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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sought to clarify comments he made in a testy exchange with a reporter on Wednesday, after conservatives pounced on what they portrayed as a serious government shutdown gaffe.

INNEAPOLIS — (MCT) It was always the introduction for Georgiann Steely — the ringing of the doorbell, the approach to the man at the cash register — that made her palms sweat and knees knock. As a grade-schooler, she avoided these moments — ducking her face into her wavy auburn hair and waiting for her mother to escort her into crowded rooms or order her food. And her mother obliged

The head of Barilla pasta says he won’t run advertisements featuring gay couples, citing his belief that children deserve a mother and father: Guido Barilla, whose firm has almost half the Italian pasta market and a quarter of that in the US, told Italy’s La Zanzara radio show last night: “I would never do an advert with a homosexual family…if the gays don’t like it they can go an eat another brand.“For us the concept of the sacred family remains one of the fundamental values of the company.”He added: “Everyone has the right to do what they want without disturbing...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized a contraception mandate that ignores the fact groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor are religious organizations, according to a lawsuit filed to protect them against fines for refusing to comply with an Obamacare mandate. "We cannot violate our vows by participating in the government's program to provide access to abortion-inducingdrugs,” Sister Loraine Marie said of a class-action lawsuit filed against the mandate on behalf of multiple religious organizations that provide health benefits.

1. “I will cost you your dream house.” Couples thinking about starting a family might want to boost their saving goals. The cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 is higher than the price of the average American home: Middle-income parents spend over $241,000 to raise a child, according to a study released last month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. The median price of a home, in contrast, currently stands at $203,500. And statistics show that, unsurprisingly, the more a family earns, the more they spend on their kids. There...

South Sudan Establishes Database On Homeless ChildrenBy Christian EdwardsJuba, South Sudan — September 19, 2013 (SSN) … Ms. Awut Deng, South Sudan Minister of Gender Child, Social welfare and Humanitarian Affairs, has engaged in a countrywide audit aimed at establishing the actual number of street children and orphans for the purpose of national planning. Minister Deng has travelled to the Eastern Equatoria state to assess the situation of the homeless children there. Her visit, she said was to collect views of various civil servants, experts, charity workers on how best the street children could be helped to lead a normal...

Image SourceWorld War II had a huge impact on the daily lives of the people of Britain, but soldiers and grieving widows werenÂ’t the only ones whose lives were irrevocably altered by the war. Young schoolchildren in cities across Britain found themselves evacuated to the relative safety of the countryside, separated from their families and identified by nothing more than a brown paper tag. They learned how to operate gas masks and were schooled huddled together in underground air raid shelters. Understandably, education sometimes took a backseat to simple survival. Read on for a closer look at school life...

Agence France-Presse compiled a package from photographers around the world documenting children going to school. This is a selection of their images giving insight into the lives of students in various countries. -Leanne Burden Seidel ( 37 photos total)

Knowledge is something that takes time to develop, so we need to start teaching the next generation now. In case God forbid, our children are left to fend for themselves or we are injured or even just to make your family more apt to survive, every child must learn these survival skills so they can pull their own weight and contribute as much as they can. If yourfamily learns now to be a well oiled machine, you will be more likely to survive any type of collapse. Grow vegetables from seedsHave local edible and medicinal plant foraging skillsKnowledge of dietary...

KidsChemicalSafety.org provides up-to-date health information on chemical hazards and safe use of chemicals around children, so we asked Dr. Micheal Dourson, of Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), to comment on a recent article, Eng et al. (2013) that found higher levels of bisphenol A were associated with several measures of obesity in children. Specifically, children exposed to higher levels of bisphenol A had increased odds of having a body mass index in the 95th percentile (i.e., greater than 95% of all children) and a waist circumference to height ratio (WC) greater than a value of 0.5. However, several other...

