He "threatened me," "strangled me with a PlayStation cord," "lunged at me with a pocketknife." A horror movie? No, real life for far too many young women, an exclusive new Glamour survey reveals. Why is relationship violence still so frighteningly common in 2011? And how can we help? The answer starts with two simple words: Tell Somebody.

Not long before sunrise on a Midwestern Friday, college student and part-time waitress Alexandra Briggs sat in her one-bedroom apartment, meticulously applying thick makeup all over her face, neck and arms. It took two coats to cover her boyfriend's teeth marks and the cigarette burns he'd inflicted, along with her newly purpling bruises; her pants hid the spot on her thigh where he'd stabbed her with a fork. When she finished, he drove her to the Original Pancake House for her 7:00 a.m. shift. "I'm sick," she told her boss as she clocked in and headed to the restroom.

Briggs, a freckled, blue-eyed Beatles fan who was studying criminal justice, had first chatted with Matthew Hubbard over Instant Messenger five months earlier. After their first date, she hadn't been interested, but when Hubbard, a fellow student, begged her to give him a chance, she did.

By that morning, she was barely a whisper of herself. As Hubbard would later admit in court, before Briggs had gone to work he'd hit her repeatedly with a small bat and strangled her until she slumped, unconscious -- typical of the violence that had started a month into the relationship. "He had me in a choke hold against the wall, saying, 'I'm going to kill you. No one will find your body; no one cares about you,'" Briggs, now 26, recalls. Dazed, she had agreed to Hubbard's order to go to work, fake the stomach flu and return home with him. She was huddled over the toilet when her manager, Shea Duymovic, pushed her way into the stall and sat on the floor. "Look at me," Duymovic said, her face next to Briggs'. "I know what he's doing to you. And I can't stand to see this happen anymore."

A moment passed. When Briggs finally turned, she saw her boss's eyes filled with tears. She remembers thinking one simple thought: Someone cares? Overwhelmed, she began to sob. "Do you want me to call your parents?" Duymovic asked gently. Briggs could only nod.

Why do women stay in abusive relationships? It's the $5.8 billion dollar question - the one so many people stumble over when they read about yet another woman killed by yet another boyfriend in yet another violent relationship: Why didn't she just leave? She's had two legs; she knew how to walk.

And yet, women don't. Five-point-eight billion is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's lowball dollar estimate of what intimate partner violence costs each year in medical care, mental health treatment and lost productivity - nothing in comparison to the cost of life, which is four women a day in the U.S., and on the rise for those in dating relationships. So back to the why: In the process of researching "Tell Somebody" - Glamour's report on relationship violence - we tried to get at the answer by asking experts, survivors and women in abusive relationships now.

I.
In early 2001, a group of friends who had introduced me to my then-boyfriend sat me down at a kitchen table. "We're worried about you," one said. "Has he hit you?"

The answer, at the time, was no.

Ten months later, I stumble into the emergency room, blood dripping from my nose onto my ripped pajama top, barefoot in the November chill. The receptionist says words to me that make no sense. The only words that make sense are the ones that spill out of my mouth over and over again, the only words that will let the receptionist and the nurses and my friends and my parents know that this isn't what it looks like, that I'm not one of those women, those women in abusive relationships, those women who can't help themselves enough to get out: I went to college, I went to college, I went to college.

Traces of toxic chemicals have been found at a US military camp but there is no evidence yet to support claims that Agent Orange was buried there in 1978, South Korean and American investigators said.

Dangerous levels of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene were detected in underground waters at Camp Caroll near the southeastern city of Daegu, the joint team said in a statement. Trichloroethylene is commonly used as an industrial solvent and tetrachloroethylene is used for dry cleaning of fabrics.

The team has been investigating allegations that large amounts of Agent Orange were dumped and buried at the US logistics base in 1978. The investigators also said they had begun collecting earth samples from 43 different sites at the base, including one where a US veteran said 250 barrels containing the toxic defoliant were buried. The team's findings will be made public near the end of August, they said.

The NYPD has formed a new unit to track troublemakers who announce plans or brag about their crimes on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.

