Free Republic

In 16th-century England, the age of consent was set at 10 years old in an effort to protect young girls from sexual abuse by adult men. In 1875, parliament raised the age of consent to 13; in 1885, it upped it to 16. Now, a leading public health advocate has proposed that the United Kingdom bring the age down again in light of the high proportion of British adolescents who are having sex—with one another—before they’re legally capable of granting consent. Lowering the age of consent to 15 (where it stands in Sweden) or 14 (where it’s set in Germany...

For nicotine enthusiasts, 2015 will be remembered as part of a golden era. Less than 10 years after they were introduced in the United States, e-cigarettes have gone relatively unregulated by health agencies, with companies and users making their own rules in a nicotine-laced Wild West. E-cigarette companies have been advertising their products to adults and children alike, claiming to help smokers quit while simultaneously promoting lollipop-flavored liquids. But now health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and even city-based public health departments are starting to fight back—not in the form of regulations, but with their own...

(CNSNews.com) - Unaccompanied children crossing the southern border into the United States still number in the thousands, probably the tens of thousands, even though the percentages are lower, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress on Thursday. "For the kids, unaccompanied kids, it's running about 40 percent lower," Johnson said. "I hope it stays that way, but we have to be prepared in the event it doesn't."

Former President Bill Clinton took a romantic jaunt in 2002 to convicted pedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein’s “orgy island” with “two young girls” from New York, according to a shocking new interview. Virginia Roberts, who’s accused Epstein of turning her into a “sex slave” at age 17 and forcing her to sleep with his powerful friends, claimed Clinton stayed in one of the many villas on Epstein’s US Virgin Islands estate — where group sex was a “regular occurrence.”“I remember asking Jeffrey, ‘What’s Bill Clinton doing here?’ kind of thing, and he laughed it off and said, ‘Well, he owes me...

A long-running court battle between a Harrisburg restaurant owner and former state Health Secretary Elia Avila that stemmed from an argument over an egg sandwich apparently has ended quietly with a $75,000 settlement. The recently-reached accord between Avila and Richard M. Hanna, which falls to the state to pay, can be gleaned from records filed in Dauphin County Court. Eli Avila cropFormer Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Eli Avila.State of Pennsylvania Those documents state that Avila, who resigned his state job in October 2012, and Hanna and their lawyers are barred from discussing the agreement that resolved the suit Hanna filed...

I have been hearing a commercial featuring Mia Farrow, Laurence Fishburne and others. The ad takes us to Unicef without any information. It's a donate site.

Why does Santa need a fighter escort? Children's groups outraged as NORAD militarises Christmas Eve tracker • NORAD officials say the inclusion of jet fighters is a nod to the true mission of the agency - which is to track and intercept airborne threats Outraged child advocates are blasting NORAD's new 3D Santa Tracker program because it includes a fighter jet escort for jolly old Saint Nick. Some say the new online portrait could give kids the wrong impression about Santa Claus - associating him with the military and violence. But Pentagon officials argue the North American Aerospace Defense Command...

Shutdown puts WIC food program for vulnerable mothers at risk Jason Sickles, Yahoo! 2 hours ago DALLAS — In a shopping center parking lot 1,300 miles from Washington’s bureaucracy and bickering, teen mom Karina Luciano loaded a watermelon and baby formula into her car. Luciano didn’t realize the federal assistance program that just purchased the food items for her children, Aimee, 2, and Jaiden, 11 months, is now in jeopardy because of the government shutdown. “Oh my god, I think I’m going to cry,” Luciano said upon learning the news. “This is really bad.” Nearly 9 million low-income mothers and...

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday she will focus much of her attention on issues promoting early childhood development, women and children and economic issues as part of the foundation created by her husband, former President Bill Clinton. The former first lady and potential 2016 White House contender offered her most extensive description of her post-Obama administration agenda since leaving her role as the nation's top diplomat. Clinton walked out to applause on stage at a Clinton Global Initiative America meeting in Chicago.

Strobridge Elementary School in Hayward, Calif., held a toy-gun exchange program over the weekend, according to a report from CBS-5 San Francisco. Inspired by gun buy-back programs that focus on getting weapons off the streets, Principal Charles Hill felt a similar program for toys made a lot of sense. "Playing with toys guns, saying 'I'm going to shoot you,' desensitizes them," said Hill, "so, as they get older, it's easier for them to use a real gun." Students who participated were given books in exchange for their toy guns. They were also enrolled in a raffle to win a bike,...

