Free Republic

SALINAS, Calif. - Bullying is taking a new form online, but it's not kids attacking other kids. Now, they're turning on their teachers. What kids are doing is they're pushing their teachers over the edge, secretly recording it on their phone and uploading it to Youtube. It's becoming a teachers' worst nightmare. Students are purposely getting them angry so they can capture it all on camera. You can find a number of "Cyberbaiting" videos students are posting on Youtube. In one of them, a teacher is accused of spitting on a student, another one shows a teacher throwing and smashing...

As a junior in high school, I once locked eyes with the homecoming queen. We just stared directly at each other from 50 feet apart while our classmates bustled around us. She was completely out of my league; completely. It would have been more appropriate for me to turn my eyes away and find someone more fitting for my caste. But I was smitten. And only a bold gaze in that moment would challenge her favor, or finalize my rejection. There are those moments in life. We cannot create them. Planets rarely align themselves. But sometimes they do align. Timing...

An Open Letter to a Discouraged Teenager Dear Ann Landers: Before we know it, fall will be here and a lot of high school graduates who have been having fun swimming, bicycling, sunning and loafing will be out looking for jobs. Some of them will go to 10, 15 or 20 places and get turned down. They will tell you the world is against them and that life is mean and unfair. They will swear they tried their darnedest to find something, walked their feet off and “there just aren’t any jobs out there.” Please, Ann, print this little essay...

(CBS/AP) WALL TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A New Jersey 20-year-old and his teen friend are charged with aggravated assault after a video of them allegedly beating, taunting and stealing from a homeless man surfaced on YouTube. The video - embedded below - purportedly shows Taylor Giresi, 20, punching and kicking a homeless man on what appear to be two separate occasions, as he and the 17-year-old cameraman laugh. The attackers later steal the man's bicycle. "About to go beat up this bum," says a man on the video before the assault, according to the Associated Press. "Just dive on him! Dive...

BOSTON, December 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A front-page story on the Boston Globe’s Sunday edition highlighted the work of a prestigious Massachusetts hospital which blocked and altered the development of one young boy’s body to match his self-identification as a girl. Wyatt Maines, now 14 years old, is the identical twin of brother Jonas - but thanks to powerful hormone blocking drugs, he is now five inches shorter and several pounds lighter than Jonas, sports more feminine features, and goes by the name “Nicole.” “The thought of being a boy makes me cringe,’’ said Maines. “I just couldn’t do it.’’...

News already broke this week that Ricky Martin was going to appear on "Glee" this winter as McKinley High's new Spanish teacher. But now EW has even more exciting news for Latin music fans: A source exclusively tells EW that pop superstar Gloria Estefan is currently in negotiations to play [SPOILER ALERT!!!]... Santana's mother!

MILTON WVA---The Centers for Disease Control has released some startling statistics about teen pregnancy in West Virginia. The number of 15 to 17 year old girls giving birth in the state is up 17 percent. West Virginia is the only state with that kind of spike. Teen mother Julie Akers is raising two children. She was a sophomore in high school when she first got pregnant. She says it wasn't easy to grow up fast and she wants other teens to know about the realities of being a young mom. "It was every day just getting up, making bottles, changing...

A high school football coach in Wyoming has resigned after orchestrating what may be the single least appropriate motivational tactic in recent years, handing his players a "Hurt Feelings Report" in which students were asked to select from various offensive options to describe why they were upset. As first reported by the Buffalo Bulletin, Casper Star-Tribune and The Advocate before being circulated throughout the internet, Buffalo (Wyo.) High football coach Pat Lynch offered up a questionnaire to his players that offered the following possible reasons for their disappointment, as reported by The Advocate (beware in reading the following paragraph: Some...

A local congressman is joining three other openly gay colleagues in a new video message to help teens cope with bullying over their sexual orientation. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, who represents Foxboro,

November 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)  - This week’s episode of Fox Television’s prime-time musical comedy show “Glee� featured two teenage couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, engaging in sex for the first time. Titled “The First Time,� the episode depicted two couples - a young man and woman, Finn and Rachel, and two young men, Kurt and Blaine - each losing their virginity. The development occurs after a fellow student and school play director tells Blaine and Rachel, who are practicing their roles as Tony and Maria for a production of West Side Story, that they won’t be believable as...