Newly named Assistant Commissioner Kevin O'Connor, one of the department's online and gang gurus, has been put in charge of the new juvenile justice unit. He and his staff will mine social media, looking for info about troublesome house parties, gang showdowns and other potential mayhem, sources said.

The power of social media to empower both criminals and cops has been on full display in London this week, where riots and looting have been spreading dramatically.

The rioters have been using Twitter and BlackBerry messages to choose targets for looting or burning - and to alert one another about police positions.

Young people are being suspended, expelled and charged with criminal offenses for behavior as innocuous as doodling on a desk.

A few months back, 18-year-old Tyell Morton was enjoying his senior year at Rushville High in Indiana. Today, he faces the prospect of being labeled a felon for the rest of his life for a harmless senior prank.

Morton was arrested for putting a blowup doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school. He was caught when video footage showed a man entering the high school in a hooded sweatshirt and leaving a package in the bathroom. Fearing the package might be a bomb, school officials evacuated the premises and called the Indiana State bomb squad. Although no one was injured, no property damaged and no dangerous materials found, Morton, who had not been in any trouble prior to this incident, is being charged with disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor) and institutional criminal mischief (a class C felony), carrying the potential of two to eight years in prison.

Tyell Morton's case has received nationwide media attention and there is even a website called Free Tyrell Morton. Unfortunately, his case is hardly the only one of its kind. The overzealous response to Morton's harmless, albeit immature senior prank, is just the most recent in a long string of over-the-top punishments visited upon American students.

I wrote an article called 5 Places Not To Be When The Dollar Collapses. In it I wrote that societies that benefited the most from the dollar would be the worst places to be when it fell apart. While the dollar has not even collapsed yet, the strain in these areas is becoming more apparent. England is number 3 on the list has had 4 days of violent riots as people start to lose it. Israel is number 1 on that list has had massive protests. There is revolution in the air all over the world except in the US.

America is still in deep denial which is still the first stage of the Awakening. This denial will be wiped away when the dollar collapses. For now the economy is still functioning with food and fuel available. Americans still have the illusion of wealth and normalcy. They still are stuck in the false left right paradigm and think some other sock puppet will turn things around.

When the dollar collapses, all American illusions will collapse with it. Deep denial will turn into deep anger. The violence I expect in the other 3 areas on the list and all urban areas in the US, will make all other global riots pale in comparison. America is deeply infused with arrogance, denial, narcissism, drugs and violence. There is no other society that I know of that has the degree of intensity and combination of these factors.

Des Moines, Iowa -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, clearly irritated by a handful of hecklers amid supporters at the Iowa State Fair, insisted Thursday that "corporations are people," a comment Democrats gleefully predicted would be a defining moment of his campaign.

Hours before he was to face most of his primary opponents in an Iowa debate, the former Massachusetts governor was outlining options for reining in the federal deficit and overhauling entitlement programs. He acknowledged that raising taxes on individuals was an option, but he said he opposed it.

That's when about a dozen hecklers started shouting at him.

Bright idea, poor timing? Or just bad idea?

Pundits are panning leaders of San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system for the actions they took to stifle potential station protests this past Thursday. According to officials, underground cellular service at select BART stations was turned off from around 4 pm to 7 pm that day in an attempt to prevent protest organizers from communicating and organizing via mobile devices.

Although critics contend that the move evokes thoughts of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, when government-mandated cellular disruptions were used to try and prevent Egyptian protesters from organizing in a similar fashion this past January, BART officials maintain that the shutdown was intended to keep its service running and subway riders safe.

A serial killer who buried his victims alive was caught yesterday after one of his captives managed to dig himself out of his grave and call the police.

The victim said he had been lured into the woods by the alleged killer to drink beer with a couple who lived there.

But after a few drinks the trio set upon him, tied his hands behind his back and forced him into a hole in the ground before burying him up to his neck.

Few inhabitants: Csespel island in Hungary, the quiet spot where four bodes were found buried in a large pit.

They stole his possessions and forced him to reveal his pin number.

But when they left, the victim managed to free his hands, claw himself out of the hole and fight off the killer's dog who had been left to guard him.