problem,” they wrote.
Reactions included: “That actually made me feel ill. Unbelievable.”
And: “Where is this crap coming from? Who is driving it? My kids were born in the 80s and didn’t have this.”
Caitlin Roper is the campaign manager at Collective Shout, who actively campaign against this sort of sexism in advertising. She tells the Weekly Online that this is yet another example of how we as a culture tend to value girls primarily for their physical appearance and sexuality.
“Boys are encouraged to be and to see themselves as smart, strong and active, while girls are limited by this ongoing focus on their looks to the exclusion of all else,” she says.
Roper notes that items that are essentially the same are marketed in completely different ways for boys and girls.
“Science kits that are marketed as such for boys, but for girls, the same products become ‘magic nail kits’ and ‘perfume laboratories’.
“It’s as if girls couldn’t just have an aptitude for or interest in science, that to have any appeal it must be a product that enhances their physical beauty or attractiveness to men,” she explains.
The Gap T-shirts are just the latest in a long line of similar kids clothing that seeks to reinforce damaging gender stereotypes.
But with the increasing backlash against this sort of sexism, we can hope that brands like Gap are finally starting to get the message
Helen Clark, the former New Zealand Prime minister colloquially known to a generation of Kiwis as ‘Aunty Helen’, has told The Australian Women’s Weekly in an exclusive interview why she believes she is the best woman for the job as UN Secretary-General.
“We live in a troubled world with huge inequalities,” she says. “There is discrimination and marginalism, there is a lot of conflict.
“My argument has been, with the world the mess is in, you need someone with a leader profile who can really take the organisation forward.”
And Helen might just be the right woman for the job. She’s already the number three ranked bureaucrat at the United Nations with an impressive track record as the Administrator of the UN Development Programme tacking poverty and sustainability world-wide.
While she is widely acknowledged as one the front runners for the job, to be decided in October, some believe it should go to a leader from Eastern Europe.
She declined to comment on the suitability of Kevin Rudd as a candidate, nor would she comment on her own chances of success. “I’m acknowledged as a very serious candidate, but in the end, this is about geopolitics,” she says.
You can read Helen Clark’s full interview in the September issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale August 4.
With Rio less than a week away, Olympic fever is heating up!
But before we celebrate this year’s nail-biting achievements, let’s take a look back at some of the most memorable underdogs of the Olympics. The unlikely heroes and disadvantaged sports stars who took on the favourites and blew everyone away with their sheer determination and even inspired a movie!
Because there’s nothing the world loves more than a good ol’ underdog.
Brought to you by Eddie the Eagle, out now on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital
Michael “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards become everyone’s favourite underdog during the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics where he competed as Britain’s first ever Olympic ski jumper. He might have finished last, but he cemented his status as a national treasure. The unlikely hero even got the Hollywood treatment this year when a movie about his life, Eddie the Eagle, starring Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman was released.
Speed skater Steven Bradbury was considered the outsider in the short track 1000m final at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. What the crowd didn’t count on was all four of his competitors crashing at the last minute, leaving him to claim gold! Relive Steven’s victorious moment in the next slide. Gallery continues after the video!
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Mariel Zagunis didn’t qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics, but ended up in the tournament when Nigeria pulled out. While all hopes were pinned on her fellow American (and the world #1 in women’s fencing) Sada Jacobson, underdog Mariel won gold becoming the first American to win an Olympic gold for fencing in 100 years. How’s that for a story!
Wild-card Eric “The Eel” Moussambani Malonga from Equatorial Guinea took part in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, despite having never seen or swam in an Olympic-sized pool before. After his two competitors were disqualified, Eric had to swim his heat solo. He was slower than anyone in Olympic history and, at one point didn’t look like he would finish, but the crowd got behind him because he was a battler.
No one expected Japan to beat the American softball team in the finals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but they underestimated pitcher Yukiko Ueno. Her performance is still hailed as one of the best in the game and it resulted in one of the sport’s greatest upsets in Olympic history. Go, Yukiko!
Even Misty Hyman herself couldn’t believe that she’d beaten Susie “Madame Butterfly” O’Neill to take out gold during the final of the 200m butterfly at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Just look at that face!
Setting a new world record at the Olympics is impressive enough. But when you consider that South Korean archer, Im Dong-hyun, has 20/200 vision, legally making him blind, it makes his new world record at the 2000 London Olympics that bit more remarkable.
Sure, you know her as the gold-medal-winning pro snowboarder, but Torah Bright didn’t make the podium during her Olympic debut at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. Never one to let anything stand in her way, Torah came back bigger and better taking out gold at Vancouver four years later.
In a nail-biting battle for gold with the Russians at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, American gymnast Kerri Strug proved how worthy she was of a medal when she performed a second vault to help her teammates clinch first place, despite seriously injuring her ankle on the previous attempt.
Back in 1996 at the Atlantic Games, Kieren Perkins wasn’t in his best shape. He scraped into the final by a fraction of a second, but the underdog spirit put some fire in his belly and he had the swim of his life, earning a gold medal all the way out in lane eight.
The Jamaican bobsled team were considered the ultimate underdogs when they entered the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, even having to borrow spare sleds to compete. The team may not have taken away any medals (ever) but they did compete in five more Winter Olympics.
They summered in Byron, partied with Hemsworth clan and vegged out in LA – but now Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth have most definitely taken their relationship game to the next level.