<p>He was born of a mixed race parentage, who graduated from Columbia University, and worked as a community organizer, before being elected president. He has now announced his resignation.</p>

“Well over 1,000 people were murdered; several hundred were children,” said President Barack Obama. “These appalling violations against children must stop and those carrying them out held accountable,” read a report from Save the Children. “The great tragedy of this century; a disgraceful humanitarian calamity,” declared Antonio Gutteres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. How ironic the outpouring of outrage over the mass murder of children at the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime when there is barely a peep about the mass murder of unborn children here in the United States. The killing of several hundred children in Syria’s...

“So, what did you do during your summer break?” If you happen to be a certain 12 year old boy from Pocatello, Idaho, you spent the summer being productive and successfully carrying on an entrepreneurial venture, and then experiencing your state government cracking-down on you for not being licensed and demanding a portion of your revenues. The 12 year old son of Jason Weeks is who we’re talking about. Weeks’ son announced at the beginning of the summer that he wanted to acquire a motorcycle. Weeks had the good sense to tell his son to earn money and purchase one...

Last Friday evening President Obama announced that he would be seeking congressional authorization for a limited strike against Syria. Many experts believe that the President already has the constitutional authority for such an attack. However, President Obama’s case for military action in retaliation for the atrocities of the Assad regime could be strengthened considerably if the President could make his appeal to the American people based on transcendent moral principles. But he can’t. The attempt by President Obama and progressives like Nancy Pelosi to stir up our outrage against Assad for gassing several hundred Syrian children would be more effective...

It used to be that most kids hated early September: those back-to-school ads all over the place and the dreaded specter of another long year sitting in front of Ms. Crabtree or whomever. Most baby boomers like me equated Labor Day with a trip to the dentist. No longer. These days, many urchins actually like school. They look forward to getting up early, hopping on the bus and learning their buns off. How is this possible? I think I know. Simply put, many American children want to get away from their parents, some of whom micromanage every move they make....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: My friends, I am so excited. I have been waiting for this day to be able to tell you something. I have been waiting with bated breath. I have been chomping at the bit. I've almost let it slip out of the bag a couple of times, and now I don't have to worry about it slipping out of the bag because today I can announce it. No, no, no, I did not buy Apple computer, and I didn't make an offer on the New York Times or any of that. This is so cool, and I've...

Another "book" scandal erupted in Vladimir, Russia. Local Ombudsman for Children Gennady Prokhorychev came across children's literature of a very specific nature in a local bookstore. Formally, the book was one of the many "encyclopedias" on the burning topic of sex and where kids come from. There is a need in such literature, of course. However, the age of the audience must be regarded accordingly. After all, what can be told to 13 -15 year-olds may not be suitable for younger children. The creators of the said "Encyclopedia" for the youngest clearly decided to make it generic and talk about...

A three-day remembrance ceremony has got underway in the North Ossetian town of Beslan in southern Russia to commemorate the victims of a bloody hostage raid on a local school nine years ago.At 9:05 am Moscow Time on Sunday, the bell rang in the courtyard of Beslan's school No. 1 to signal the beginning of wreath-laying in the gym where more than 1,200 schoolchildren and teachers had been held hostage by terrorists during the first three days of September 2004. Funeral music will be played in the gym for three days. People from Beslan and other cities will come to...

I have been watching and thoroughly enjoying the Little League Championship games. If I could re-live any of my years, it would be the years my son was playing Little League. Baseball is such a great game to learn sportsmanship, values, and life lessons. That is why it is so sad to see so very few Black children playing in these Little League games. In the 2013 U.S. championship game about to start, California has two Black players and Connecticut doesn't have any. Where are the Black kids in Little League, and why aren't they there? They aren't there because...

"What do we do about our kids?" The group of parents sat together in my office, wiping their eyes. I'm a high school pastor, but for once, they weren't talking about 16-year-olds drinking and partying. Each had a story to tell about a "good Christian" child, raised in their home and in our church, who had walked away from the faith during the college years. These children had come through our church's youth program, gone on short-term mission trips, and served in several different ministries during their teenage years. Now they didn't want anything to do with it anymore. And,...

GARY, Ind. (CBS) – A group of people tried to rob middle school students at a bus stop in Gary. It happened at 24th and Gerry Street. A 14-year-old says a grown woman punched her in the face while she was waiting for the school bus this morning. A group of Lake Ridge Middle School students were near the intersection after 7 a.m. when they say two men and two women got out of a black car and attacked. The motive? Robbery. They came up to us asking us for our lunch money and asked for money and electronics. They...

