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In scathing remarks criticizing his own staff, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that the Justice Department has recently acted "more like a trade association for federal prosecutors than the administrator of a fair system of justice" and equated some prosecutors to preschoolers and "headhunters."

A new attempt by Hamas to entice Israeli children to play with incendiary balloons includes choosing colorful balloons and attaching lights and toys to them, Yediot Ahronot reported. According to the report, a cluster of balloons recently found in the Eshkol Region was attached to an explosive toy. The balloons, found late at night, were colorful and included colorful flashing lights. Kibbutz Be'eri's secretary, Yaniv Hagi, told Yediot Aharonot: "Incendiary balloons land in our kibbutz at all hours of day and night. They arrive with flashing and sparkling lights, and some of the balloons have smiley faces on them, so...

Ms. Tracy Van Slyke has uncovered such a dastardly attack upon our vulnerable youth, it’s shocking that nobody else before her noticed this malign cancer hiding in plain sight.  She has exposed Thomas the Tank Engine as a pernicious evil, causing so much “classism, sexism, anti-environmentalism bordering on racism” in its “hidden lessons.” I was completely captured and intrigued by Ms. Van Slyke’s keen insight and discernment on this topic, because, frankly, my two boys are very much taken with Thomas and his friends Percy, Edward, Henry, Gordon, James, Emily, and the very scary Diesel Ten.  If there were something...

RALEIGH — State lawmakers questioned a N.C. Department of Health and Human Services official at a hearing Tuesday to determine why a Hoke County preschooler’s homemade turkey sandwich was replaced with chicken nuggets. Members of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services wanted to know if a teacher at West Hoke Elementary School was following state law when she offered a 4-year-old girl a cafeteria tray containing chicken nuggets, a sweet potato, bread, and milk as an alternative to her homemade turkey and cheese sandwich, potato chips, banana, and apple juice. Deborah Cassidy, director of the DHHS...

State agent inspects sack lunches, forces preschoolers to purchase cafeteria food instead RAEFORD — A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day. The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services...

A brave 7-pound pooch trying to protect three little kids in his family was heartlessly slapped out a third-story window by a cop on a failed drug raid, a lawsuit charges. Chuwie, a miniature Doberman-Pomeranian mix, miraculously survived, but his owner says the family pet hasn’t been the same since. “How could a police officer do that to a tiny dog?’’ said Iris Ramos, whose son-in-law, Ronald Estevez, 27, owns Chuwie. The dog never tried to attack a cop -- all he did was bark, according to the family’s Bronx Civil Court lawsuit against the city and NYPD for unspecified...

PARIS – PARIS (AP) -- Masked French gendarmes detained a 17-year-old who took a class full of preschoolers hostage Monday, releasing all the children safely after hours of tense negotiations that drew nationwide attention. "The hostage-taking is over," Jean-Marc Magda, aide to the mayor of the eastern French city of Besancon, told The Associated Press by telephone. All 20 children who had been taken hostage and their teacher were released safely, he said. ... Besancon Mayor Jean-Louis Fousseret said the teen had been treated for depression but had not taken his medication in recent days. The mayor did not confirm...

TACOMA, Wash. - A teaching assistant gave some preschoolers dog food to eat during a play-acting exercise at Northeast Tacoma Elementary School. A Tacoma School District spokeswoman said the children spat out the dry dog food and no one suffered any ill effects. The teaching assistant has been placed on paid leave pending an investigation. District spokeswoman Patti Holmgren said it happened Monday in an early education class while the supervisor was out of the room. When a few of the students pretended to be puppies, getting down on their hands and knees and barking, the assistant attempted to encourage...

<p>The study examined antidepressant use from 1998 to 2002 among 2 million youngsters ages 18 and younger who were covered by commercial health insurance. About one in 15 children in the United States is covered by commercial insurance, according to officials of Express Scripts Inc. of St. Louis, which conducted the study.</p>