Miley shared an adorable video of the pair, joined by the beautiful Beagle, Barbie, belting out Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself – you guessed it, in the car!
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Liam, 26, might not have the best pipes, but what he lacks in vocals, he makes up in charm.
Attempting to scare his maybe wife/fiance/girlfriend, Thor’s little bro lets out a resounding “Argh!”
Mellow, no more, Miley remarks ,”Babe stop, seriously!”
The duo met back in 2010 on the set of their feature film, The Last Song.
Following a momentary split in 2013, the couple rekindled their romance last year.
Fans couldn’t help but notice how much the clip reminded them of the duo during their Last Song days.
The pair, who met on the set of the 2010 film, share a super cute scene where Miley is very unimpressed with Liam’s singing ability.
Speaking candidly to The Sunday Times, the High School Musical actor confessed that, despite being a teen heartthrob, he finds the dating pool just as daunting as you do.
“Dating is something I’ll never be able to do,” he told the publication. “As in the dictionary definition of dating, because one way or another I’ve impacted that person’s life and they’ll soon realize it.”
“A date has to be very long to dispel whatever people think about me.”
Somehow we don’t think Zac will have much trouble landing a date…
Admitting, that like many millennials, he tried and failed to find love on dating app Tinder, he said: “Amazingly, when I signed up for Tinder, nobody swiped me!”
Explaining the reason why, he added, “They thought it was fake … That never happened.”
Watch Zac Efron attempt an Australian accent in the video player below! Post continues…
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The blue-eyed beau became the Hollywood crush of just about every teen when he landed a starring role in the hit 2005 Disney film, High School Musical*.
After five years dating co-star Vanessa Hudgens, the 28-year-old began a two-year relationship with model Sami Miro.
The pair split earlier this year.
What went wrong? Zac deleted all traces of his ex from social media after their split.
I wouldn’t go so far to say that I’m a fitness junkie but I love trying new health programs, classes and exercises to keep things fun – otherwise my motivation plummets and I end up living on a diet of Mars Bars and pasta.
So I came across former Bachelor Tim Robards’ program – TRM (The Robards Method) – and thought I’d give it a go for a month.
I signed up and got a starter pack with a t-shirt, wooden gymnastic rings and accompanying straps, and a resistance band. I downloaded the app and was itching to go!
Eating
The program is quite easy to follow; there are three workouts (with some exercises using the rings and band) and a healthy eating plan in the form of a 7-2-1 fuel philosophy – 70% super clean, 20% sensible, 10% relaxed.
I’ll be honest and say that sticking to a diet isn’t easy for me; I seem to have almost zero willpower when it comes to saying no to burgers or sweets. But, I was pleasantly surprised with this eating plan (found under the Nutrition Bible on the website and app). The meals are easy to make and seriously delicious. I’ll keep making the corn fritters and Thai beef salad all the time because they’re just so yummy.
Oh, and the best thing? Friday and Saturday nights are your choice of meal! So yes, you can still indulge but only in small portions.
The Nutrition Bible is a treasure trove of info on food and you guessed it, nutrition, and you can read up on what snacks you can eat while on the program. You also have the option of trying the ‘Super Clean’ eating plan if you want to be really strict on yourself.
Exercise
There are three different workouts each week – Strength, Power and Rings – that are accessed through the app. Plus, there’s a short video of Tim doing each exercise to show you how it’s done. That’s some pretty great motivation in itself (am I right?!).
The workouts have specific exercises and movements with a target of reps, and you can do it all at your own pace. What appealed to me the most was that the fitness program isn’t hugely cardio based. There’s no running or steps to climb (I seriously hate running), it’s mostly about strengthening and toning. Despite the lack of cardio, however, I was still sweating like crazy and had muscle soreness after each workout.
The one thing I found difficult was being able to get down to the local park to complete the Rings session. To use the gymnastic rings you need a high parallel bar or tree branch to hang the straps off, and I found that when I couldn’t get down to the park, I was at a standstill. I’d already completed the other two workouts for the week and couldn’t click back into them to exercise.
TRM is quite accommodating in the way that if you don’t hit the target reps, you can still record your progress and try to beat your score the next time. After completing all the workouts in the four-week period, you get to an ‘exam’. It’s not daunting, so don’t be put off by the name! It’s just a small workout (no time limit) to see how well you’ve progressed and if you ‘graduate’, then you go onto the next stage with a whole bunch of other workouts.
Cost
Anyone can join TRM and it’s great for all fitness levels. There are two options – a Fitness starter pack of $99 or the Fitness and Nutrition complete package for $149, both of which offers the equipment and T-shirt. Plus, your partner can join your plan for just $50 so you can motivate each other!
Results
I really enjoyed the program and loved the food options – I’ll definitely be working the recipes into my daily life even after finishing the program. After four weeks, I didn’t see a huge change on the scales (I lost 1.5kg) but my stomach was flatter and I was looking leaner. I felt fantastic, I noticed that I could power through the workouts the more the weeks passed, and my strength was definitely increasing.
The app has the function of tracking your progress in terms of weight change, etc, if you input the data. In terms of motivation, what would have given me more drive would be if there was a social media community of people just like me who were doing the program. Even just a Facebook group would be hugely beneficial to help spur people on and bring us all together!
Otherwise, I think TRM is a smart choice for those wanting a challenge, to build muscle tone and to eat well without completely cutting out all the slightly naughty treats! Plus, watching videos of Tim do the exercises isn’t so bad either.
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