Teen Fights for Right to Pick Cancer Treatment
Added 7-11-06
Abraham Cherrix, 16, went through chemotherapy for Hodgkin's disease that left him so weak that his father carried the 6-foot-1 youth from the car to the house. Doctors tell him he needs a second round of chemo to get rid of the cancer that reappeared in February. Abraham says no, and his parents are backing him up. Click for More

Rochester NY Youth curfew delayed
Added 6-28-06
The city's youth curfew proposal will not be ready by Saturday as planned and might not launch until August or later, officials said. Mayor Robert Duffy — who this spring endorsed an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew during June, July and August — said he plans to huddle with top administrators this week, then meet with City Council President Lois Giess. Click for More

Jackson MS mayor wants 8pm curfew during "emergency"
Added 6-25-06
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton said he will declare a state of emergency today, giving the Police Department broad latitude to bring crime under control in the capital. Included in the mayor's plan would be earlier curfews for minors. "I'm sorry that it's come to this," Melton said Wednesday. Click for More

The Fine Art of Letting Go
Added 5-19-06
Imagine tears, lots of tears. Imagine a trail of tears trickling across upstate New York. Judie Comerford and her husband, Michael, are in their minivan on a highway somewhere between Potsdam and their home in Buffalo. Click for More

Boy turns in knife but may still be expelled
Added 5-10-06
A Far-Eastside couple say they are stunned that a Warren Township Schools principal suspended their son and recommended his expulsion for possession of a pocketknife even though he turned the knife in to the office as soon as he arrived at school. After turning in the knife, the eighth-grader was suspended from Stonybrook Middle School for 10 days and may be expelled. Click for More

14 year-old protest organizer commits suicide after threats from school faculty
Added 4-9-06
Louise Corales, whose 14 year-old son, Anthony Soltero, died on April 1 after committing suicide, will speak to the community and ask for a prayer for her son this Sunday, following the 11:00 a.m. mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Ontario, California. Click for More

Police Investigate Response to 911 Call
Added 4-8-06
A 5-year-old boy called 911 to report that his mother had collapsed in their apartment, but an operator told him he should not be playing on the phone, and she died before help arrived. Click for More

Schools must inform students of NCLB rights
Added 4-6-06
The nation's top education official warned Wednesday that states may lose federal money if they fail to inform parents about their children's rights to free tutoring or to transfer out of struggling schools. U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told an audience the agency will investigate how well states are promoting participation in such programs, offered under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Click for More

Student reporters lose to censorship
Added 2-23-06
On Tuesday, more than five years after a university dean stopped the presses because she was not allowed to vet articles before publication, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider whether a student newspaper was illegally censored. The justices’ action leaves intact the 2005 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decision in Hosty v. Carter, which said that student papers that are subsidized by their universities can be regulated just like high school papers. Click for More

NAACP Want Fla. Juvenile Boot Camps Closed
Added 2-16-06
The NAACP and black legislators demanded Tuesday that the state immediately close its boot camps for juvenile delinquents after a 14-year-old boy died hours after entering one of the facilities. A videotape that some state lawmakers have said shows guards beating Martin Lee Anderson has yet to be made public. The Miami Herald and CNN sued the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Monday to obtain its release. Click for More

Illinois Legislator: Raise driving age
Added 1-23-06
A new bill to raise the minimum driving age to 18 in Illinois is getting a chilly reception in the corridors of Springfield and the hallways of Chicago-area high schools. The proposal's biggest enemies might not be teenagers but their parents, whose busy households demand that teens drive themselves to after-school jobs and activities. Click for More

Raise the Voting Age to 43
Added 1-20-06
There's an article titled "Stop him before he votes" in the Jan. 16 issue of Maclean's that posits that there is a growing body of evidence suggesting today's 18-year-olds are too immature to vote. The authors, Nicholas Kohler and Colin Campbell, point out that one million new 18-year-old voters became eligible to vote in the summer of 2004 election and most didn't. Click for More

Military drinking age battle in New Hampshire
Added 1-12-06
Two Portsmouth state representatives faced off Tuesday during House committee hearings on a bill that would lower the drinking age for people in the military. Bill sponsor Jim Splaine testified on behalf of the legislation before the House Judiciary Committee, while Teri Norelli voiced her opposition to it. Click for More