When the Newtown shooting took the lives of 20 children, the nation was justifiably horrified. Journalists reported round the clock on ways to change public policy to prevent another shooting. But when seven children and a mother died in a Philadelphia abortion clinic dubbed a “house of horrors,” the major media couldn’t have cared less. It’s a news story that reads more like a Hollywood torture plot – “Saw” or “Hostel” or some other movie so foul that it makes you want to take a shower just having viewed it. Only this case is real and the media are keeping...

While Obama and the Democrats are sealing us blind with over Sixteen Trillion Dollars of debt pilled upon our children, now they want to take away our RIGHT to defend ourselves, with "gun control", yet they refuse to defend our children by arming our teachers. So it's time that Concealed Carry of the Beretta Model 93 Raffica machine pistol become every United States Citizen's RIGHT. No longer will we have to wait for an unbearable time for government officials to defend our children and watch them die, while waiting for socialists government officials to show up after the murder has...

Superintendents Paint Dire Picture If California's Prop. 30 Fails As Gov. Jerry Brown's revenue-raising proposition loses support, school superintendents say class sizes could grow, cherished programs could die and jobs will be lost. What we face is the biggest challenge in public education since the state of California was founded," said state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson By Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times October 26 As children peered at them through an elementary school fence in Cerritos on Friday, about a dozen school superintendents explained the consequences they will face if California voters fail to approve Proposition 30. In...

Chicago Teachers Vote to Continue Strike By STEPHANIE BANCHERO The Chicago public school teachers strike entered its second week after the teachers union declined Sunday to call off a week-long walkout that has catapulted the city into the national debate over teacher evaluations and job security. Only hours earlier, Chicago Teachers Union officials had trumpeted new concessions they said they had extracted from Mayor Rahm Emanuel during talks to settle the strike that started last Monday and has canceled classes for 350,000 students in the nation's third largest district. The vote to continue the strike came Sunday night by the...

The President told his supporters earlier this week at a fundraiser that Planned Parenthood should keep getting funding so that his daughters could “control their own health care choices.” Obama enthusiastically promoting Planned Parenthood is nothing new. But the radically pro-abortion President shamelessly including his 11 and 14 year old daughters in his Planned Parenthood pitch is a new low.   “Mr. Romney wants to get rid of funding for Planned Parenthood. I think that is a bad idea,” Obama said. “I’ve got two daughters. I want them to control their own health care choices. We’re not going backwards, we’re...

The ads are really obnoxious about how "big corporations" oppose limits on mercury and how Claire McCaskill "stood tall" against them. And, I kid you not, they ended with "For the Children." I am absolutely certain this is not a legitimate religious group, but a bunch of Lefties running a false-flag operation. Does anybody know anything about these goons?

The percentage of Californians who smoke has dropped to an all-time low of 11.9 percent, the second-lowest in the nation behind Utah's 9.1 percent. That's good news for the health of Californians, but bad news for the state's budget and First 5 program, which funds local services for children up to age 5. The decline in smoking was anticipated, but it has descended at a much sharper rate than predicted. As a result, California will face difficulty in funding $16 billion in bonds the state has issued since 2001. The bonds are supposed to be financed by payments from the...

ORANGE – Parents in Orange Unified received a letter at the beginning of the school year asking them to donate $40 for each day their child misses class to help offset the $5.5 million in attendance funding the district loses annually. Five months later, the district has netted $920.

New Playgrounds Are Safe—and That's Why Nobody Uses Them The problem with safety guidelines is that they make most playgrounds so uninteresting as to contribute to reduced physical activity. Playgrounds don't look like they used to. Steep metal slides and wooden towers have given way to slow, plastic slides and carefully penned-in climbing contraptions. And forget about seesaws -- they're a thing of the past. When kids are bored by unimaginative (read: safe) playground equipment, they're less active as a result, and with childhood obesity at epidemic proportions, that's a danger, too. An interesting new investigation looks into this phenomenon....

Proposition 103, the only statewide tax increase on the November ballot across the country, is going down tonight, according to number-crunchers in my home state of Colorado. If the results of this massive tax hike referendum had gone the big government/big labor lobby’s way, it would be front-page news tomorrow and Debbie Blabberman-Schultz would be crowing about it non-stop on MSNBC. Instead, crickets will chirp. White House, pay attention: Colorado voters have rejected an attempt to raise state income and sales taxes to fund education, The Denver Post has declared. Colorado voters were saying no to a major tax increase...