Free Republic

A number of officials at East High School in Denver came under fire in August when a disturbing video circulated showing cheerleaders repeatedly being pushed into splits. An incoming high school freshman screamed in pain and asked the coach, Ozell Williams, to “please stop” in one video. Her morther said she suffered injuries to her leg from the forced exercise. The leaked video caused a public uproar. The school’s principal retired and the athletic director resigned after the video was leaked; Williams was fired. Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg thanked the DA’s office for investigating the case, but...

Breaux Bridge student hospitalized Wednesday; her parents speak out Mothers of autistic children are speaking out after we reported on an investigation into an incident involving a student defending her autistic friend at Breaux Bridge High School last week. Reagan Boudreaux was defending her friend Arron when she was allegedly punched in the face by a football player at Breaux Bridge High School. The St. Martin Parish School Board as well as the Sheriff’s Department is actively investigating the case, but have yet to release any official statement.

A family outing at Six Flags Great America’s “Fright Fest” took a horrific turn Saturday night when a group of teenagers brutally beat a 12-year-old boy and his parents as they waited in line at the amusement park in north suburban Gurnee, authorities said. The annual Halloween-themed attraction typically draws “an increased number of knuckleheads who come to stir things up” at the park, but nothing like Saturday’s attack that left a family of three hospitalized, Gurnee Deputy Police Chief of Operations Brian Smith said. “This is rare. This is on a different spectrum,” Smith said. “This family is lucky...

Suburban Illinois police are asking for witnesses to speak out after an attack at a Six Flags theme park near Chicago left a family hospitalized. Three family members were attacked by a group of nine people – one adult and eight teens – Saturday night around 9 p.m. during Fright Fest, the Lake County News Sun reported. Gurnee police officials told the newspaper the attack happened “after members of the larger group apparently cut in line and were using foul language when the family exchanged words with them.” Police say the family — a 51-year-old man, a 50-year-old woman and...

RANDOLPH, N.J. (AP) — A school official says dozens of students were detained and ordered to undergo blood and urine testing after a can of beer was discovered at a New Jersey high school football game. Randolph Superintendent Jennifer Fano said in a letter posted on the district’s website that the can was found Friday night near a student section of the bleachers at Randolph High School. The students were pulled from the stands and their parents were called so they could be screened for alcohol. Students who refused the screening face suspension under school district policy.

The teenaged girl whose sexting with Anthony Weiner helped shape the 2016 election is speaking out for the first time, telling Inside Edition that she played along with their creepy exchanges — until the disgraced pol included his young son in a bare-chested selfie he sent her. At that point, “I was disgusted,” the teen says in the exclusive interview. “That was part of the reason I came forward.” The teen, whose name is being withheld, says in an exclusive interview that she direct-messaged Weiner back in January 2016, as his wife, Huma Abedin, was at the peak of influence...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Supt. Eddie Johnson on Tuesday bemoaned the fights that forced the United Center to close, canceling the championship game of a basketball league intended to keep teenagers off the streets in the summer. The pandemonium — some captured on cellphone video — prevented neighborhood teams made up of players from two of Chicago’s top high school basketball teams — Orr Academy and Curie Metropolitan — from squaring off in a title game. As upsetting to Emanuel and Johnson as the ugly scene outside the United Center was the fact that the league itself was supposed...

A Chinese couple sent their teenage son to an internet addiction treatment camp—and within days, he was dead. As the BBC reports, “boot camps” for internet and gaming addictions have become popular in China, with some being criticized as using harsh military-style discipline on attendees. Some even beat patients or use electroshock therapy. The 18-year-old who died earlier this month in Fuyang had been sent to a camp that promised “psychological counseling and physical training”; according to the Telegraph, the camp said no corporal punishment would be used. Two days after the teen was dropped off by his mother on...

In 2011, for the first time in more than two decades, suicide began killing more teenagers than homicide. And according to research presented in a recent article in The Atlantic, excerpted from a book written by Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University, smartphones and social media may deserve a lot of the blame. "As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another," Twenge wrote, "and more likely to kill themselves." Over the past decade, psychologists have come to see a picture in which young, developing brains are pitted against...

The surprising statistic suggests that for many, LGBTQ sexual orientation is not a fixed identity, but rather something that fluctuates. Remarkably, research shows teen who identify as lesbian have significantly higher pregnancy rates than their heterosexual peers. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true. It’s also true for teen gay males: they are substantially more likely to impregnate their sexual partners than are heterosexual males. The dramatic disparities are explained in these graphs from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Numerous studies across many nations find that sexual-minority youth aged 14 to 19 have pregnancy rates two to seven times greater...