Jeffrey offers a hypothetical example, basing his calculations on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s online subsidy calculator. A 50-year-old divorcee with three children who earns $47,100 a year would be faced with an annual health insurance premium of $11,140. However, since her household income is only 200 percent of the FPL for a family of four, she would receive a subsidy of $8,172 to keep her insurance cost to 6.3 percent of her income, or $2,967. Our single mom meets a 56-year-old man who makes $63,000 a year and pays an annual premium of $7,041 with no subsidy because his income...

One of the biggest and most divisive debates among parents of young children and preteens deals with the age at which children should be allowed to have their own smartphone. The advent of kid-friendly apps and the ability to watch streaming videos in the palm of your hand have made the decision even more difficult for parents. A recent survey conducted by mobile service provider Zact found that 56 percent of children ages 10 to 13 have a smartphone, while a shockingly high 25 percent of children ages 2 to 5 have a smartphone. But should children so young have...

A few years ago there was a letter a conservative father wrote for his college bound child warning of the liberal influences they would be inundated with. I've searched high and low for this since my daughter just became a college freshman this weekend. If anyone has a copy or link to this letter it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Time – The Overpriced News Brochure ($4.99 for 60 pages) - had an intense erotic experience with the cover story in its August 12th issue, "The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having children." Please note the choice of words – not childless but childfree, like cancer-free, as if children are a life-threatening disease, which is pretty much the way the contraceptive left views them. The organ of elite opinion begins by telling us that today "one in five American women will end their child-bearing years maternity-free, compared to 1 in 10 in the 1970s." In this and...

This was not the headline that the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics gave its recent release of provisional fertility data for 2012. However, if you compare the most recent CDC data with Rosstat data on Russian births you see that, for the first time in a very long time, in 2012 Russia’s birth rate actually exceeded that of the United States. This is, to put it mildly, a significant reversal from the not too distant past when the US had a birth rate that was as much as 75% higher than Russia’s. As you can see,...

Not wanting to go the way of its former print rival, Newsweek, it is no surprise that Time magazine is looking for ways to generate buzz. Thus the provocative current cover story: “The Child Free Life: When Having It All Means Not Having Children." I read the article while on vacation. Vacation with my family—including seven grandchildren, ironic, huh?I immediately remembered reading something Theodore Roosevelt said, directly on point, in a famous speech Not wanting to go the way of its former print rival, Newsweek, it is no surprise that Time magazine is looking for ways to generate buzz. Thus...

These are the "rebels" Obama is sending lethal weapons to. And it's not just him. Doddering old clueless McCain is right there taking photos with kidnappers and terrorists: Disturbing report alleges killings of 450 Kurds in Syria" RT, August 9, 2013 (thanks to The Religion of Peace) Unconfirmed reports have emerged detailing a new massacre in which 450 Kurds - including 120 children - were allegedly slaughtered by al-Qaeda-linked rebels fighting against the Syrian government. The report has sparked international concern. According to Iranian TV channel Al-Alam, militants from the Jabhat al-Nusra Front attacked the town of Tal Abyad on...

The weak economy of the past five years could end up exacerbating a long-term trend toward more one-child families, as the cloud of financial uncertainty causes some parents to fret about the burden of taking on everything from daycare costs to college tuition for more than one child. The percentage of women who reach ages 40 to 44 and have given birth to just one child has risen sharply over the past few decades, from nearly 10 percent in 1976 to nearly 19 percent in 2010, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data available. That age range signals...

Children Used on the Front-line of Islamist Demonstrations This entry was posted on July 30, 2013, in Insight and tagged child abuse, Child Rights International Network, children, children abuse, children's rights, coffins, egypt, egyptian children, human rights, human trafficking, june 30 revolution, morsi, morsi supporters, muslim brotherhood, National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, political unrest, politics, protests, Rabaa Al-Adaweya, UNICEF, white death shrouds. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments Egyptian Children dressed in ‘white death shrouds’ at a pro-Morsi demonstration Shocking footage has emerged of Egyptian children being dressed in white ‘death shrouds’ in preparation for their ‘martyrdom’ by pro-Morsi families...

