Recently in Other Family Law Issues Category

A jealous husband in Texas apparently set his house on fire after his wife had gone out and had dinner with another man, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Jason Simmons, a 36-year-old, living in the 15000 block of Tallshadows confronted his wife, Nancy Simmons, in the front yard of their house after she came back from having dinner with a friend named Ramon. Once she went inside the house she found the stove burners in the on position and Jason Simmons apparently started flicking the striker of a cigarette lighter.

The Kardashian clan definitely keeps the gossip boards chirping and tweeting.

A recent rumor to come out from the Kardashian hive was that Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian are either considering fertility drugs to have a baby or are already or on them. And though this particular Khloe fertility rumor was quickly shot down, it is still making for good marketing for the Kardashian reality show, reports the Huffington Post.

Some people are not biologically able to have children. But for them science has made excellent advances, such as gestational surrogacy.

In a gestational surrogacy, an embryo is transferred to the woman who agrees to gestate the baby, the gestational carrier. The baby has no genetic material from the carrier. Here is where it gets confusing: The gametes can come from either of the intended parents (or both), or from an egg donor or a sperm donor, or both.

It is important to create parenting presumptions in law so that the intended parents are the legal parents. Texas is one of the states that has taken steps to legally clarify gestational surrogacy.

It has been reported that Texas has the highest number of child abuse fatalities in America and nearly every week on this blog a story about child abuse, child neglect, or child exploitation is discussed.

In the face of statistics like these, it is heartening to see a federal defending childhood initiative that is aiming to tackle violence against children. It is called the Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence and it was launched towards the end of 2011.

As more and more teenagers get smartphones for birthdays and for Christmas, it becomes increasingly important for parents to protect children from pornography and other online dangers, reports The New York Times.

Making devices your child uses pornography-proof is particularly difficult in the age of "apps" or applications, which can be downloaded at any time and hidden very easily.

An earlier story that this blog covered, about the Texas judge, William Adams, who had apparently beaten his daughter on video, may have a resolution.

It turns out that the Texas Supreme Court suspended Judge William Adams from his position, reports The Stir.

The Hillary Adams beating was chronicled in a video dated 2004 and which was uploaded to Youtube. It went viral.

For most people ivy is green, but Houston's Beyonce and Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z are not most people and have blue ivy, specifically, in the form of their new baby-daughter, who will be called Blue Ivy Carter, reports the New York Daily News.

Blue Ivy Carter came into the world in New York's Lenox Hill Hospital, which is located in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Beyonce checked into the hotel under the name Ingrid Jackson (because Beyonce really looks like an Ingrid, or because the name Sasha Fierce was already taken).

Celebrity divorces can be dramatic and actor Terrence Howard is no exception.

The actor was ordered to stay 100 yards away from soon-to-be ex-wife Michelle Howard (Michelle Ghent,) as she took out a restraining order against Terrence Howard, reports the Contra Costa Times.

Michelle Ghent alleged that Terrence had been abusive to her in marriage and more recently via text messages. Howard denied her allegations in his sworn reply. Howard further claimed that Michelle Ghent had threatened to ruin his reputation and career.

The 56-year-old man dressed in a Santa suit that killed six members of his family and then himself over the holidays has been identified as Aziz "Bob" Yazdanpanah, reports MSNBC.

The Santa murder-suicide occurred in Grapevine on Christmas Day.

Grapevine police identified the victims as wife, Fatemah "Nasrin" Rahmati, 55; daughter, Nargis "Nona" Yazdanpanah, 19; son, Ali Yazdanpanah, 14. Nasrin's sister, Zohreh Rahmati, 58; her husband, Mohamad Hossein Zarei, 59; and their daughter, Sahra Fatemah Zarei, 22; were also killed.

A young wife found her husband dead and two of the couple's three under-10-children tied up in her West Harris County home, reports the Houston Chronicle. Her husband had been shot.

The husband, Russell Lopez, was 31, and he died at the scene. His 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe was missing as well.