As a transplanted Michigander, I’ve always maintained pride in my home state. I’ve only owned American cars. I believed in the Lions even during the really dismal years. I still point to my hand to show people which part of the state I’m from. But the Michigan legislature is doing its best to make me hang my head in shame. On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled state senate passed an anti-bullying bill that manages to protect school bullies instead of those they victimize. It accomplishes this impressive feat by allowing students, teachers, and other school employees to claim that “a sincerely held...

A teenage girl died Tuesday night in a one-vehicle accident in Butler County that state police said involved texting while driving. Alexis Summers, 17, of Saxonburg, was killed when the 2003 Subaru Legacy she was driving hit a tree after 10 p.m. off Hannastown Road in Jefferson. Her vehicle veered to the right berm of the roadway and onto a slight grass embankment, police said. Ms. Summers then apparently overcompensated while steering back onto the road. Her car spun around and hit the tree. She was pronounced dead at the scene by the Butler County deputy coroner.

Prince George's County Police have arrested two juveniles for allegedly making a bomb threat at a Riverdale high school. Police said the threat was called in to Parkdale High School at 10:15 a.m. Thursday. When officers arrived to the school they were approached by two students who said an individual asked where he could find the school principal, and threatened to blow up Parkdale High School if they didn't tell him. Through the course of the investigation, the detectives were able to trace the initial phone call of the bomb threat to one of the students' cell phone, police said....

You can watch the full video at the link, but I'll summarize: Under-age teens have figured out that they can soak Gummi candy (bears, worms, LifeSavers, whatever) in vodka, and then carry the candy into school, sporting events, movies, etc. The knowledge is spreading quickly through social networking like Facebook. Left overnight, the gelatin in the candy can soak up a lot of liquid. Since vodka doesn't have much of an odor, you have to eat the candy or smell it carefully to realize it has been soaked in liquor.

  In Loco Parentis, or Pimp Students Out? David C. Stolinsky Oct. 16, 2011 UCLA officials announce that they are considering coed dorm rooms.− News item In my day, college dormitories were unisex. People of the opposite sex were not allowed above the first floor. When I took out a girl, which is what we called teenage females then, I checked in at the desk, and they phoned her to come down. In those days, we became legal adults at 21, not 18. We were called adolescents, meaning people who were in the process of becoming adults − just...

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- A 17-year-old northwestern Indiana girl charged with handcuffing at knifepoint and sexually assaulting a special needs student has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges and accept a four-year prison sentence. The Valparaiso teenager told a Porter County judge on Tuesday that she confined the boy with handcuffs and threatened him with a knife. The Times of Munster reported that prosecutors are dropping the more serious charge of criminal deviate conduct in exchange for her guilty pleas to criminal confinement and intimidation charges. Authorities said that when the girl was 16 in April she and a 15-year-old...

BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. – A suburban Chicago teen accused of killing his parents plotted with his friends for months before they went into the couple's bedroom, pummeled them with baseball bats as they slept and stole their money, authorities said Tuesday. The couple's son, John Granat, 17, was charged with first-degree murder Sept. 13, two days after his parents, John Granat, 44, and Maria Granat, 42, were found dead, all but unrecognizable, in their Palos Park bedroom. Authorities on Tuesday also charged three of the high school senior's friends in the couple's deaths. "They conspired over the course of months to...

FAYATTEVILLE, Ga. (WAOK) — Three teens in Fayette County have been suspended from school and face battery charges after they allegedly held down a 13-year old girl and tried to pierce her belly button. The incident happened Aug. 26 during lunch period in the courtyard of Fayette County High School. Fayetteville police Detective Mike Whitlow said the 13-year-old had agreed to let her fellow students pierce her navel but had second thoughts when she saw the size of the needle to be used. The others allegedly went ahead with the procedure. Other students saw what has happening and told an...

A Queens party advertised on Facebook and Twitter as "Drama Free" turned into a shooting gallery early Saturday. Eleven young people were shot, including a teenage girl left paralyzed, when a gunman opened fire into the crowd. About 100 people were packed into the backyard of the single-family home on Inwood St. in South Jamaica shortly before 1 a.m., when the shooter sneaked up a back alleyway and opened fire into the yard through a chain link fence. Police said six males ages 15 to 23, and five women, ages 15 to 21, were shot, with bullets hitting them in...

