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A program operating on the University of North Carolina at Greensboro campus pays young girls not to get pregnant. Participants in the College Bound Sisters program earn $7 a week to stay baby-free. For 90 minutes a week, the girls learn about abstinence and the use of contraceptives while exploring the benefits of staying in school. The money earned is deposited into a fund and may be retrieved once the girl has enrolled in college. The program, funded by a grant from the state's Department of Health and Human Services, costs about $75,000 a year to operate. A total of...

The following is a copy of a report written by Matthew Robson, a 15-year old schoolboy, for Morgan Stanley on how he and his friends consume media. ... Internet Every teenager has some access to the internet, be it at school or home. Home use is mainly used for fun (such as social networking) whilst school (or library) use is for work. Most teenagers are heavily active on a combination of social networking sites. Facebook is the most common, with nearly everyone with an internet connection registered and visiting >4 times a week. Facebook is popular as one can interact...

GREENSBORO -- A buck-a-day -- that's the incentive being offered to young girls to keep them from getting pregnant, WXII-TV reported. The group College-Bound Sisters was founded at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro by Hazel Brown, a maternity nurse who thought too many teens were having babies. Brown said she hopes the program, which pays $1 each day to 12-to-18-year-old girls, will keep them from getting pregnant. In addition to remaining pregnancy-free, the girls must also attend weekly meetings. The program is funded by a four-year grant from the state. "Our three goals are that they avoid pregnancy,...

Two thirds of teenagers don't believe in God Nearly two thirds of teenagers don't believe in God, according to a study by Penguin books. Teenagers even say family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion. It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world". The survey also shows that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church. The study of 1,000 teenagers aged 13 to 18 was carried out by Penguin to mark this week's...

Teenagers, Gratitude, and a Culture of Affluence Holland, MI. Like many readers, or perhaps more accurately, like many readers with children, I read with great interest Mark Mitchell’s piece on “Cultivating Gratitude [1].” As the father of three children I have long made such cultivation a central concern, but must confess only middling success in the endeavor. One of the central difficulties we face as parents is the paucity of tools we bring to the task. One of our main tools is the use of rhetoric, but at a certain point – oh, let’s say the teenage years – parental...

Cheyenne Cherry tossed her ex-roommate's kitty, Tiger Lily (below), into the stove, then left so she didn't have to hear the cat's anguished cries. A Bronx teenager roasted her ex-roommate's kitten to death in a stove - then brushed off the incident as a joke when she was busted, authorities said Thursday. "I hate cats," Cheyenne Cherry, 17, allegedly told investigators when asked about the heartless crime. Cherry's confession came after she was arrested Wednesday by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She and an unidentified juvenile allegedly broke into Valerie Hernandez's Tinton Ave. apartment on...

Technology in all of its forms - social networks, smartphones, the Web, instant messaging, on-line gaming - is a net loss for today’s young people. At least according to one group of Silicon Valley 8th graders. “It’s bad for us, but it sure is fun,” says Eric Bautista, 13, one of the students in Sister Jolene Schmitz’s junior high school class at Resurrection School in Sunnyvale, California. Admittedly, this informal survey offers, at best, only anecdotal evidence. Still, it is pretty shocking that a group of young teenagers, all of them technologically very astute, and living in the very heart...

A report of a man pointing a gun at some teenagers on bikes at the Sears mall spurred an extensive police response and prompted school district officials to lock the doors at Fairview Elementary School Thursday afternoon. But it turned out the young adults had in fact been harassing the man and that he pulled a weapon from his vehicle for protection, police Lt. Dave Parker said.

CARBONDALE, Colorado — She traveled the world alone and had never been assaulted by anyone until Thursday in Carbondale. She lived there for about 2 1/2 years because she loved the town and thought it was safe. Now, she feels uncomfortable even walking to work to teach at one of Carbondale’s schools. “It’s chiefly the emotional component to all of this,” she said. “I can handle the physical injury. I can handle getting new credit cards and a driver’s license, but the fact that I don’t feel comfortable walking to school. I feel like such an idiot. I reveled living...

Dear Rep. Waxman, My congratulations on your reelection to the 11th Congress of the United States and promotion to Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. As a national leader charged with overseeing the improvement of the quality of our air, the safety of our food and drugs, health care, and a growing telecommunications industry, I want to appeal to you on behalf of millions of my peers in their teens and twenties. You’ve shown yourself to be a leader in education, women’s health research and reproductive rights for my generation. So I cannot help but wonder, why are...

