There has been an interesting development on asylum policy in the United States with Barack Obama's administration now allowing permits for women who are victims of domestic violence.
Curiously, the new policy does not cover females fleeing genital mutilation, which suggests that it is aimed mainly at the US's neighbours rather than countries further afield.
The New York Times reports that, in order to win their cases, the women must prove they are treated little better than property by their abusers and that domestic violence is widely tolerated in their country.
President Obama's reversal of predecessor George W Bush's policy represents a positive move from a progressive leader - a description that cannot be applied to London mayor Boris Johnson.
It is a return to the subject that will not go away for Johnson: his U-turn on funding for rape crisis centres.
In a Mayor's question time that got quite tasty, the-sauce.org reports that protesters sounded panic alarms as assembly members discussed how much money should be granted to the centres.
They were eventually escorted out, their point having been made. One of the protesters, Beth Evans, later pointed out that the annual funding for the Croydon centre was £250,000, a figure recently described by Johnson as "chicken feed" when referring to his own earnings from the Daily Telegraph.
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