A New Jersey first grade teacher who wrote that she was a "warden for future criminals" on Facebook says she was speaking "out of frustration to their behavior." Jennifer O'Brien defended herself Wednesday at an administration hearing that will determine whether the tenured Paterson teacher should lose her job. O'Brien told an administrative law judge she wrote the post in exasperation because six or seven unruly first-graders kept disrupting her lessons. She said one boy had recently hit her. The teacher posted her remark to 333 friends on March 28. However, it was forwarded and led critics to call her...

And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.(Luke 22:31-32)Everywhere I turn lately I have been seeing brothers and sisters in faith undergoing intense trials in many areas of their lives. Of course we know that the christian life consists of manifold trials, for as the book of Acts tells us, “through many tribulations shall we enter into the Kingdom of heaven” .But recently it seems to me that for...

MANDEVILLE, La. - St. Tammany Parish deputies have arrested three 15-year-olds on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism after they say they thwarted a plan for a possible attack on Lakeshore High school Monday. Deputies said the alleged attack was to include shootings that would have coincided with the start of classes on Monday. Deputies became aware of the plan on July 17th, when school officials notified the Sheriff’s Office of the existence of a group, called “Day Zero,” members of which were all students at the school. Sheriff Strain credited school officials for helping to avert a potentially deadly...

While Colorado’s soft on marijuana laws, were welcomed by adults-first libertarians, so-called unexpected costs are being felt. “The dark side of the issue, however, is the unintended consequences on Colorado’s young people,” reports Our Colorado News. “Since the state legalized marijuana for medical use, treatment centers are treating more teens for marijuana addiction, according to a report from Thomas Crowley, director of the Division of Substance Dependence at the University of Colorado.” The consequences are alarming: “Denver Health Medical Center reports that treatment referrals have tripled, with 83 percent of the teens that smoke marijuana daily saying they obtained it...

It used to be you could get a job as a high school drop out. Or you could hold a job while staying in school. And you could definitely find work over the summer. Not anymore. 34.6 percent of California teens who are looking for work can't find it, according to the Employment Policy Institute. Teen unemployment is equally high in Georgia; followed by Nevada at 34.3 percent; Washington at 33.2 percent; North Carolina at 32.1 percent; Idaho at 31.8 percent; and West Virginia at 30.2%. The District of Columbia is even higher at 49% teen unemployment.

How did we reach the point where the only group whose feelings need to be consulted are minorities? Liberalism. Part of liberalism is the notion that minorities need special help, attention, and heightened sensitivity. Along with that, liberalism promotes white guilt and the peculiar desire to "help people" at any cost. The result is that the media gives credence and coverage to mere feelings when real people are being attacked. Of course, the worse the violence gets, the more sensitive we'll have to be. The flash mobs and mob attacks will require the utmost sensitivity from us, as they are...

United Way in Wisconsin Refers Raped Teens to Planned Parenthood Madison, WI -- The United Way in Wisconsin is coming under fire from pro-life advocates for launching a new campaign to raise awareness about statutory rape that refers teens and young women to the Planned Parenthood abortion business. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/06/28/united-way-in-wisconsin-refers-raped-teens-to-planned-parenthood/

“Teens and SSA” Dr. Joseph Nicolosi

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Two 15-year-old girls who went missing after their foster mother was killed have been apprehended and charged with murdering her, Lincoln County authorities said Thursday...

The suicide of a 17-year-old Hutchinson High School junior in April blindsided many people - from Chris Sullivan's grieving parents and siblings to his church family, wrestling teammates and coaches. The news caused a ripple effect, even jolting those who didn't personally know Chris. Brett Goetz was one of those people. "I didn't know Chris, but it affected my entire family," Goetz said. His younger brother Shane was one of Sullivan's best friends. A recent graduate of Kansas State University, with goals set to one day become a physician's assistant, Goetz decided to do something to help prevent such a...

In an example of the increasingly voyeuristic behavior people are exhibiting on social media web sites, a pair of 15-year-old boys were arrested because of a video one of them allegedly posted on Facebook showing his friend beating another teenager unconscious. The 15-year old victim of the beating did not tell his parents or go to the hospital, police say. Rather, police were alerted to the beating and ultimately made the arrests acting off a tip from a witness who saw the video on Facebook. Police arrested David Wayne Howard Jr. and Anthony Vincent Faiola, both 15. They appeared before...

