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Three Minnesota Junior High Students Suspended for Not Standing During Pledge Saturday , May 10, 2008 AP DILWORTH, Minn. — Fourteen-year-old Bishop Edens was suspended from school Friday because he wouldn't stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, but he was quickly invited back once his principal learned that rule might be unconstitutional. The back-and-forth came on the second day of controversy at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High over the school's policy of requiring students to stand — but not necessarily recite — during the pledge. Edens saw three of his classmates get disciplined by Principal Colleen Houglum on Thursday, so he decided...

They invested 24 days and an estimated 98,000 words to complete Tony Dungy's memoir, "Quiet Strength." Jefferson High School teachers read the book to their students from January to March as part of the One Book, One School project. Today, the 1,800 students heard from the Super Bowl-winning coach himself. A goal of Dungy's 2007 book is to motivate people to live productive lives even when facing adversity. Based on the reaction at Jefferson High, it achieved its mission.

Matthew Gonzalez, is one of three teens arrested in Houston for abuse of a corpse after the trio allegedly dug up a grave, detatched the skull and converted it into a bong for smoking Kevin Jones, is one of three teens arrested in Houston for abuse of a corpse after the trio allegedly dug up a grave, detatched the skull and converted it into a bong for smoking. CBS/AP) Three teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a marijuana...

Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday. A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters,...

'Don't speak Spanish…can't get the job?' When San Bernardino High School teens Jazanique Jackson, Ashanae Brown and Kimyen Hawkins decided they wanted to work this summer, they left nothing to chance. They knew the rules: plan ahead; role play; be positive; adapt; relate and encourage. So when they hit the streets to start their summer job search they were prepared for virtually every eventuality except one. ¿No habla ingles? Can't speak Spanish.

On April 25, adult homosexual activists with the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) held their annual “Day of Silence” (DOS) propaganda push. During DOS, teachers and students in roughly three thousand middle schools, high schools and colleges across the country are cynically used as culture war pawns in an effort to legitimize conventionally immoral, objectively deviant and demonstrably high-risk sexual behaviors. Kids and teachers are encouraged on DOS to disrupt the school day by refusing to speak in class as a show of support to students who self-identify as “GLBT” (No, GLBT has nothing to do with bacon,...

Girls aged as young as 12 are having abortions, figures released for the first time by the Department of Health reveal. The figures, obtained by The Sunday Times using freedom of information legislation, show that each year 10 to 15 girls aged 12 have abortions. The government initially refused to disclose the figures by claiming patient confidentiality. The Sunday Times successfully appealed against the refusal and the information commissioner, a government authority which promotes access to public information, ordered the statistics to be disclosed. While some doctors reacted with sadness to the figures, family planning experts said society needed to...

Police want to speak with people who may have been in the area. St. ALBANS -- Police in Kanawha County were investigating Tuesday after a teenager was shot and killed during a hunting trip in a wooded area off Kanawha Street. The victim, identified as 16-year-old Nicholas Caldwell, left his home about 6:30 a.m., according to police. He was supposed to return by noon, but when he failed to show up a family member went searching for him. "A family member went out looking and found the young man deceased in the woods," said Lt. Sean Crosier of the Kanawha...

the scandal girl who had the New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, resigned from his post – is again in the news. It is said that the New Jersey woman has filed a suit on Monday (April 28) against Joe Francis, founder of the ’Girls Gone Wild’. She claimed that Francis had exploited her name, image, photographs and videos for profit in a wrong way. Dupree’s name, images, voice, etc have been posted and written in a number of websites and ad campaigns. More than 10 million dollars is what she has filed the lawsuit for, against the damages done to...

MIAMI (AP) — The call girl linked to former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is suing the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series for more than $10 million. Ashley Alexandra Dupre filed a lawsuit Monday in Miami federal court claiming she never gave "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis permission to use her name and likeness to advertise the videos. Dupre contends she was 17 and not old enough to sign a contract when the videos were taken in 2003 in Miami Beach.

