According to authorities, Paul Martikainen kidnapped his three-year old son, Luke Finch, escaping in a sailboat. Cocoa Beach police have reported that witnesses saw the two get into a 32-foot Bristol sailboat at Salt Creek Marina in St. Petersburg, Florida. They said the boy did not seem scared. Acquaintances of the man are worried about both father and son, saying that Martikainen has no sailing experience. According to other boaters at the marina, it is impossible for one person to sail a boat and watch a child at the same time, even for an experienced boater.
Martikainen purchased the boat less than a month ago, saying that he was buying it for someone else, and was going to fix it up and then transport it to Arkansas; he appeared to be living in the boat while he was working on it. Martikainen had further drawn attention to himself around the marina by asking other boaters how to tie different types of sailing knots. Some of the other boaters encouraged him to take sailing lessons after he told them he was going to take the boat out after Thanksgiving.
Luke was reported missing during a supervised visit with his father. He apparently slipped away from the court-appointed supervisor while they were hanging out in a Cocoa park. The supervision was ordered because of earlier allegations that Martikainen was abusing the child. An Amber alert brought in tips that helped police track Martikainen’s vehicle to the marina. Authorities believe the abduction was planned, noting that Martikainen had painted the boat gray, both to cover identifying marks and to make it hard to spot in the ocean.
Tiger Woods has cancelled at least three scheduled meetings with the Florida Highway Patrol to discuss the car accident he was involved in early Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving. He is not required by Florida law to talk to police about a traffic accident under investigation. But he has spoken to reporters in an attempt to dispel rumors that the accident happened in the middle of a domestic dispute with his wife, Elin Nordegren. 
November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and to celebrate, Floridians all across the state will gather at special ceremonies and community events. And Florida residents have a lot to celebrate; Florida has been recognized nationally for its success in placing foster children in permanent homes. 
The short-lived comedy “Couples Retreat” follows four American couples who travel to a tropical island to rekindle their marriages. Some enterprising Indian travel agents saw the movie and decided to start promoting divorce tourism packages for Indian couples. The package includes an exotic getaway and the services of a marriage counselor. Indian couples are usually unaware that they are on a divorce tour – the packages are usually paid for by a concerned friend or relative, and the marriage counselor pretends to be a travel guide with a lot of wise insight into marriage.
A recent study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly paints a bleak picture for low income women who are subject to abuse. Even those who seek help for domestic violence issues suffer from depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and have to deal with stressful issues like child custody and child support, unemployment and finding affordable housing. Their situation has driven many of these women to return to their abusive partner. 
Fransisco Rodriguez is married with three children of his own. According to the state of Florida, he is also legally the father of the fifteen year old daughter of an ex-girlfriend, even though DNA tests and the girl’s own mother have confirmed that Rodriguez is not her biological father. He reportedly owes more than $10,000 in back child support, and he has already spent a night in jail because of it. The girl’s mother has written to the state asking them to not require Rodriguez to pay the child support.
Samad Nesser has tried every legal avenue to prevent his eleven year old son from being taken to France to stay with his mother and her new husband. According to Nesser, his ex-wife has allowed his son to be abused by the new husband, and suffers from sleeplessness and chest pains whenever he returns home from staying with them. Nesser is an American citizen, but his wife is not. The husband, a French citizen, used to live in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was the subject of a restraining order after allegedly breaking into his girlfriend’s home and hitting and pushing her and her elderly mother to the floor. Nesser claims that this same man locked his son in an attic and threatened to kill him.
Dallas advertising executive, Bill Cochran, has written a book that he says he hopes will help children deal with the divorce of their parents. The book is called My Parents Are Divorced, My Elbows Have Nicknames, and Other Facts About Me. Cochran writes with a straightforward, yet humorous style. The book follows Ted, a kid whose parents are getting divorced, as he talks about his life and his feeling related to the divorce. 
According to a recent US study, women who are diagnosed with either cancer or MS are six times more likely to become divorced or separated as a result of the diagnosis than a man in the same position would be. Earlier research had suggested a similar trend, showing that female cancer patients have a divorce or separation rate of 20.8% compared to 2.9% for male cancer patients. 
If you are considering a divorce, you may be entitled to, or you may be ordered to pay spousal support to your former spouse. What does that mean? Spousal support, also referred to as alimony, is money paid to one spouse by the other in order to support the first spouse’s lifestyle after the divorce.It is completely separate from child support. Alimony is only ordered in about ten percent of divorce cases. Permanent alimony awards are largely a thing of the past; most courts will only award temporary spousal support, lasting from a few months to a few years.