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WACO, Texas — School administrators gave a 4-year-old student an in-school suspension for inappropriately touching a teacher's aide after the pre-kindergartner hugged the woman. A letter from La Vega school district administrators to the student's parents said that the boy was involved in "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment" after he hugged the woman and he "rubbed his face in the chest of (the) female employee" on Nov. 10. DaMarcus Blackwell, the father of the boy who attends La Vega Primary School, said he filed a complaint with the district. He said that his son doesn't...

December 06, 2006 Student sues over 10-day suspension By Andrew Clevenger Staff writer Kids across America are warned to stay away from “nose candy” in anti-drug campaigns. But a Kanawha County student is fighting his suspension for pretending to put actual candy up his nose. According to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court Monday, a student-athlete at Sissonville High School was given Smarties candy as a reward for good academic performance. In front of his teacher and fellow classmates, the student pretended to put one of the small candy discs up his nose. Another student used his cell phone...

Student suspended over 'popper' By Paul Sloth RACINE - Five-year-old Quinn Lucier didn't know what he was getting himself into when he took the "popper" out of his older brother's drawer. It seemed innocent enough bringing what he figured was a toy to Jerstand-Agerholm Elementary School on Monday. When he pulled the strings on the popper - a pull-apart novelty firework - the ensuing loud pop startled his teacher and earned Lucier a trip to the principal's office and a four-day suspension. Quinn's parents were fuming Wednesday about their son's punishment, which they don't believe fits the crime. The school...

VIENNA, Austria - Iran is ready to consider suspending uranium enrichment for up to two months, diplomats told The Associated Press on Sunday. The diplomats, who insisted on anonymity to disclose confidential information, spoke shortly after senior Iranian and European Union diplomats held a second day of talks on Tehran's defiance of a U.N. demand that it suspend enrichment, which can be used to make nuclear arms. They said the compromise was mentioned by Ali Larijani, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, during his meeting with the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. One diplomat said Larijani floated the possibility of stopping...

A Seattle police officer called to a fight between a man and a woman made no arrests and took no report, instead quitting his shift early to take the woman involved to his place for sex. After an investigation prompted by the woman's fiancé, Officer Lance Basney was suspended for 30 days without pay. But this week, Basney succeeded in appealing that discipline before the city's Public Safety Civil Service Commission; his punishment was reduced to five days. Still, an attorney for the Police Department was pleased, saying the finding supports the department's position that even off-duty conduct matters. "We're...

Dr. Sandra Pacheco believes that her daughter was punished at Elk Grove High School for doing what she thought was the right thing. She argues that a school district policy is making its campuses unsafe for girls. Before Elk Grove High’s homecoming football game on Oct. 21, she and her daughter’s stepfather, Jeff Franklin, handed out flyers to parents driving out of the school’s front parking lot and told them about their case, and asked if they shared the same problem. The couple displayed a sign that read: “Is Your Daughter Safe at EGHS? Not as Safe as You May...

Teenager arrested after streaking high school wearing only a gorilla mask UNION SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) — Some may have called it monkeying around, but school officials didn't find the stunt amusing. A 17-year-old student was arrested Monday after streaking through his high school wearing only a gorilla mask and outrunning the school principal. Union Springs High School Principal Kimberle Ward -- who said she runs three to five miles a day -- couldn't catch the fleeing student, but she was able to help police identify the teen after watching a hallway surveillance camera video and interviewing students. "There's no way...

NEW YORK — Vancouver Canucks (search) forward Todd Bertuzzi (search), whose blindside punch left Colorado's Steve Moore (search) with a broken neck, was reinstated by the NHL on Monday. Bertuzzi was suspended for the final 13 regular-season games of the 2003-04 season and the Stanley Cup playoffs. His banishment continued throughout last season's NHL lockout, which kept Bertuzzi from playing in the World Cup of Hockey last September and the past two world championships. He also was barred from playing in any European league last season.

OAKLAND - A former student has been awarded $150,000 from the Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional School District to settle a lawsuit stemming from a scuffle that got her suspended from school more than three years ago. The settlement also includes a statement from the district, but no apology for, or acknowledgement of, fault. Raccine Frank should have recently finished her second year of college. Instead the 20-year-old is still wrapping up high school course work - and celebrating the end of a legal battle. "I will take that [money] to rebuild part of my life and have a brighter future," Frank...

SACRAMENTO - The Bay Bridge will get a fancy design after all, but the region's motorists will get stuck with paying most of the span's $3.7 billion in cost overruns, under a legislative deal reached Thursday night. The accord calls for bridge tolls on all state-owned Bay Area spans to jump from $3 to $4 beginning Jan. 1, 2007 and the state to kick in $630 million for the project, which has been saddled with delays and escalating prices since its inception seven years ago. No further toll increases are planned. Rather, the balance of the $6.3 billion estimated tab...