A prosecutor in Kansas has failed to block the suspension of his law license by arguing that his alleged Asperger Syndrome played a part in his decision to show sexually explicit photos of drunken teens at a party to their parents. The Supreme Court of Kansas on Friday suspended Anderson County Attorney Frederick Campbell, 49, from practice for six months. The court concluded that he violated attorney ethics rules when he attempted to demonstrate to a group of parents the dangers of teenage drinking by presenting them with photos of teens drinking and engaging in sexual intercourse.

LINCOLN, Neb. – The mother was running out of more than patience when she abandoned her 18-year-old daughter at a hospital over the weekend under Nebraska's safe-haven law. She was also running out of time: She knew that state lawmakers would soon meet in a special session to amend the ill-fated law so that it would apply to newborns only. "Where am I going to get help if they change the law?" said the mother... To the state's surprise and embarrassment, more than half of the 31 children legally abandoned under the safe-haven law since it took effect in mid-July...

Towelhead and the Normalization of Sex With Children Hollywood's latest effort to portray pedophiles sympathetically. September 27, 2008 - by John Nolte Much in the same way 2004’s Downfall fleshed out Adolph Hitler without mitigating the monstrosity of his crimes, Solondz and Baker present their child rapist as a three-dimensional being without once asking us to feel sorry for him. Admittedly, both Downfall and Happiness polarized audiences with these portrayals, but I would argue that the more realistic the monster, the more terrifying the behavior. There’s nothing, however, worthy of defense in a spate of recent films that go well...

More than 1,000 Teens, the Bishop and the Eucharist Focus on Eucharist is 'historic day' for diocese at its largest gathering of youthMORRISTOWN - Young people from parishes and Catholic high schools from every corner of the diocese - more than 1,000 - came to Delbarton School here May 1to be with Bishop Serratelli for a Day on the Eucharist, guided by the theme "Made Right in God's Sight by Faith." Activities for the day, which was hailed as  the largest gathering of youth in the diocese's history, were designed to awaken thee teens' faith and inspire them to examine...

Asking for animal shelter donations instead of presents for his 11th birthday was “no biggie” for Mac Gandy, but it makes him a hero to the Florence Area Humane Society. Mac decided after a visit to the shelter in early July, a couple of weeks before his birthday, that he wanted to help the animals in need of a good home. “I felt bad for them,” he said after he and his mother, Michelle Gandy, delivered the food, cleaning supplies and other items he’d collected. “It always tugs at his heart,” his mother said. The Gandys aren’t sure exactly how...

Asking for animal shelter donations instead of presents for his 11th birthday was “no biggie” for Mac Gandy, but it makes him a hero to the Florence Area Humane Society. Mac decided after a visit to the shelter in early July, a couple of weeks before his birthday, that he wanted to help the animals in need of a good home. “I felt bad for them,” he said after he and his mother, Michelle Gandy, delivered the food, cleaning supplies and other items he’d collected. “It always tugs at his heart,” his mother said. The Gandys aren’t sure exactly how...

In Part 1 of this series, I wrote of the great elephants of India, who, although they have the physical capacity to uproot trees during the day, can be restrained all night long by a piece of twine and a twig. How is this possible? The elephant’s training begins when it is still young and considerably less powerful. Removed from its mother, the elephant is then shackled with an iron chain to a large tree. For days and weeks on end, the baby elephant strains against its restraints, only to find that all exertion is useless. Then slowly, over a...

The trained elephant of India is a perfect picture of the power of psychological captivity. Tamed and utilized for its enormous strength, the great beast stands nearly 10 feet tall and weighs up to 5 tons when fully grown. Its tasks may include uprooting full-grown trees, hauling great boulders, and carrying enormous loads on its shoulders. And yet, when the day’s work is done and this powerful beast must be kept from wandering off during the night, its owner simply takes a piece of twine, attaches it to a small branch embedded in the ground, and ties it around the...

BOSTON (Reuters) - The mayor of a Massachusetts city that drew attention for a spike in teenage pregnancies denied on Monday a media report that a group of girls entered a pact to become pregnant. "I am not able to confirm the existence of a pact," Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk told reporters after meeting with local school and health officials to discuss a June 18 Time magazine report about teenagers who entered a pact to get pregnant and raise babies together. "Any planned blood-oath bond to become pregnant, there is absolutely no evidence of," she added, blaming a rise in...

When a 15-year-old at Gloucester HS in Massachusetts learned she was pregnant a few months ago, there were no tears. Shown her positive pregnancy test, the girl said simply, "Sweet!" And she rushed off to tell her classmates - 17 of whom are also pregnant, none of them older than 16. The baby boom is the result of what the school principal described last week as a "pregnancy pact." "Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," principal Joseph Sullivan said. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy."