Free Republic

Just who is a "young adult"? Common sense says it starts with legal adulthood at age 18. But elements of our society have unofficially declared that the onset of adulthood matches the onset of puberty at the very grown-up age of 12. Which is one of the reasons why parents often seem uncertain about how to parent during the critical teen years. I've come to believe that the term was designed to diminish parental influence during the years when our growing children need the most direction. It's a subtle way of telling us that we should relinquish our influence in...

Teen Sex Magazine to Stay on Shelves at Iowa Library Sunday, November 22, 2009 AMES, Iowa — A teen sex magazine will stay on the shelves at the Ames Public Library despite a petition signed by more than 100 parents objecting to the publication. The Ames Library Board voted 6-1 to support library Director Art Weeks' recommendation to keep the magazine Sex, Ect., in the teen section. The magazine is written by and for teens under the oversight of Answer, a national sexuality organization at Rutgers University. It addresses teen sexuality issues, substance abuse and eating disorders.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is warning parents across the state that violent Mexican cartels and transnational gangs are actively recruiting Texas youngsters in schools and communities. These criminal organizations are luring teens with the prospect of cars, money and notoriety, and promise them that if they are arrested, they will receive light sentences. The gangs are responsible for massive drug deals and related slayings, and authorities say that they will often use youths in their crimes because juveniles are typically treated with more leniency by the criminal justice system.

Two Indiana teenagers have sued their school district after they were punished for posing suggestive photos on MySpace. The girls, 10th-graders at Churubusco High School in Churubusco, Indiana, say they were humiliated after the school banned them from fall semester extracurricular activities and forced them to apologize to the all-male Athletics Board (composed of varsity coaches). The girls also had to attend three counseling sessions. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed the proposed class-action suit on behalf of the girls and all present and future students at the school who participate or may participate in extracurricular activities. The ACLU...

Minneapolis police are looking for a group of teenagers who attacked at least three men. The attacks happened just minutes apart in south Minneapolis early Thursday morning. One man trying to break up a fight became a victim himself, right in front of his young son. It was about 6:30 Thursday morning when Dr. Mani Mokalla was walking his 6-year-old son to the bus stop. He stumbled on a man being beaten up right on the sidewalk. "I basically inquired, 'What's going on, what are you guys doing?' And they said for me to mind my own business, and I...

A 13-year-old boy is set to become a father after his 14-year-old girlfriend became pregnant. The two children, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, attend the same school. But the girl, who is several months pregnant, is in the year above the boy, report the Daily Mail. It is the latest in a history of under-age pregnancies in Poole, Dorset. In 1997, Jenny Teague became the country’s youngest mother when she gave birth, aged 12, to daughter Sasha. Two years later, sisters Charlene, 17, and Miranda Way, 15, from Poole gave birth within months of each other. The local...

Students at Howenstine High Magnet School will be collecting donations for troops serving in Afghanistan as part of Make a Difference Day. But the students' efforts are not a one-day deal. Instead, Corrine Blum's service learning class decided to adopt a Marine unit as a yearlong project. They sent a box of letters and personal items to the troops last month and are now planning to adopt an Army unit. The project began when Blum told her students she was planning to send a package to a family friend serving in Afghanistan. She asked her students if they wanted to...

Friday, September 25, 2009 Please Stand-Up and Make Your Voices Heard! On Wednesday, September 16, the Abington Heights School District voted 4-3 to eliminate funding for the Abington Heights High School Rifle Team. Unfortunately, the Abington Heights School District is choosing to balance the budget on the backs of tomorrow’s shooters. Rifle teams, such as these, help foster the future of our Second Amendment freedoms, shooting sports, and safe firearms training. The Abington Journal even reported that coaches, team members, and parents were not given advance notice that funding for the team was in jeopardy at the school district’s meeting...

MONT VERNON, N.H. - A devout Mormon on the verge of becoming a church missionary helped lead a group of machete-toting teens accused of butchering a nurse in her bed and slashing her 11-year-old daughter’s throat in what officials say was a sadistic pact to attack at random. Police said Christopher Gribble, 19 - a handyman and member of the Church of Latter-day Saints - allegedly slashed to death 42-year-old Kimberly Lynn Cates in a brutal bloodbath that left sixth-grader Jaime Cates bleeding in her family’s front yard Sunday morning after attempting to run for help. Authorities allege a cold-blooded...

MONT VERNON, N.H. -- The four teenagers accused of breaking into a home here and using a machete and a knife to butcher a mother and her 11-year-old daughter allegedly chose their victims by chance. "They picked the house at random because it was in an isolated area," prosecutor N. William Delker said today during the teens' arraignments in Milford District Court. "Before they entered the home, all four defendants were aware that the intent was to kill the occupants." The violent whim allegedly took the teens to the home of Kim Cates, who lived in one of four houses...