Ray Blehar earned a mid-life master's degree from Penn State. That gave him a reason to pay closer attention to the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky saga. He also has 28 years of experience as a government analyst. He's written business reviews, evaluated reports and became used to "telling (people) stuff they don't want to hear" as an inspector general. All of that helped drive him on a quest the past two years. Blehar has devoted much of his free time to researching and analyzing documents and reports related to Sandusky and Penn State, including the grand jury presentment, the...

EAST ST. LOUIS — Young people who brought toy guns to the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center Saturday were given educational toys and other positive toys to replace them. Some parents said they didn't realize that buying toy guns for children could lead to a fascination with guns. But, according to the Lion and Lamb project, children learn through play. And violent toys and video games can send violent messages, according to literature from the Toy Gun Buy Back Initiative. "Non-violent toys and games encourage children to build and create rather than to destroy. They stimulate creativity and imaginative play, promote cooperation...

(CNSNews.com) – If food is love, then first lady Michelle Obama says we are “loving ourselves and our kids to death.” In remarks to the National Council of La Raza in New Orleans on Tuesday, Mrs. Obama remarked that healthy eating is first and foremost a “community issue.” “And see, that’s where it gets complicated, because that's where it gets personal and emotional,” she said. “Because the truth is, for so many of us, food is love. I mean, it is no coincidence. Applause for food is love.” “It is no coincidence that the kitchen is the central gathering place...

I understand what you are thinking. If you are watching the political process, you are probably thinking, as a sane person, that Republicans would completely ignore amnesty and focus on what’s important. After all, the country is focused on other trivial news, summer vacations, and the scandals. After August, the main fights will be over funding Obamacare, the budget, and the debt ceiling. So why on earth would Republicans push for amnesty, especially after the Senate bill has been ridiculed and repudiated? Why would they bail out Obama at his weakest moment? Why would they agree to the premise that...

This flitted by on my Twitter feed, and really gave me pause, from the Association of American Law Schools: The AALS Section on Defamation and Privacy invites papers for its program on “Children’s Privacy Rights Against their Parents” for the Annual Meeting, to be held on January 2-5, 2014.Topic Description: Electronic surveillance technology and social media have significantly changed childhood in the Twenty-First Century. The digitization and electronic monitoring of children have altered the parent-child relationship and have significant ramifications for children’s privacy. At the same time, privacy scholars’ discussion of children’s privacy has focused mainly on the privacy of...

<p>A West Palm Beach mom is behind bars after deputies say she left her two children in the parking lot of the Cruzan Ampitheatre while she attended a Lil Wayne concert.</p> <p>Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office deputies Sunday arrested Brittany Harris, 25, of West Palm Beach. She is charged with two counts of child neglect.</p>

If you’re in your late teens and you get shot after assaulting a neighborhood-watch supervisor, and you want someone else to get blamed for your behavior, here are thirteen tips to make you look like an “innocent child” that loves Skittles, doing math and riding horses versus a gangbanger-in-waiting. 1. Don’t have pictures on social media, or on your cell phone, of you holding guns like a gangsta. If you do take pictures with firearms, make certain the weapon is held properly, away from the camera, with your finger off the trigger and it does not give off the I'm-a-criminal-in-training...

California's marijuana advocates need to inhale a breath of fresh air and take a long look at their judgment -- or lack thereof. On Monday, I attended the "International Summit on Cannabis" news conference at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco to hear why Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, supports legalizing marijuana as a means of curbing drug cartel corruption and violence. Also onstage were Oakland medical marijuana biggie Steve DeAngelo, a Washington state lawmaker, a budding marijuana venture capitalist, an attorney -- and Oaksterdam University Executive Chancellor Dale Sky Jones and her 2 1/2-year-old son. What,...

