Free Republic

Drugs were taped to the teens' bodies SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - Three teens were taken into custody in three separate attempts to smuggle the drug fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border, according to federal officials. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the incidents occurred on March 30 and 31 at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. CBP officials stated:l -- On Friday, Mar. 30, at about 7:20 p.m., CBP officers at the San Ysidro Pedestrian East border crossing encountered a 17-year-old male Mexican citizen. A CBP officer conducting inspections at the primary booth noticed some inconsistencies and conducted a visual search...

RUSH: Snerdley brought me a story yesterday. Snerdley does his own show prep, and he finds things that he thinks I would be interested in and brings them in. And he came in with a story yesterday, told me about it, and I just looked at him with my mouth wide open and staring at him in total disbelief. And I said, “What?” He said, “Oh, yeah, it’s happening.” I said, “I don’t know what to make of this. Explain this to me. What exactly is happening?” And he explained it again. And I said, “To heck with this.” But...

Teens are snorting condoms for the latest viral social media challenge, health officials warn. The 'Condom Challenge' involves inhaling an unwrapped condom through one's nostril and pulling it out of the throat through the mouth. The challenge has been around for several years but is reportedly making a comeback on the heels of the Tide Pod Challenge that made headlines earlier this year. Experts warn that snorting condoms not only poses a serious choking risk but could also lead to infection.

The parents of a 12-year-old Mississippi boy say he killed himself last week after being subjected to intense bullying. Andrew Leach of Southaven, Mississippi, was found dead at his family’s home March 6. Leach’s parents believe the sixth-grader had been struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, and killed himself after being bullied by fellow students at Southaven Middle School. “He finally came out with the information at school that he thought he may be bisexual,” Matt Leach told WREG. “I think that really amped up the bullying.” Leach said Southaven Middle School students had threatened his son with...

A charter bus carrying students home to Texas from a high school band trip to Disney World plunged into an Alabama ravine early Tuesday, and numerous children were being carried by helicopters to emergency rooms. According to CBS News affiliate WKRG-TV, one passenger was killed in the crash, and 12 to 20 others sustained injuries. The bus was reportedly carrying at least 52 people. "We have multiple injuries; the bus went down into a ravine," said Chris Elliott, a Baldwin County commissioner who helped out at the county emergency management center following the crash. "The fire department and officers are...

The idea of ingesting a Tide Pod used to be a little bit funny. For example, when The New York Daily News printed a comment from Senator Chuck Schumer under a rudely ageist headline in September 2012. He had recently been informed that 40 children in New York City had eaten Tide Pods and received medical attention for eating Tide Pods in the preceding five months. And he said, mostly unprovoked, “I saw one on my staffer’s desk and I wanted to eat it.” It’s good in print and it’s better out loud. “I saw one on my staffer’s desk...

The young people who have come forward to call for gun control in the wake of the mass shooting at their high school in Parkland, Fla., are challenging the tiresome stereotype of American kids as indolent narcissists whose brains have been addled by smartphones. They offer an inspiring example of thoughtful, eloquent protest. Unfortunately, when it comes to electing lawmakers whose decisions about gun control and other issues affect their lives, these high schoolers lack any real power. This needs to change: The federal voting age in the United States should be lowered from 18 to 16. Skeptics will no...

STOCKTON, Calif. (KCRA) — At least five students were arrested Friday as hundreds of others from several Stockton high schools walked out of classes in protest of gun violence after last week's deadly shooting at a Florida high school. Students at Stagg, Edison, Chavez, Lincoln and Village Oak high schools were walking along streets, creating traffic problems in the area as streets were blocked off. Stockton police said some students threw rocks and damaged both police and citizen vehicles. Five arrests were made, including charges of battery on an officer, resisting arrest, taking an officer's baton and vandalizing vehicles, including...

TALLAHASSEE -- David Hogg, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, isn’t bothered that his appearances speaking for classmates during the past week have drawn naysayers. Hogg and other students have called for better background checks on gun purchases and laws to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses, after 17 students and faculty members died last week in a mass shooting at the Broward County high school.

Two weeks ago, Emma Gonzalez led the life of a typical high school senior. But after speaking out in an 11-minute speech at an anti-gun rally in Fort Lauderdale just two days after a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student fatally shot 17 of her peers, she’s quickly become one of the country’s most visible gun violence prevention activists at just 18 years old.