Tobacco-buying age will rise to 19 after Assembly approval of measure
Added 1-11-06
Despite an argument that 18-year-olds are mature enough to make their own decisions about smoking, the Assembly yesterday passed legislation that would raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 19. Click for More

Student Suspended for Speaking Spanish
Added 12-13-05
Zach Rubio, a high school student at the Endeavor Alternative School in Kansas City, Kansas, was suspended for speaking Spanish in the hallway. Rubio is both fluent in English and Spanish. He used Spanish when replying to another student's question that was communicated in Spanish.. Click for More

Judge Finds Right Not To Have Parents Told You're Gay
Added 12-8-05
In a case involving a California high school girl who was openly gay at school, a federal judge has ruled that the girl, Charlene Nguon, may proceed with a lawsuit charging that her privacy rights were violated when the principal called her mother and disclosed that she is gay. Click for More

Shopkeeper Drives Away Teens Like a Garden Pest
Added 12-7-05
A shop manager's annoyance over problem teenagers hanging around his store is being tackled head on with a noise nuisance device. The Mosquito, which sends out high-pitched soundwaves, is persuading gangs to move on. Robert Gough, who runs the Spar shop in Barry, says the new nine-inch box is a success. Click for More

Camera in School Bathroom
Added 12-5-05
A Jasper County mother says her 8th grade son found a video camera taping in the school bathroom this week. But now, he is the one in trouble. Cindy Champion says her son, Mac Bedor, and a few of his friends took the camera out of the ceiling because they felt it violated their privacy.. Click for More

Student Suspended for Hair
Added 12-2-05
Darriann Waters will get to go back to school today, provided she finds a way to cover up those cherry red streaks running through her hair. School administrators on Wednesday backed off on a decision to keep the eighth-grader out of Asheville Middle School until she got her hair back to a more natural color. Click for More

Kids not so suicidal after all
Added 12-1-05
Teen suicide is more than a personal tragedy; it's a powerful reminder of adults' own fear of the future. Ninety years ago, commentators led by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman and Literary Digest's editors variously blamed the "appalling rate of child suicide" on salacious media, Prohibition, women's suffrage, harsh schooling, success anxiety and loss of innocence. Click for More

Lawmaker: Lower Drinking Age For Troops
Added 11-29-05
A New Hampshire lawmaker wants to lower the drinking age for troops. Portsmouth Democrat James Splaine said that his bill would give youth over 18 in the military access to liquor. The bill would let them use their military identification card to buy alcohol. Click for More

Paterson curfew idea flies with voters
Added 11-28-05
Latoya Crawford, 18, is serious when she says she likes the idea of a curfew. She says 9 o'clock would be a good curfew - on weekdays. "There's too many people over here getting killed," she said Wednesday, referring to the city's street violence, often spurred by drug dealing and gangs. Click for More

Sony PlayStation to Get Parental Controls
Added 11-27-05
Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE) has become the latest of the video game console makers to announce parental controls in it newest machine, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Now, all three major console makers are promising parents the means to help restrict their children's access to violent video games. Click for More

Paterson voters to decide on curfew; not all happy with idea
Added 11-25-05
Voters will have the opportunity to decide Tuesday whether they want the city to enact a curfew for youth that will regulate when and where they can congregate in the streets. The ordinance, if voters agree to it, would also make parents more accountable for the whereabouts of their children. Click for More

Youth Found Competent to Make Medical Decisions
Added 11-23-05
Samantha Weber knows what she's missing. She is 13. Her friends are starting to talk about boys, about school, to worry about the future. "I'm supposed to be there," she says. Instead, she is at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Click for More

At Some Youth ‘Treatment’ Facilities, ‘Tough Love’ Takes Brutal Forms
Added 11-22-05
If this was therapy, it sure didn’t feel like it. From September to January, Claire Kent spent her days digging up tree stumps from a barren field, her mind and body battered by the elements. The work was part of her "treatment" for the drinking and sex that had landed her at a boarding school for "troubled teens." Click for More