"The Taliban beheaded two boys while President Obama's negotiators carried on a dialogue with the terrorist group," a Middle East event received by the Huntsville Examiner for publication from a BBC correspondent . Until President Obama came on the scene, the U.S. almost always maintained a policy for top level administrators to 'never negotiate with terrorists.' Obama’s push for talks with the Taliban is described as ‘personal political cover’ for his failed personal policy in Afghanistan as violence continues to escalate and talks continue in Qatar. © 2013 Nokia© 2013 Microsoft CorporationPictometry Bird's Eye © 2012 Pictometry International Corp Location:...

<p>Students in at least one school district will be saved from Michelle Obama’s “restrictive” federal school lunch takeover.</p> <p>The federal school lunch guidelines that garnered much discontent among students, school staff and parents, are set to fully go into effect in the fall.</p>

In an issue to go on sale in August, Archie Comics will feature a kiss between two openly-gay characters, Kevin and his boyfriend Devon. The gay kiss (because just like “gay marriage,” it can’t be just a “kiss,” right?) shows how much the 72-year-old Archie Comics company has evolved amid America’s cultural changes. The comic book company showed Riverdale resident Kevin Keller “coming out” as gay in a sold-out 2011 issue of its “Veronica” series. The issue proved to be so popular that Kevin soon acquired his very own title series. With Kevin’s much publicized wedding last winter also selling...

Of all the misconceived nonsense in the recent Windsor v. United States ruling, perhaps the most egregious was Justice Anthony Kennedy’s insinuation that “the children made me do it.” Windsor declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because it defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. Why was DOMA a problem for children? Justice Kennedy said that by denying same-sex couples legitimacy, DOMA “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples.” The Act “makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its...

With the recent Supreme Court decisions all over the news, some Christian parents wonder how they ought to explain all of this to their small children. I've faced the same question as my children have asked, "What is the Supreme Court doing that's keeping you so busy?" So how does one teach the controversy, without exposing one's children to more than they can handle? First of all, you should, I think, talk to your children about this. No matter how you shelter your family, keeping your children from knowing about the contested questions about marriage would take a "Truman Show"-level...

Next week’s cover is a painting of Bert and Ernie cuddling on a couch while watching the nine Supreme Court justices on television. The artwork is titled, “Moment of Joy.” “It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime,” artist Jack Hunter, the artist told The New Yorker. The magazine said Hunter submitted the unsolicited artwork via Tumblr. “This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate,” he told the magazine. In 2011 the Sesame Workshop addressed questions about the sexual orientation of Bert and Ernie in a Facebook posting. “Bert and...

Juba — June 25, 2013 … Republic of Sudan headed by President Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity, has again rejected a proposition made by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N). The plea was for a humanitarian cessation of hostilities to carry out a vaccination campaign. SPLM-N Secretary General Yasir Arman, who leads its negotiating team, demanded again on Sunday to hold talks with the Sudanese government on how to organise a Polio vaccination campaign targeting 150,000 children under five years old in rebel held areas in South...

A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields. Palestinian children in the Gaza and the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, are routinely denied registration of their birth and access to health care, decent schools and clean water, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said. "Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand,...

A Florida school admits that it made several mistakes when it allowed a security company to install iris scanners without telling parents -- and without even having a contract with the company. The eyes have it? Or the eyes were had? (Credit: Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET) There's a quaint concept that seemingly every technology company dismisses as outdated. It's called opting in. Should you not be familiar with it, it's the notion that you ought to choose before, say, all the people in your address book are contacted by a company they've never heard of. And wouldn't it be lovely...

Father’s Day is this Sunday. A time to celebrate fathers throughout America, it is also a time to bring renewed attention to the consequences of fatherless households.

Parents who read their kids stories about happy, human-like animals like Franklin the Turtle or Arthur at bedtime are exposing their kids to racism, materialism, homophobia and patriarchal norms, according to a paper presented at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Most animals portrayed in children’s books, songs and on clothing send a bad message, according to academics Nora Timmerman and Julia Ostertag: That animals only exist for human use, that humans are better than animals, that animals don’t have their own stories to tell, that it’s fine to “demean” them by cooing over their cuteness. Perhaps...