Call it the pubescent pot problem. New research shows that adults who smoked marijuana before age 15 have significant problems with attention span, impulse control, and "executive function" - the ability to plan and carry out tasks. How about people who took up toking later in life? The same research showed they were much less likely to have such difficulties. For the research, scientists at the Federal University of Sao Paulo in Brazil used a stardard "card sorting" task to evaluate the cognitive ability of 104 long-term cannabis users, including 49 who had started using before age 15. On average,...

It's like a flash mob gone bad. Security footage from a Manhattan Dunkin' Donuts shows a group of youths climbing on counters, throwing chairs and throwing tables in a violent attack on workers. It happened at the Dunkin' Donuts on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. A $2,000 hot chocolate machine was reportedly destroyed in the attack. Similar attacks have targeted other stores in the neighborhood in the previous weeks. The video shows one of the teens throwing a chair and then running up to grab a donut. A few of the attackers also grabbed drinks out of a refrigerator near...

Chelsea Handler: Had an Abortion, "Teen Moms Make me Want to Kill Someone" Hollywood, CA -- Chelsea Handler, the host of the popular late-night television variety show Chelsea Lately, is making waves with recent comments about teen pregnancy, and she has admitted she had an abortion as a teen herself. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/24/chelsea-handler-had-abortion-teen-moms-make-me-want-to-kill-someone/

MYFOXNY.COM - It's like a flash mob gone bad. Security footage from a Manhattan Dunkin' Donuts shows a group of youths climbing on counters, throwing chairs and throwing tables in a violent attack on workers. It happened at the Dunkin' Donuts on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. A $2,000 hot chocolate machine was reportedly destroyed in the attack. Similar attacks have targeted other stores in the neighborhood in the previous weeks. The video shows one of the teens throwing a chair and then running up to grab a donut. A few of the attackers also grabbed drinks out of a...

MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV) - A Memphis elementary teacher and associate pastor faces a statutory rape charge. Ruth Shrader, 50, is accused of having sex with a teenage boy repeatedly over the past two years. According to an affidavit of complaint, Shrader is a close family friend of the boy, and is the assistant pastor at their old church. Shrader is accused of giving him gifts, money, and trips in return for sex - a physical relationship that started when she gave him massages.

By failing to take action against global warming, the federal government has violated its legal obligation to protect the atmosphere as a resource that belongs to everyone, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court last week. Five of the plaintiffs are teenagers, who have a "profound interest in ensuring our climate remains stable enough to ensure their right to a livable future," according to the suit filed May 4, which names a number of federal officials — from Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to Robert Gates of the Defense Department — as defendants. The suit cites...

According to a report posted by Yahoo, it appears that most teens do not know who Osama bin Laden is. Two thirds of people who searched “who is Osama bin Laden” on Sunday turned out to be teenagers: Teens ages 13-17 were seeking more information as they made up 66% of searches for “who is osama bin laden?” More from the Yahoo report: According to Yahoo!, The Top Searched Questions on Osama bin Laden are (based on Sunday, 5/1): Is Osama bin Laden dead? How did Osama bin Laden die? Who killed Osama bin Laden? How old is Osama bin...

Parents who let their kids drink when supervised – because they think it's safer than an outright ban on underage drinking – may want to rethink their approach due to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Co-authored by University of Washington professor Richard Catalano, the study (PDF) found that teens who drank with adult supervision had more drinking-related problems than teens raised with a zero-tolerance attitude. "Kids need parents to be parents and not drinking buddies," Barbara McMorris, the study's lead researcher, said in a statement. McMorris is a senior research associate at the...

Gaby Rodriguez would worry whenever anyone asked to touch her baby bump. It wasn't because she felt shy or embarrassed. It was because the bulge -- fashioned from wire mesh and cotton quilt batting -- didn't actually contain a baby. For the past 61/2 months -- the bulk of her senior year at Toppenish High School -- the 17-year-old A-student faked her own pregnancy. Only a handful of people -- her mother, boyfriend and principal among them -- knew Gaby was pretending to be pregnant for her senior project, a culminating assignment required for graduation. "At times, I just wanted...

What kind of person pays for a Web site that makes abortion seem cool? Who would use the Internet to target teen girls with the message that abortions are “easy,” “common” and no big deal? What sicko would spend money showing underage girls how to secretly get an abortion behind their parents’ backs? That “sicko” would be you. As the Herald reported yesterday, the Patrick administration is using your money to promote abortion. Not merely to educate or inform, but to push the abortion “choice” itself — in particular, abortions without parental knowledge or consent. This taxpayer-funded Web site is...