Young Voters Led Surge in 2004 Election
Added 11-17-05
Turns out, the kids rocked after all. Nearly half of all eligible young voters cast ballots in the November 2004 election, raising their turnout rate by more than twice any other age group."This is big," said David King, associate director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University who highlighted the Census Bureau findings in an IOP report Wednesday. Click for More

Oddo Threaten Stores Who Sell Eggs to Minors
Added 10-28-05
Staten Island leaders yesterday laid down a hard-boiled dictum to merchants: Don't sell eggs to minors before Halloween. "There will be hell to pay" for Island store owners who sell eggs or shaving cream to teen-agers bent on destructive tricks this weekend, said City Councilman James Oddo, who, along with Borough President James Molinaro and District Attorney Daniel Donovan, helped kick off this year's Operation Cooperation program. Click for More

Study Refutes Soft Drinks' Impact on Kids' Obesity
Added 10-24-05
Contradicting widely held views, a new study has found that consumption of carbonated soft drinks from school vending machines has a negligible impact on adolescent weight problems. Given that, the data does not support a policy of banning or restricting sales of soft drinks in schools, the authors concluded. Click for More

Calif. School to Test Teens for Drinking
Added 10-11-05
Students who attend homecoming dances on Saturday will be doing some heavy breathing — into Breathalyzers. At Santa Barbara High School, officials will screen every third or fourth student who arrives and anyone who appears drunk, said Principal Paul Turnbull. Dos Pueblos High School administrators will use the Breathalyzer only if they suspect a problem, said Principal Quentin Panek. Click for More

Strict NC Curfew Survives Vote
Added 10-7-05
Knightdale leaders met Monday night to discuss changing the town's teen curfew by pushing back weekend hours and possibly changing the age limit, but the latest findings presented to them did not change their minds. On June 1, the Wake County town imposed the curfew to help curb graffiti and gang activity. Since then, town leaders say they have seen some positive changes. Click for More

MADD enters 25th year with change on its mind
Added 10-5-05
It's not that people oppose parents or support drunken drivers. But Mothers Against Drunk Driving didn't achieve the kind of success it will announce today without making a few enemies and attracting critics along the way. Click for More

Differing Views: Should the Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered?
Added 9-15-05
A classic debate topic among teens is whether they should have a right to drink when they become legal adults at the age of 18. In 1984, a law was passed that tied federal funding to having the drinking age be 21. Click for More

Judge: School Pledge Is Unconstitutional
Added 9-14-05
A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday in a case brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words "under God" was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds. Click for More

Eleven Children Found Caged in Ohio Home
Added 9-13-05
Sheriff's deputies removed 11 children from a home where they were locked in cages less than 3 1/2 feet high, authorities said. The children's adoptive and foster parents, Mike and Sharen Gravelle, denied that they'd abused or neglected the children during a custody hearing Monday in Huron County. No charges had been filed as of Monday night. "The impression that we got was that they felt it was OK," Click for More

New Mike Males Interview
Added 8-30-05
“American adults are more fearful of their kids than adults in other societies, more hostile toward younger people, and more willing to abandon them and punish them for social problems than adults in other Western countries.” Why? Click for More

Let's Have a Student Uprising
Added 8-26-05
The thing that most distinguishes schools of the future from schools of today is the way a system is organized. Today's default system is so ingrained in our national psyche that most people are not even aware of the group of almost religious assumptions upon which it is based. Click for More

How Bingeing Became the New College Sport
Added 8-23-05
In the coming weeks, millions of students will begin their fall semester of college, with all the attendant rituals of campus life: freshman orientation, registering for classes, rushing by fraternities and sororities and, in a more recent nocturnal college tradition, "pregaming" in their rooms. Pregaming is probably unfamiliar to people who went to college before the 1990s. Click for More

Violence Sparks Creative Thinking on Curfew
Added 8-22-05
After 19 shootings in one week, Long Beach officials put some bite into their curfew law by opening up a center last month to detain youths found by police in public places between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Since July 25, instead of being taken to the police station downtown, minors loitering on the streets have been placed by police into patrol cars or a van driven by two officers designated for picking up curfew violators. Click for More