31 of 53 teen girls at FLDS ranch are pregnant or had baby By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer 2 minutes ago More than half the teen girls taken from a polygamist compound in west Texas have children or are pregnant, state officials said Monday. A total of 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 are in state custody after a raid 3 1/2 weeks ago at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. Of those girls, 31 either have children or are pregnant, said Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar. Two are pregnant now, CPS officials have...

Texas child welfare officials say more than half the teen girls swept into state custody from a polygamist sect's ranch have been pregnant. Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar says 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were living on the ranch in Eldorado. Of that group, 31 already have children or are pregnant.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A high school senior collected enough supplies to carry out a bomb attack on his school and detailed the plot in a hate-filled diary that included maps of the building and admiring notations about the Columbine killers, authorities said Sunday. Ryan Schallenberger, 18, was arrested Saturday after his parents called police when 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate was delivered to their home in Chesterfield and they discovered the journal, said the town's police chief, Randall Lear. The teen planned to make several bombs and had all the supplies needed to kill dozens at Chesterfield High School,...

The annual "Day of Silence," sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), will be celebrated in many public schools next week. This event encourages students to remain silent on April 25. GLSEN claims the event counteracts bullying, but it is merely promoting an anti-heterosexual viewpoint. Schools can teach students the value of respect without accepting GLSEN’s propaganda event. Many states, like Florida, for example, have laws that require abstinence-based education when sexuality is discussed. In those states the school cannot recognize the Day of Silence without promoting abstinence. Liberty Counsel is encouraging students to mount a counter-celebration to...

Diane Peterson works as a sales clerk at a Walgreens in Fenton. She was developing pictures last month when she spotted some familiar faces — teenage girls she has known since they were in kindergarten — in an X-rated spring break adventure. "I was appalled by what I saw," Peterson said. It wasn't just the drunken, sexual poses that bothered her. She knew some of their parents. And she knew they didn't have a clue. A recent poll commissioned by the cable network WE, which launched a docu-series called "High School Confidential," found a major communication gap between parents and...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Forget about passing notes in study hall; some teens are now using their cell phones to flirt and send nude pictures of themselves. The instant text, picture and video messages have become part of some teens' courtship behavior, police and school officials said. The messages often spread quickly and sometimes find their way to public Web sites. "I've seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed," said Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio. "You name it, they will do it at their home...

DUBLIN, April 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Girls who become sexually active before age 17 are almost 70 percent more likely to experience a crisis pregnancy in later life and three times more likely to procure abortion in their lifetime than those who wait until they are older, according to a study released by the Irish Crisis Pregnancy Agency. The Irish Study of Sexual Health and Relationships, the largest nationally representative study on sexual knowledge, attitudes and behaviour ever undertaken in Ireland, was published by the Department of Health and the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) today. The research found that 14.9...

The seven Florida teens accused in the "animalistic attack" filmed for YouTube are to be tried as adults, WFTV.com reported Thursday. Mercades Nichols, 17, Brittini Hardcastle, 17, and Britney Mayes, 17, face charges of felonious battery, false imprisonment and kidnapping in connection with the attack. Cara Murphy, 16, Kayla Hassell, 15, April Cooper, 14, Zachary Ashley, 17, and Stephen Schumaker, 18, face charges of felonious battery and false imprisonment.

Genes trigger phobias in kids and teens 21:00 07 April 2008 NewScientist.com news service Jim Giles Our response to the things that scare us, from threatening men on dark streets to hairy spiders in the bath, is programmed to become active at different times in our lives, suggest two studies on the genetics of fear. Scientists already know that fears and phobias are shaped in part by genes. Identical twins, for example, are more likely to develop phobias for the same objects, such as snakes or rats, than non-identical twins. But less is known about when the genes involved act...

Security has been increased at a Simpsonville middle school after a student was arrested and suspended for wearing a T-shirt with a noose and a reference to the Ku Klux Klan. Greenville television station WYFF said some students at Bryson Middle School stayed home Friday, fearing violence after the T-shirt worn by an eighth-grader angered both black and white students the day before. The student lifted another shirt revealing the racist T-shirt in the lunchroom. The student has been charged with disturbing school and recommended for expulsion.

Some Teens Also Believe Mountain Dew Will Stop PregnancyORLANDO, Fla. -- A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state. The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant. State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported. They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said....

Teen Admits She Created Profile and Wrote Messages; Testifies Against Neighborhood Mom In an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America," Ashley Grills, 19, admitted she was part of a scheme to create a fake persona on MySpace and start an online romance with a 13-year-old neighbor, Megan Meier. Ashley Grills discusses her role in a MySpace scheme linked to a girl's suicide. Grills insisted, though, that she was not the only adult involved in the cruel hoax, which eventually led the emotionally vulnerable Meier to commit suicide in October 2006, after her spurious online boyfriend and others began making nasty...

Three out of 10 US public school students do not graduate from high school, and major city school districts only graduate one out of two students, according to a study released Tuesday. In a report on graduation rates around the country, the EPE Research Center and the America Promise Alliance also showed that the high school graduation rate -- finishing 12 grades of school -- in big cities falls to as low as just 34.6 percent in Baltimore, Maryland, and barely over 40 percent for the troubled Ohio cities of Columbus and Cleveland. And it said that black and native...

WASHINGTON (April 1) - Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, issued by America's Promise Alliance, found that about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation's largest cities receive diplomas. Students in suburban and rural public high schools were more likely to graduate than their counterparts in urban public high schools, the researchers said. Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular...

SCOTTSBORO - Jackson County Circuit Judge John Graham today ordered the Scottsboro City Board of Education to allow a gay couple to attend Scottsboro High School's senior-junior prom tonight. Chelsea Overstreet, 17, a junior at the high school, and her date Lauren Martin, 16, a sophomore at the school, were initially told by school officials they could not attend because the school board does not allow students of the same sex to attend the prom together, their lawyer Parker Edmiston of Scottsboro said in a press conference this afternoon. Because there is no state law specific to the issue, Graham...

WAUSAU, Wis. - Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands. But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer. The party was held by a high school student who wanted to show that teens don't always drink alcohol at their parties. It has gained fame on YouTube.com. Dustin Zebro, 18, said he staged the party after friends at D.C. Everest High School got suspended from sports because...

SANTA ROSA - A teenager learned it is not a good idea to try to rob a former U.S. Marine at knifepoint, no matter how old he is. Santa Rosa police Sgt. Steve Bair said an 84-year-old man was walking on Fourth Street with a grocery bag in each arm when the boy approached him with a large knife at about 2 p.m. Wednesday. "Old man, give me your wallet or I'll cut you," the boy said. The man said he was a former Marine who fought in three wars and had been threatened with knives and bayonets before. The...

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) -- Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands. But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer. The party was held by a high school student who wanted to show that teens don't always drink alcohol at their parties.

Teenagers should be given the right to medically assisted suicide and the parents of terminally ill younger children should be able to choose euthanasia under proposals from members of Belgium's coalition government. The plans to extend rules allowing doctors to perform euthanasia on terminally ill people suffering "constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain" comes amid heated Belgian debate on the issue. Under existing Belgian laws, in place since 2002, patients, other than newborn babies, must be over 18 to qualify for assisted suicide, a situation that Bart Tommelein, leader of Belgium Liberals, wants changed. Mr Tommelein, whose party is...

She was captain of her high school cheerleading squad, a nearly straight-A student and a soon-to-be pre-med student at the University of Florida. But now, 18-year-old Stephanie Kuleba is dead, and her friends and family are pointing to breast augmentation surgery as the cause, The Palm Beach Post reported. "She was a role model for a lot of people," her friend Vicky Goldring, 16, told the paper. "She was incredibly smart. She wanted to help people. She was just a happy 18-year-old girl." Kuleba died Saturday of what friends believe were complications from the plastic surgery she had the previous...