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A 29-year-old medical marijuana patient accused of sharing his pot with a 15-year-old girl in Missoula has been charged with a felony. Benjamin Levi Bartlett appeared in Justice Court on Friday on a charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs. Bail was set at $25,000, and Bartlett has been ordered to surrender his medical marijuana card. Police say an officer riding his bike along a river trail in July saw the girl hide something beneath a rock, and a search turned up a pipe and a baggie of marijuana. Court records say Bartlett told the officer...

Most people say that a job is good for making money. So, if you don't need money, what's the point? The fabled English aristocratic class of the late 19th and early 20th century apparently thought that way, if the caricatures painted by Jeeves and Wooster, Brideshead, and the like have any truth to them. Their main job was getting dressed and undressed. It seems like young Americans are thinking the same way. Doug French drew my attention to some statistics from the Wall Street Journal on teenage employment that knocked me out. In 2000, slightly more than a third of...

When most women are expecting their fourth child, they don’t decide to start taking in foster children. But that’s what Michele Bachmann did. For six years, from 1992 to 1998, she opened her home to a total of 23 teenage girls who needed a family. She juggled raising up to nine kids at a time, homeschooling her grade-school-age and younger biological children during the day and bonding with her high-school-age foster children at night. It was a demanding life — to get a taste of the workload, consider that Bachmann was often doing four loads of laundry daily – but...

Children including teens (yes even your children and grandchildren) have almost certainly been exposed to pornography. A predator has already approached many. The lure, if not cash, is usually alcohol or some other drug, occasionally cigarettes for the very young. Statistics are spotty as most children, even older teens, whether they take the bait or not, do not tell anyone in authority. Do not help these pigs. There are clear statistics that the earlier a child is exposed to drugs, the higher the likelihood of trouble. The nonsense that it is somehow responsible to show a child how to drink...

Center City Store Brawl Caught On Tape March 24, 2011 9:00 AM PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A brawl involving a number of young people, mostly girls, resulted in several arrests and charges being filed in Center City and the entire incident was caught on tape. Police took a number of unruly teens into custody around 7 p.m. Thursday, March 17, when group of teenage girls started to fight inside the H&M clothing store at 16th and Chestnut Streets. Police and store security were nearby and quickly broke up the feuding teens while onlookers grabbed their cell phones and started recording. A...

NEW ORLEANS – A gunman opened fire on teenagers attending a party in a New Orleans bar and fled, killing an 18-year-old man and wounding four other teens, police said Sunday.

Fewer teens and young adults are having sex, a government survey shows, and theories abound for why they're doing it less. Experts say this generation may be more cautious than their predecessors, more aware of sexually spread diseases. Or perhaps emphasis on abstinence in the past decade has had some influence. Or maybe they're just too busy. "It's not even on my radar," said 17-year-old Abbey King of Hinsdale, Ill., a competitive swimmer who starts her day at 5 a.m. and falls into bed at 10:30 p.m. after swimming, school, weight lifting, running, more swimming, homework and a volunteer gig...

It is the kind of torment that no parent would want their child to endure. Cyberbullying can and does lead to suicide. Special laws have now been passed to try and deal with this relatively new phenomenon, which affects an estimated 50 percent of all teenagers at one time or another. That's because the Internet is now part of our daily routine. But increasingly, online communications cause severe trauma. Take the case of Jessi Slaughter, a young girl whose You Tube video that has gone viral. It shows her crying hysterically, telling her peers to "stop hating." Young people with...

When 16-year-old Luis Cosgaya-Alvarez wanted to get a gun, police say, he didn't have to look far. Cosgaya-Alvarez bought a .40-caliber handgun on the street in downtown Kent from an illegal dealer, court documents say. Less than two weeks later, Cosgaya-Alvarez, a self-proclaimed gang member, fired a single shot from that gun to kill a man he argued with outside a Federal Way school, according to documents used to charge him with murder. The shooting underscored a persistent problem of juveniles using guns in crime: The weapons are simple to get and cheap. They are for sale not just on...

MARATHON — After a lengthy investigation, police say a teenage girl admitted that bite marks on her body came from engaging in "fantasy biting" and not an attack as she had previously claimed. According to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, the 15-year-old girl is a fan of the vampire-based "Twilight" movies and books. After being with a 19-year-old boy at her Marathon home in August, she worried about her mother seeing bruising and bite marks on her neck, arms and back.