A Business Built on the Troubles of Teenagers
Added 8-17-05
Mary Ann Davies has spent more than $100,000 in the last year to send her 16-year-old daughter to one private counseling and educational program after another. She has just signed up to go further into debt, committing herself to spend another $100,000 over the next two years for a boarding school in New York that she hopes will help her daughter overcome a drug problem. Click for More

Colo. bans young drivers' cell phones
Added 8-16-05
Beginning Monday, Colorado is banning young drivers from talking on cellular phones while they're behind the wheel - a small step more states are taking in hopes of promoting safety without upsetting voters who can't live without the convenience. Click for More

NYC’s Godzilla: Youth Suffrage Activists
Added 7-27-05
Men won it in 1870. Women in 1920. Now, in 2005, the torch of suffrage has been rekindled by a new generation of activists: Teenagers want to vote. Children’s PressLine, a New York City-based news service operated by young reporters and editors, is in a unique situation to cover the issue. In early June, Councilmember Gale Brewer, of Manhattan, introduced a bill that would allow the city's more than 200,000 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in local elections. Click for More

A push mounts to lower the voting age
Added 7-21-05
Raphael Pope-Sussman did not vote on Nov. 2. But last summer, the Brooklyn teenager sat in a New York office, calling Ohio voters to remind them to go to the polls. Others like him stood on street corners, pens and clipboards in hand, soliciting new voters. At age 17, Pope-Sussman was too young to cast his ballot. Now he is supporting the campaign to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. Click for More

Holyoke Mall enacts escort rule for teens
Added 7-18-05
Sarah Dominique expects her Saturday nights working at the mall to get much easier.Sitting at a Digital Connection kiosk where she sells cell phones across from the Godiva and Track 'n Trail stores, she says she's been showered with spit and pelted with random objects that come hurtling from the mall's second-floor walkway that passes about 20 feet above her head. Click for More

Is the drinking age worth the wait?
Added 7-17-05
If the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was a person, it would likely be headed out to a local bar tonight to celebrate. Today is the 21st birthday of the law enacted by President Ronald Reagan that tied the drinking age to federal transportation dollars. States that didn’t set their minimum purchase age at 21 lost their federal road money. Click for More

Berkeley Teens Seek Ballot Measure to Win Right to Vote
Added 7-15-05
Berkeley High sophomore Rio Bauce, 15, has assigned himself a daunting task: winning the right for 17-year-olds in the city to vote in school board elections. On Tuesday, Bauce and four fellow Berkeley members of the National Youth Rights Association announced they were starting a ballot drive to lower the voting age for school board. Click for More

Teens Rally to Promote Proposal for Youth Vote
Added 7-14-05
Brandishing signs declaring that "Students Know Schools" and “Honk For 17-year-old Vote,” local teenagers rallied at the Downtown Berkeley BART station Tuesday in support of extending voting rights to 17-year-old Berkeley residents. Click for More

Keeping teen drivers safe begins at home
Added 6-3-05
An average of 10 teenagers die every day in teen-driven vehicles in the USA, making automobiles the most perilous threat to a teen's world. As part of USA TODAY's continuing look at the root causes of teen deaths on the roads, the newspaper this week gathered a panel of experts and others close to the issue. Click for More

Black boxes for cars slow to catch on
Added 6-3-05
A growing number of highway safety advocates are calling for the use of high-tech "black boxes" in cars — $280 devices that can show parents a young driver's every move — at a time when roughly 10 teens die every day in the USA in crashes involving teen drivers. Click for More

Vidor students petition to stop drug-testing plan
Added 5-31-05
Students Ashley and Brittany Graham tried to circulate a petition against drug testing at Vidor High School this week, but were stopped by administrators, they said. The 15-year-old freshmen -- twin daughters of Charles Graham, a one-man army against random testing in Vidor schools -- plan to give the petition to the school board at its next meeting. Click for More

Nairobi Looks to Lower Age to Run for President
Added 5-19-05
A Cabinet minister yesterday sought amendment of electoral laws to allow the youth contest the Presidency. Gender, Sports and Youth minister Ochillo Ayacko said it was a violation of the youth's rights to allow them vote at 18 years and deny them a chance to stand for president until they are 35-years- old. Click for More

