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Divorce laws get change in 2016
1ST BABY OF THE NEW YEAR ARRIVES IN McHENRY COUNTY
By CHELSEA McDOUGALL editorial@nwherald.com
BIll Oakes for Shaw Media
Catlyn Roehrig admires the full head of hair that all visitors have so far pointed out when they meet her son, Callum Wyatt Kampas, the first baby to be born in McHenry County in 2016.
Happy F new baby
riday afternoon at Centegra Hospital – McHenry, the first baby born in the county in 2016 slept peacefully swaddled in a blanket in his mother’s arms.
It’s a boy for Crystal Lake family
Callum Wyatt Kampas, 6 pounds, 11 ounces and measuring 19 and a half inches, was born to Catlyn Roehrig and Mike Kampas at 4:48 a.m. New Year’s Day. The 24-year-old mother from Crystal Lake said a number of visitors already had been by to see her and Callum, including aunts, uncles, grandparents and Callum’s older brother, 18-monthold Grayson Kampas. “I just can’t wait until [Callum] and his brother can
By HANNAH PROKOP n hprokop@shawmedia.com
bond and recognize each other,” Catlyn Roehrig said. Callum is her second child, of whom she and Mike Kampas are co-parents, she said. “He’s not too sure about him yet,” Catlyn Roehrig said about Grayson’s thoughts toward his new brother, adding that grandma held the baby Friday morning so Grayson could get some time on his mother’s lap. Catlyn Roehrig said she was sitting at home with her family
See BIRTH, page A6
CRYSTAL LAKE – Local divorce attorneys are bracing for changes in the law governing the way people get divorced. As of Friday, the terms “custody” and “visitation” no longer will be in a divorce attorney’s vocabulary, replaced instead by “allocation of parental duties” and “parenting time.” Previously, custody was painted in broad strokes. Parents either had sole or joint custody that affected the way decisions were made about a child’s education, health care, religion and extracurricular activities. Under the new law, parents will decide on each of those categories separately and will decide who will be responsible for each of those decisions. “It’s more of a nomenclature change than a substantive change,” said Timothy J. Clifton, a divorce attorney at Zukowski, Rodgers, Flood and McArdle. “The goal was to get away from the term custody because that word elicits such a response.” It’s the same train of thought that changed visitation to parenting time. Some parents can be offended by the term, or as Crystal Lakebased attorney Paulette Gray explained: Grandma visits, mom and dad parent. “To a certain extent, you’re changing the name, but the battle is still there,” said Gray, who also is a past president of the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Also under the new law, the grounds for getting a divorce have changed, as has the waiting period for couples wishing to end their marriage.
See DIVORCE, page A6
Obama, frustrated by Congress, explores unilateral steps on guns By KEVIN FREKING The Associated Press HONOLULU – President Barack Obama is looking for ways to keep guns out of the hands of “a dangerous few” without depending on Congress to pass a law on the fraught subject of gun control. He said he’ll meet with his attorney general, Loretta Lynch, on Monday to see what executive actions might
be possible. Steps to strengthen background checks could come this week. “The gun lobby is loud and well organized in its defense of effortlessly available guns for anyone,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “The rest of us are going to have to be just as passionate and well organized in our defense of our kids.” He said he gets so many letters from parents, teachers
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and children about the “epidemic of gun violence” that he can’t “sit around and do nothing.” Obama recently directed staff at the White House to look into potential exec- Barack Obama utive actions. Currently, federally licensed firearms
dealers are required to seek background checks on potential firearm purchasers. But advocacy groups said some of the people who sell firearms at gun shows are not federally licensed, increasing the chance of sales to customers prohibited by law from buying guns. A source familiar with the administration’s efforts said Obama is expected to take executive action next week that would set a “reasonable thresh-
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old” for when sellers have to seek a background check. That person didn’t know whether it would be based on the number of guns sold or revenue generated through gun sales. The source, a member of a gun control advocacy group, was not authorized to discuss details before the announcement and spoke on the condition of anonymity. White House officials won’t confirm the timing.
In his efforts to work around a Congress that has often been politically gridlocked, Obama has made aggressive use of executive power, particularly on immigration. It has been an increasingly effective presidential tool. And while legal scholars are divided on whether Obama has accelerated or merely continued a drift of power toward the executive
See OBAMA, page A6