Joint Custody as Norm: Solomon Revisited

Most jurisdictions in Canada and the United States have, to a greater or lesser extent, endorsed the notion of joint custody in recent years. The author suggests that-the move toward joint custody has resulted from a combination of two major factors: the notion of parental equality and the application of the best interests of the child test. The growing prominence of equal parental rights has created a strong temptation to approach custody as a Solomonic exercise in dividing the children equally between those with equal rights over them. The indeterminacy of the best interests test may readily encourage custody determinations on this basis as well. Joint custody has been received less enthusiastically in Canada than in the United States. The author suggests that the tendency of the Supreme Court of Canada to reject the sameness of treatment approach to equality may well explain this

Joint Custody as Norm: Solomon Revisited

Most jurisdictions in Canada and the United States have, to a greater or lesser extent, endorsed the notion of joint custody in recent years. The author suggests that-the move toward joint custody has resulted from a combination of two major factors: the notion of parental equality and the application of the best interests of the child test. The growing prominence of equal parental rights has created a strong temptation to approach custody as a Solomonic exercise in dividing the children equally between those with equal rights over them. The indeterminacy of the best interests test may readily encourage custody determinations on this basis as well. Joint custody has been received less enthusiastically in Canada than in the United States. The author suggests that the tendency of the Supreme Court of Canada to reject the sameness of treatment approach to equality may well explain this

A new media landscape? The BBFC, extreme cinema as cult, and technological change

Disreputable films involving explicit representations of sex and violence have long attracted the attention of the censors and cult film audiences alike. In late 2012, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) announced it was tightening its regulation of representations of sadistic and sexual violence, simultaneously enhancing the subcultural capital and potential cult status of the films in question (Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995, 11). The subsequent publication of the BBFC's revised guidelines in January 2014 confirmed its increasingly censorial stance (British Board of Film Classification, The Guidelines, London: BBFC, 2014a). The Board's rationale for implementing these changes was that a succession of technological developments had created ‘a new media and entertainment landscape’ requiring stricter regulation (British Board of Film Classification, BBFC Guidelines 2014: Research Report, London: BBFC, 2014b, 15). This paper traces a series of changes in film regulation during the post-Ferman era, focusing in particular on the pedagogical turn taken by the BBFC under the directorship of David Cooke (2004–14). Drawing on a range of reports and documents, I argue that by discursively framing these policy adjustments in the context of the so-called ‘sexualisation of culture’ debate, the BBFC have obscured a more fundamental shift in their purpose and remit during the Cooke era

Genomic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England

AbstractThe evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus leads to new variants that warrant timely epidemiological characterization. Here we use the dense genomic surveillance data generated by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium to reconstruct the dynamics of 71 different lineages in each of 315 English local authorities between September 2020 and June 2021. This analysis reveals a series of subepidemics that peaked in early autumn 2020, followed by a jump in transmissibility of the B.1.1.7/Alpha lineage. The Alpha variant grew when other lineages declined during the second national lockdown and regionally tiered restrictions between November and December 2020. A third more stringent national lockdown suppressed the Alpha variant and eliminated nearly all other lineages in early 2021. Yet a series of variants (most of which contained the spike E484K mutation) defied these trends and persisted at moderately increasing proportions. However, by accounting for sustained introductions, we found that the transmissibility of these variants is unlikely to have exceeded the transmissibility of the Alpha variant. Finally, B.1.617.2/Delta was repeatedly introduced in England and grew rapidly in early summer 2021, constituting approximately 98% of sampled SARS-CoV-2 genomes on 26 June 2021.</jats:p