A teenager was back in class Friday after receiving a one-day suspension for wearing a T-shirt with slogans including "freedom of expression" and "don't drink and drive" that school administrators considered disruptive. Hanna Smith, 18, a junior at Tift County High School, said principal Mike Duck told her that if she wore the shirt again she would be suspended for the remainder of the year. The principal was arrested six years ago for DUI and running a stop sign, the Tifton Gazette said Friday in a story on Smith's suspension. Duck made a public apology for the DUI and was...

Minnesota Vikings tailback Onterrio Smith has been apprised by the NFL that he faces a suspension for the entire 2005 season for a repeat violation of the league's substance abuse program, two sources with knowledge of his situation told ESPN.com. The suspension, which would be the second sanction against the third-year veteran, is subject to appeal. Smith missed four games in 2004 after the former University of Oregon star tested positive for marijuana. A player has five days to appeal a suspension.

COLUMBUS, Ga. May 7, 2005 — Following hundreds of angry phone calls and e-mails, school officials in this Army base city have reduced a suspension imposed on a student who wouldn't give up his cell phone while talking to his mom a sergeant on duty in Iraq. The angry calls about the boy's suspension got so bad at one point that secretaries had to take their phones off the hook, assistant principal Alfred Parham said. Kevin Francois, a 17-year-old junior at Spencer High School, was suspended for 10 days for disorderly conduct Wednesday after a teacher told him to give...

The advent of "poke and stick" parties is causing a stir as more of our nation's youth are choosing to have their new tattoo or piercing done by a teenage friend, rather than a professional. Since these parties could be happening in your community, the Pennsylvania Medical Society cautions that this fad not only may violate a new state law, but it also could spread infectious diseases, like HIV and hepatitis. The organization's member doctors recommend that parents and teens carefully consider safety measures to protect themselves from serious health consequences. The ancient arts of tattooing and body piercing appear...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials in the Florida Keys are mystified by a bizarre new pastime -- young people dangling themselves from meat hooks on a popular sandbar.

DOES THIS LOOK PAINFUL?: Adam Aries spins while attached by a metal beam and hooks through the skin of his back to another person during the Suspension Convention in Providence, USA. Reuters PROVIDENCE: Tony Troiano grimaced as he was lifted off the floor by giant fishhooks pierced through the skin on his shoulders. Within minutes, he started to spin, swing his feet and declare the painful experience "the greatest thing" ever. "I was on Cloud Nine," the Wethersfield, Connecticut teenager said as he joined fellow body suspension practitioners at an annual convention over the weekend. "It was euphoric. It was...

Boy's KKK Costume Wins Him Award, Suspension POSTED: 5:50 am EST November 3, 2004 GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- A Michigan high school student's costume is earning an award -- and a suspension. SURVEY Do you believe that this boy should have been suspended? Yes No Results | Disclaimer The City High student dressed as a Ku Klux Klansman for the school's Halloween masquerade party. The senior won the prize for the scariest costume and a five-day suspension, too. Grand Rapids school Superintendent Bert Bleke says the suspension is justified. But he wants to know why the adult chaperones at the...

NEW ORLEANS A fourth-grade girl will be able to return to her suburban New Orleans school tomorrow after serving a nine-day suspension for bringing in what appeared to be Jell-O shots. Neither police nor school officials will say whether the gelatin cups actually contained alcohol. The appearance they contained alcohol was enough to discipline her under school rules. The girl's mother works at a French Quarter bar. She has insisted the Jell-O cups were non-alcoholic. A school system spokesman says the girl told her principal that her mom told her to take the shots to school and sell them "to...

Gelatin gets 8-year-old suspended Officials say cups look like Jell-O shots Wednesday, December 08, 2004 By Rob Nelson West Bank bureau The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office took samples Tuesday of Jell-O snacks that were brought to school by an 8-year-old Terrytown girl to determine if the concoction contained alcohol. The youngster was suspended Nov. 29 from Geraldine Boudreaux Elementary School after school officials said the snacks given to her by her mother in small, clear plastic containers resembled an alcoholic mixture commonly known as "Jell-O shots," said Jefferson Parish public schools spokesman Jeff Nowakowski. ... In televised reports, Noble denied...

NEW YORK (AP) - Ron Artest, Jermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson of Indiana and Ben Wallace of Detroit were suspended indefinitely by the NBA on Saturday for taking part in one of the ugliest brawls in U.S. sports history, a fight with fans that commissioner David Stern called "shocking, repulsive and inexcusable." League officials were examining video tapes of Friday night's melee and interviewing witnesses. The NBA issued a statement saying it was reviewing rules and security procedures "so that fans can continue to attend our games unthreatened by events such as the ones that occurred last night." Artest, O'Neal...