The last thing Keondrae Brown remembers before he blacked out is lying in shattered glass on Tampa Road, next to the burning wreckage of a stolen car, lucky to be alive after a high-speed crash that killed his brother and two of his friends. Now Keondrae and two other boys in a second stolen car could face murder charges in the deaths of Keontae Brown, 16; Jimmie Goshey, 14; and Dejarae Thomas, 16. Sheriff Bob Gualtieri suggested the more serious charges against the surviving teens at a news conference Monday, a day after the Palm Harbor crash once again highlighted...

Democratic Party economists warehoused in academia between elections have spent decades denying that minimum wage increases cause unemployment. Unfortunately, they do. "At the Great Recession's bottom, African-American teens had an unemployment rate of nearly 50 percent while the rate for all teens was 27.1 percent," a column on the BET website notes. "In the weak post-Recession, many teens compete for jobs against down-sized adults with college degrees." "And economists William Even from Miami University and David Macpherson from Trinity University report that when a state, or the federal government, increases the minimum wage, Black teens are more likely to be...

Teen Vogue’s “Guide to Anal Sex” is sparking a slew of outrage — including one mom so incensed, she burned a copy of the mag. [cut] “They are teaching children 11 through 17, that’s the target audience…how to be safely sodomized,” the woman said in the video. “Yes, they are teaching kids how to have anal intercourse. We should not be teaching children — period — how to have sex.” “These editors’ brains are in the gutter,” she ranted as she ripped apart the glossy mag and tossed it into the flames. “Now let’s put their sales in the gutter...

The father of a San Antonio, Texas, area teenage boy said his son apparently killed himself while participating in the satanic “Blue Whale Challenge” that is spreading on social media. After playing the game online, the parents of 15-year-old Isaiah Gonzalez found him hanging in his bedroom. His father, Jorge Gonzalez, wants other parents to know about the dangers of this game that is believed to have originated in Russia, Fox News reported. “It talks about satanic stuff and stuff like that and my son was never into that,” the teen’s father told KSAT ABC12 in San Antonio. He said...

Warning: This story contains content not suitable for minors. Women's rights advocates are criticizing a teen fashion magazine aimed at girls for encouraging them to engage in anal intercourse and minimizing the dangers.

OCEAN CITY — A group of men from Pennsylvania was charged with assaulting lifeguards Tuesday afternoon on the beach near Eighth Street and attempting to flee by running through Gillian’s Wonderland Pier. About 4:30 p.m., police were called to the 800 block of the beach to assist lifeguards with several intoxicated and loud people causing a disturbance, police said. The men, who were assaulting the lifeguards when they arrived, turned their aggression toward the officers, police said.

When U.S. Special Operations forces raided several houses in the Iraqi city of Ramadi in March 2006, two Army Rangers were killed when gunfire erupted on the ground floor of one home. A third member of the team was knocked unconscious and shredded by ball bearings when a teenage insurgent detonated a suicide vest. Who, the relative asked, was this man — the one represented by a blue dot and nearly killed by the suicide bomber? After some hesi­ta­tion, the military briefers answered with three letters: FBI. The wounded agent in Iraq was Jay Tabb, a longtime member of the...

A juvenile court judge announced a guilty verdict in the trial of Massachusetts woman Michelle Carter who was charged with manslaughter for sending her suicidal boyfriend Conrad Roy III a barrage of text messages encouraging him to kill himself. Judge Lawrence Moniz announced his decision Friday in Bristol Juvenile Court.

The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times Eastern Daylight Time): 5:30 p.m. President Donald Trump says he wants every high school in America to offer apprenticeship programs. Trump also says at a round table conversation at Waukesha County Technical College in Wisconsin that he loves the "name Apprentice" — a reference to the reality television show he used to host.....

Two students complained after their photographs were apparently edited to remove Mr Trump's name and his campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. Another student was upset that a quote by Mr Trump that she had submitted for the yearbook was not included. The teacher who advised the yearbook team has been placed on paid leave. ... "References to and support of President Trump were involved in each of these incidents," Ms Dyer wrote in a statement published over the weekend. She added that the teacher's actions amounted to "censorship and the possible violation of First Amendment rights" to free expression....