Bill Would Lower Drinking Age to 19 for Soldiers in Wisconsin
Added 5-18-05
Madison: PFC Jake Covill is a 20-year-old Army Reservist. Like most soldiers, he views his unit like family. "Age is not a factor. Everybody is equal." Age is only a factor when Jake can't follow his unit to the bar. "After you're done drilling a lot of guys go to the bar to get a drink and they'd love to have you, but I can't be there. I'm not of age." Click for More

Berkeley teens take vote fight to council
Added 5-5-05
A group of Berkeley High students working to find a state lawmaker to champion lowering California's voting age to 16 is taking its cause to the Berkeley City Council for help. The campaign to lower the voting age was launched early last year by Berkeley High School's chapter of the Washington, D.C.-based National Youth Rights Association, which says teens should have a say in policies that affect their lives. Click for More

Demands to lower voting age to 16 in UK
Added 5-4-05
Campaigners have demanded a pre-election pledge from the three main parties to lower the voting age to 16 by the next general election. The coalition, including the National Union of Students and the Electoral Reform Society, said it would "invigorate" the youth vote. Click for More

Tarentum police enforce curfews
Added 4-25-05
A recent act of vandalism prompted Tarentum police to be more vigilant in enforcing a curfew law that's been on the books since 1981. Several other Valley communities, including Ford City, Bell Township, and Verona also have curfew laws that are enforced, but police chiefs from three of the Valley's most densely populated communities, Arnold, Harrison, and New Kensington said they either don't have or don't enforce curfew laws. Click for More

Vermont Considers Lowering Drinking Age to 18
Added 4-14-05
Last fall, Richard C. Marron, a Republican state representative, was reading a newspaper column by the recently retired president of Middlebury College, John M. McCardell Jr. One of Mr. McCardell's targets was the drinking age, which in Vermont, and every other state, is 21. "The 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law," Mr. McCardell wrote. Click for More

Teens lobby for lower voting age
Added 4-13-05
A few politically passionate teenagers made their case Friday for lowering the state's voting age to 16. "Our country is founded on the concept of no taxation without representation," 17-year-old Heather Kelley told the House Government Operations and Accountability Committee. "Eighty percent of teens work, yet we have no say on how those taxes are being spent." Click for More

Drinking debate mulls rights vs. risks
Added 4-12-05
A House bill that would lower the drinking age to 18 has little political momentum and almost no chance of becoming law, but it has reignited the decades-old debate over selective prohibition. Click for More

Students strike in Israel, protesting lack of voice in school reform plan
Added 3-3-05
Twenty percent of middle school and high school students, some 120,000 pupils, did not show up for school Tuesday after a group of students initiated a strike in protest of planned reforms in the education system. The group used the Internet and SMS text messages to spread word of the strike. Click for More

Vermont Lawmakers back drinking at 18
Added 2-10-05
By the time he was 19, Rep. Norm McAllister, R-Highgate, had graduated from college, wed and started basic training for the Vietnam War in Leonard Wood, Mo. “But in my home state,” McAllister, a Vermont native, said last week, “I was not old enough to consume an alcoholic beverage. I couldn’t make sense of it then, and I still can’t.” Click for More

Vermont Considers Lowering Drinking Age
Added 1-26-05
If they're old enough to vote and old enough to serve in the military, 18-year-olds ought to be able to buy a cold beer, a lawmaker believes. Rep. Richard Marron, R-Stowe, is circulating a bill that would lower the drinking age from 21, a proposal he thinks makes common sense. "It's totally illogical to me," Marron said Tuesday as he sought supporters for his proposal among his Republican colleagues. Click for More

County-wide campaign aims to curb underage drinking
Added 1-1-05
At 3:30 a.m. on a Sunday in mid-November, police were called to the report of a party involving underage drinking in Gaithersburg's Quail Valley neighborhood. A listing on the police blotter put the outcome succinctly: "Nine people in attendance, eight adult alcohol citations were issued." Click for More

Student who objected to Pledge of Allegiance gives his reasons
Added 1-1-05
The parents of a 12-year-old who sparked a likely change to Spotsylvania County's Pledge of Allegiance policy describe him as a "civil rights case waiting to happen." The seventh-grader has tried to hand out brochures in school protesting the treatment of animals at circuses. Click for More