The fallout from the Parkland school shooting is demonstrating how left-wing activists are willing to exploit vulnerable teens in pursuit of a political agenda. It’s a despicable act. We should be protecting grieving teens from this sort of manipulation, not using them as pawns. But expect to see more, and younger children, too. Part of our culture is willing to make children secondary to adults’ lives, quickly pushing them out of the way to pursue careers or more money; willing to rack up a national debt that is an abomination they will have to pay for — merely to help...

The newest iteration of the gun control debate concerns whether teenage survivors of last week’s shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, should be immune from criticism when they argue for gun control. This is a relatively new question: other school shootings, like Sandy Hook in 2012, have involved children too young to have opinions. But the answer is no: once you enter the political arena, your views are fair game. Democrats have perfected the art of using sympathetic public figures to argue for positions most Americans reject, then accusing critics of mean-spiritedness when they disagree....

Far more U.S. teens than previously thought are transgender or identify themselves using other nontraditional gender terms, with many rejecting the idea that girl and boy are the only options, new research suggests. The study looked at students in ninth and 11th grade and estimated that nearly 3 percent are transgender or gender nonconforming, meaning they don't always self-identify as the sex they were assigned at birth. [Snip] The study is an analysis of a 2016 statewide survey of almost 81,000 Minnesota teens. Nearly 2,200 identified as transgender or gender nonconforming. The study found that these kids reported worse mental...

Teenagers have started eating laundry detergent in the "Tide Pod Challenge." "I cannot believe I'm about to do what I'm gonna do," YouTuber Marc Pagan said before sinking his teeth into a Tide Pod. "I'm just bored, so I'm doing something right now that is completely stupid." "I know I shouldn't do it and I don't want to do it, but I'm doing it," the 19-year-old said. Detergent pods include various toxic ingredients, including ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, and polymers. These toxins clean clothes effectively, but provide the opposite of nutritional value. Indeed, ten deaths have been linked to the ingestion...

The wife of a Baltimore County man who was attacked during a carjacking talks to WJZ about the vicious attack that now has four teens behind bars. Right now, Baltimore County police are looking for two other teens still wanted in connection with the carjacking that left a man seriously injured. Police aren’t saying how they connected the dots, but we now know that a Comcast worker caught the entire incident on video. The victim, identified as 69-year-old Jim Willinghan, is still recovering at Shock Trauma, but his wife says he will be moved to another facility to undergo six...

When teens aren’t busy having illegal Ikea sleepovers or jumping into zebra exhibits at the zoo for love, sometimes they find time to flock to the malls of New Jersey, where they kick doors and run up escalators the wrong way. As NBC-10 reports, between 700 and 1,000 teens created such a disturbance at the Cherry Hill Mall in southern New Jersey the day after Christmas. Fellow shoppers were reportedly frightened as the teens moved around nonsensically, and a few fights even broke out. “Kids [were] running up and down the escalator the wrong way, so they shut them off,...

Police in New Jersey arrested five teens after an estimated 1,000 unaccompanied juveniles descended on Cherry Hill Mall following the Christmas holiday. A witness sent video to Action News that sees the horde of teens ambling about near the food court. Residents and mall-goers in the area warned people to avoid the shopping center after spotting the massive group of minors, prompting widespread attention on the incident — particularly on social media.

A 17-year-old Texas high school student was shot and killed while trying to sell marijuana to two suspects on Christmas Eve, police said. The incident took place shortly after 9pm on Sunday when officers with the Irving Police Department responded to a shooting report in the 200 block of Red River Trail. Arriving at the scene, the cops found 17-year-old Brett Adkins, of Plano, suffering from a single gunshot wound to the left chest.

A teenage girl facing criminal charges after she sent an explicit selfie through Snapchat to a classmate says she is not a criminal. “Sexting is common among teens at my school, and we shouldn’t face charges for doing it. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’m going through,” the 14-year-old girl said in a statement released by the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

If you know a high school student, or you are a high school student, and you haven’t reckoned with how that little device in your hand can wreck your life inside of a minute … it’s time to recognize just how dangerous social media can be. Today’s story, the latest in a long line of terrible ones, comes from Indiana, where a junior at Plainfield High School made the decision on Sept. 28 to post an inappropriate photo on Snapchat, and ended up altering several lives for the worse. Ben Slaton and his family recently talked to the Indianapolis Star...