INDIANAPOLIS – How can researchers track where teens go when not in or near home or school to see if this movement has an impact on health-related behavior such as smoking or sexual activity" The answer is through that ubiquitous teen accessory – the cell phone. In a paper published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine report on a pilot study which evaluated the feasibility of using global position system -enabled cell phones to track where 14- to 16-year-old girls spent their time. “We didn’t know if the technology...

All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling. Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15. A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy...

A Henry County judge fined a Palos Park teen $2,000 Thursday for driving at least 55 mph over the speed limit in January. Gianna Didiana, 17, was extremely upset when Judge Dana McReynolds imposed the fine, according to Henry County Assistant State's Attorney Lewis Zimmerman. Ms. Didiana also was sentenced to six hours in jail and ordered to perform 240 hours of community service. Mr. Zimmerman said an Illinois State Police trooper was coming off the Geneseo exit onto Interstate 80 eastbound on Jan. 21 when Ms. Didiana drove past the state trooper in a Mercedes Benz at a high...

JUST as Democrat Senator Lyn Allison announces a bipartisan inquiry into the "sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment", news of a 15-year-old schoolgirl being filmed on a mobile performing a sex act on a classmate makes headlines. The footage was circulated among at least 100 other students and, understandably, family, police and the school are dismayed. Some people are using this case to push the argument for banning mobile phones from schools, discussing their misuse and how inappropriate it is to have them in an educational environment. But emphasising this aspect overlooks a much more salient point: what...

Half a century ago this week, a strange ceremony ended. I was among the last 400 girls arriving at Buckingham Palace to make our formal curtseys to the Queen. It was the usual wild March weather, cold winds ruffling our full-skirted silk dresses, our mothers in their furs and our moustached fathers wore top hats as we lined up by the railings, gaped at by waiting crowds kept at a discreet distance as if in an Ealing comedy. The scene had been made poignant by the recent unexpected announcement from the Palace that these would be the last presentations. We...

BOSTON - It was reported last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that one in four teenage girls has an STD. More revelations are coming out now, as it seems that many teenage girls do not have all of the facts about sex and STDs to help them make the right choices. The results of the CDC report stated that just over one in four teenage girls has an STD, with around 50% of black girls having an STD, and 20% of Mexican-American girls, as well as white girls. It is clear that now more than...

Alternatives, a North Side youth agency, recently held three forums for teenagers ages 14 to 19. The series was called "Let's Talk about Sex." And talk, they did. In a co-ed forum, the teens pondered contraception. One well-meaning young man stood and said aluminum foil could be used in lieu of a condom. Other teens offered up myths such as the efficacy of plastic baggies, having sex while standing and bathing right after sex. Adults in attendance informed the students that none of those methods protected against unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control...

Spring break has turned violent and deadly in unrelated incidents on Galveston Island. A 16-year-old girl from Deer Park drowned amid strong winds and currents. Elsewhere, a number of fights capped a concert on East Beach. A dozen were arrested. At spring break destinations everywhere, these scenes are often repeated. Yet psychologist Laurence Abrams says teens are just trying to enjoy themselves and the alcohol, sex and trouble tend to come with that. "They're not trying to hurt themselves. They're trying to have fun. Sometimes they make mistakes, as we all do. I'm not in favor of it. Don't misunderstand...

Ashley Qualls doesn't sound like a typical high school student. Maybe that's because the 17-year-old is the CEO of a million-dollar business. Ashley is the head of whateverlife.com, a website she started when she was just 14 — with eight dollars borrowed from her mother. Now, just three years later, the website grosses more than $1 million a year, providing Ashley and her working class family a sense of security they had never really known. It all started with capitalism 101, the law of supply and demand. Ashley became interested in graphic design just as the online social networking craze...

Elizabeth Alderman, adolescent specialist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, was astounded by a federal report this week showing that two out of five teenage girls who have had sex have experienced at least one sexually transmitted infection. Lorena Granados, a junior at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County, was not the least bit surprised. "A lot of girls fall in love, and it doesn't seem they care about protection," she said yesterday. "It's 'What am I going to enjoy right now?' Or they'll say, 'I know he hasn't been with anybody. . ....