'Tough Love' Schools Closed Due To Abuse Reports
Added 12-16-04
Two so-called "tough love" schools south of the border are the latest to be shut down after reports of abuse, 10News reported. Mexican police sent 17 students of the Abundant Life Academy in Chapala and 57 students of the La Mission School back to the United States Thursday morning. Click for More

Eavesdropping against law even for parent, court says
Added 12-14-04
In a case of snooping parents vs. their children, a mother's eavesdropping on a telephone conversation between the woman's daughter and her daughter's boyfriend violated the children's privacy, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday. Click for More

Girl, 10, cuffed for scissors in school
Added 12-14-04
A 10-year-old girl was placed in handcuffs and taken to a police station because she took a pair of scissors to her elementary school. School district officials said the fourth-grade student did not threaten anyone with the 8-inch shears, but violated a rule that considers scissors to be potential weapons. Click for More

Suffolk, NY to raise smoke age to 19
Added 12-2-04
Suffolk lawmakers yesterday took one step closer to making the county the first in the state to raise the minimum age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 19. The seven members of the Suffolk legislature's health committee voted unanimously to approve the measure. Click for More

Israel to Lower Age
Added 11-26-04
The Knesset has approved the first reading of a Child Welfare Council bill enabling 17-year-olds to be voting members of non-profit associations. MK Gila Finkelstein (NRP), head of the children's welfare lobby, sponsored the bill. It also states that the membership and vote of the 17-year-olds need not be approved by their guardians. Click for More

Age limit comes under protest
Added 11-17-04
Lower Makefield - Nine-year-old Jessica Hook felt left out this Election Day. So she grabbed some of her friends, made some signs reading "We Deserve to Vote" and held a small protest outside her neighborhood polling place. "We thought this would be the best way to get our message across," she said. "We want to vote, too. We know about the issues." Click for More

Daytime Curfew Passed in Battle Creek
Added 11-11-04
Opponents of a daytime curfew ordinance packed the City Commission chambers again Tuesday. Despite heavy opposition, commissioners voted 7-1 in favor of approving the ordinance, which will take effect Oct. 15. Commissioner Peter Bilbia voted against the ordinance and Mayor John Godfrey was absent. Click for More

State Seeks Some Children's Removal From City Juvenile Justice Center
Added 11-9-04
The state public defender's office has filed a motion seeking the removal of 67 children from the state-run Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center. Prosecutors, representatives from Juvenile Services, public defenders and others met Thursday to discuss conditions at the center, but the meeting failed to resolve the complaints, officials said. Click for More

Parents Fight Nevada Dress Code
Added 11-9-04
A Clark County School District parent launched a Web site Wednesday aimed at gathering public input on the controversial dress code policies being carried out at some campuses. Maribeth Lewis of Henderson said she was motivated to create the Internet site after attending the Sept. 9 meeting of the Clark County School Board. Click for More

KU student group taps into lower drinking age debate
Added 11-5-04
If it works for the Irish, it ought to be OK for Americans. While traveling with his family this summer in Ireland, Kansas University sophomore Jared Loehr found he was able to drink beer despite being younger than 21. The experience reinforced an idea he was already working on: Why not lower the drinking age in Kansas? Click for More

Right age for war, too young for hotel room
Added 10-23-04
When Army Pfc. Tom Zinn heard his fellow reservists complain that they were old enough to fight but not old enough to drink, it never bothered him because he doesn't drink. But when the 20-year-old Zeeland resident, who expects to be deployed to Iraq at any moment, wasn't able to get a hotel room in August because he was not 21, he got mad. Click for More

School Board May Censor Books, Hand Out Bibles
Added 10-13-04
Margaret Young, vice chairman of the Charles County Board of Education, believes her school system's required reading lists are filled with "profanity and pornography, fornication and adultery." "I think parents would be appalled if they really read the books their kids were reading that were so filled with profanity and pornography," she told The Washington Post. "I rely on the school system to provide good wholesome reading for my children." Click for More