At least one in four teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease, suggests a first-of-its-kind federal study that startled some adolescent-health experts. Some doctors said the numbers might be a reflection of both abstinence-only sex education and teens' own sense of invulnerabilty. Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention. Only about half of the girls in the study acknowledged having sex. Some teens define sex as only intercourse, yet other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some diseases. Among those who admitted having...

According to the AP, a CDC study found that 1 in 4 teen girls, aged 14 to 19, has a sexually transmitted disease. The infection rate among those who have ever had sex was 40%. African American teens had a higher incidence of infection - nearly half of them had at least one STD compared to 20% among whites and hispanics. This news isn't good - especially in light of the fact that black women accounted for 66% of HIV/AIDS diagnoses among women during 2005. This is troubling news to say the least. Despite the widespread availability of condoms -...

Texas teen in Afghanistan becomes 2nd woman soldier since WWII to earn Silver StarBy: FISNIK ABRASHI - Associated Press |Sunday, March 9, 2008 9:14 PM PDT ∞ CAMP SALERNO, Afghanistan -- A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor. Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said. After the explosion, which...

PHOENIX — A Mesa teenager says he fatally shot his father last month because he wouldn't let him use the Internet, police reports show. According to a Mesa police report released Wednesday, 15-year-old Hughstan Schlicker told a homicide detective that he considered committing suicide in front of his father after finding a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition in the garage of their home, but decided to murder his father instead and then commit suicide. Hughstan apparently surprised 49-year-old Ted Schlicker, who was standing in the kitchen when the boy approached him from behind, the police report said.

-snip- "Sin stands for beauty, sin stands for life. Sexual sin is every man's right!! He will exalt the wicked of man: our king the Antichrist!" Self-described Satanist Lord Ahriman, lead singer for the Swedish black-metal band Dark Funeral, is scream-growling at an internal-organ-rattling volume inside Jaxx's concert hall. Thrilled fans, many of them teenagers clad in black, shoot Devil-horn hand signs into the air. A horned, fang-toothed man-beast roars from a massive banner across the stage. Most common T-shirt of the night: "The day you die is the day I smile." Most common adjective: brutal (in a good way)....

The 16-year-olds allegedly hit the victim in the head with hammers and robbed her mobile home. They will be tried as adults. Investigators say Cesar Pulido and Mike Garcia, both 16, crawled through Storma Del' Andrae's window Feb. 11 and used hammers to pummel her in the head.

ALAMEDA, Calif.—Hundreds of students have walked out of their classes in Alameda in a protest over the state's proposed budget cuts. Students from Encinal High School marched off campus and straight to the school district's headquarters. Tuesday night, the district school board voted to cut $200,000 out of sports programs and to increase class sizes on some campuses to save money.

New York (AP) _ A teen who used vulgar slang in an Internet blog to complain about school administrators shouldn't have been punished by the school, her lawyer told a federal appeals court. But a lawyer for the Burlington school told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday that administrators should be allowed to act if such comments are made on the Web. Avery Doninger, 17, claims officials at Lewis S. Mills High School violated her free speech rights when they barred her from serving on the student council because of what she wrote from her home computer....

EMORY - If 16-year-old Erin Caffey wanted to be free of her family, she seems to have received her wish. In the small hours of Saturday morning, her boyfriend, Charlie James Wilkinson, 19, and his friend, Charles Allen Waid, 20, allegedly found Erin's parents sleeping in their bed and shot her mother, 38-year-old Penny Caffey to death and maimed her father, Terry Caffey, 41, who had forbidden Erin to date Wilkinson the night before, according to a sheriff's office report of interviews with the two young men released Monday.

LOS ANGELES — A high school football star described as "a Houdini on the football field" was shot dead on Sunday in random gang violence and his mother was returning from her second tour of duty in Iraq. Jamiel Andre Shaw, 17, was shot multiple times on a sidewalk a few yards from his home after he didn't respond when two men pulled up in a car and asked him, "Where you from?" — code for which gang did he belong to, police said. He was not a gang member. Authorities are calling the shooting a random, unprovoked gang attack....