Swearing Student Faces Jail Time
Added 10-12-04
A North Carolina teenager may have to go to jail for using foul language with a high school teacher. Glenn Gattis and his parents don't deny that he cursed or has had other disciplinary problems at Ashley High School in Wilmington. But they said the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct is an overreaction.. Click for More

Virginia Beach police crack down on curfew violators
Added 9-21-04
Police are cracking down on curfew violators after residents complained that too many underage children were roaming the streets in the early-morning hours. Such sweeps are nothing new to the city, but officers in the 3rd Precinct are increasingly picking up children for not obeying curfew, a misdemeanor that can come with a summons to appear in juvenile court. City law requires that people under 18 be indoors between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Click for More

Texas cupcake ban crumbles
Added 9-1-04
Succumbing to complaints, state officials have relaxed their ban on sugary treats enough to allow birthday cakes and cupcakes back into elementary school classrooms. Texas Department of Agriculture spokesman Allen Spelce said Tuesday that officials rescinded the ban on birthday baked goods last week after concluding such treats are a time-honored tradition. Click for More

Teens battle mouse in pizza fight; Company's age policy angers under-18 set
Added 8-29-04
A group of local teenagers is taking on the biggest mouse in the pizza business. Led by JR Brown, 17, of Fort Gratiot, about 10 teens are mounting an e-mail campaign to get Chuck E. Cheese's to lower its age requirements. On Friday, JR and a friend were unable to enter Chuck E. Cheese's at Birchwood Mall because they were not 18 and were not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Click for More

Goose Creek Gestopo Gets Off
Added 7-8-04
S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster said Friday that while police officers created a "dangerous tinderbox situation" when they rushed into the hallway of Berkeley County's largest high school Nov. 5 with guns drawn, such tactics were not illegal. Click for More

The House of Lords Restrains the Hand That Hits the Child
Added 7-5-04
The House of Lords - the upper house of Parliament - resolved Monday to limit, but not forbid, the right of parents to punish their children by slapping or spanking them, changing a 144-year-old law that gave parents the right to hit children as "reasonable chastisement" for misbehavior. Click for More

Republican Senate Candidate Urges Lower Drinking Age
Added 6-24-04
Colorado Republican Senate hopeful Pete Coors yesterday criticized the legal drinking age, chiding the federal government for coercing states into raising the age limit from 18 to 21. "We got along fine for years with the 18-year-old drinking age," the former CEO of the Coors Brewing Co. told an audience of about 200 people at a candidates' debate here. "We're criminalizing our young people." Click for More

School District Bans Pink Clothing
Added 6-23-04
Officials have banned pink clothing for the remainder of the school year out of concerns that the color has become associated with gang activity. "There is no evidence of gang activity. But because of the growing use of the color pink we decided to be proactive. Girls and boys are supposed to avoid wearing pink," Berta said Monday. Click for More

Father takes son off ritalin; charged with child Abuse
Added 6-8-04
When Chad Taylor noticed his son was apparently experiencing serious side effects from Ritalin prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he decided to take the boy off the medication. Now, he says he may be accused of child abuse. Click for More

Montgomery, AL gets daytime curfew
Added 6-3-04
Montgomery schoolchildren can't play hooky anymore. At least that's what the city's legal books will say. The City Council majority on Tuesday afternoon approved a curfew to put more teeth into one dating back to 1964 that officials say is so vague police aren't enforcing it. Click for More

Justices side with law enforcement in interrogation of juveniles
Added 6-1-04
The Supreme Court clashed Tuesday over whether police must take extra care when questioning young people about crimes, narrowly siding with officers in their interrogation of a 17-year-old murder suspect in California. Click for More

Cal City to amend curfew law
Added 5-27-04
Anyone younger than 17 still will have to be off the streets before curfew kicks in but soon will have more acceptable reasons for violations. The Calumet City Council discussed a revised version of the city's curfew ordinance during a special meeting Monday night. Click for More

Indianapolis votes down paddle policy
Added 5-26-04
The Indianapolis Public Schools board moved to eliminate corporal punishment at its 79 schools today, bringing an end to a decades-old policy and galvanizing the efforts of advocates seeking a statewide ban. Click for More