First Pictures Of 'Suicide Pact' Teenagers Who Died Hand In Hand By Jumping 125Ft From Bridge By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 06th October 2009 [Pics in URL] Two teenage girls leapt hand-in-hand from a bridge to their deaths after one left a 'suicide' message on a social networking site. The friends, aged 14 and 15, jumped more than 100ft from a notorious suicide spot and plunged into a river. Yesterday, classmates of Georgia Rowe and Neve Lafferty wept as police tried to unravel the mystery of their tragic pact. Georgia Rowe (left), 14, and Neve Lafferty, 15, took their own lives...

October 6, 2009 Two Teenage Girls Jump To Their Deaths Hand-in-Hand Charlene Sweeney and Jack Malvern Two teenage girls leapt hand in hand from a 125ft high bridge after escaping from a residential care home, police said today. Neve Lafferty, 15, was grieving for her boyfriend who died suddenly earlier this year when she jumped with Georgia Rowe, 14, off the Erskine Bridge, a notorious suicide spot near Glasgow, on Sunday night. The pair had escaped from the Good Shepherd Centre, a residential unit for young women with social, emotional and behavioural problems six miles away, just hours after seeing...

The Warriors of Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High took the field on Friday night without any Bible verses written on the cheerleaders' banner. Instead, the football team ran through a banner that read "This is Big Red Country" before each bent on a knee to pray on the field of Tommy Cash Stadium. The spirited display comes after the school district banned the banners last week over concerns they were unconstitutional and could provoke a lawsuit, angering many in the deeply religious north Georgia town of Fort Oglethorpe. "I'm just kind of unnerved about it," said 18-year-old Cassandra Cooksey, a recent graduate...

British Schoolboy, Aged 13, Becomes One Of World's Youngest Fathers DAILY MAIL REPORTER 03rd October 2009 A schoolboy aged 13 has become one of Britain's youngest fathers, it was revealed today. The boy, from Manchester, was 'chuffed to bits' after his 16-year-old girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl this week, according to his family. 'My son is mature for his age and will make a good father. He will make a better dad than most 25-year-old men would,' his father told the Daily Mirror. The young couple's identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons. They are said to have...

Spanish Prime Minister's Daughters Pictured For The First Time... Looking Like Goths [Pic in URL] [Pictures taken of the Spanish prime minister with his wife and daughters alongside Michelle and Barack Obama have caused a stir, not least because the teenagers look like goths] By Daily Mail Reporter 29th September 2009 The official photos, taken at the Museum of Modern Art where the Obamas were hosting a dinner, were uploaded onto the U.S. state department's Flickr page. Unlike the Obamas, Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has always tried to keep his daughters, Laura, 16, and Alba, 13, out...

St. Paul may soon pass a social host ordinance that punishes adults who knowingly allow parties, where minors are drinking. That includes adults who aren't even there, including landlords. "They bear some of the responsibility to ensure it doesn't continue," said St. Paul Council Member Russ Stark.

Atheist and religious skeptic student groups are on the rise across the country's high school and college campuses. The Secular Student Alliance added its 160th affiliate campus group last week and reports that demand for their group starting packets are high. "It’s been a challenge to keep up with the demand for services, especially group-starting packets and follow-up," said Lyz Liddell, senior campus organizer, in a statement earlier this month. "That’s a nice problem to have." The number of SSA campus affiliate groups has increased from 100 in 2008 to 160 this year. In 2007, the alliance counted only 80....

A new study is suggesting a “strong” link between the religiosity of a state’s residents and the teen birth rate there. Though only half of the states listed among the ten most conservatively religious also appear in the list of ten states with the highest teen birth rates, researchers behind the latest study say increased religiosity in residents of states in the U.S. strongly predicted a higher teen birth rate. “With data aggregated at the state level, conservative religious beliefs strongly predict U.S. teen birth rates, in a relationship that does not appear to be the result of confounding by...

HENRICO, VA (WWBT) - Reports of shots fired at Virginia Randolph Community High School in the West End has put the school on lockdown. The school is located on Mountain Road near Woodman Road. All students are accounted for and safe. According to officials, one person is in custody. No other details are available at this time.

Gabrielle "Gabi" Swank dreamed of traveling to Africa as a Christian missionary. Now the 16-year-old Wichitan rarely leaves her house, but she's on a mission — warning girls, parents and doctors against Gardasil. Gabi's doctor and family think the cervical cancer vaccine caused a life-threatening condition that is affecting her immune and nervous systems. Other experts say there's no link: The vaccine is safe — and a better option than risking cervical cancer. Whatever the case, Gabi spends her days fighting her disease and urging others to fight Gardasil. "Preventing cervical cancer is a great idea. This vaccine could...

An overlooked quote by a Michigan teenager picked up by the Associated Press regarding the murder of pro-life activist James Pouillon illustrates why many in the media are ignoring this story.: Later on Friday students outside the high school said Pouillon was a fixture there and regularly held graphic signs of aborted fetuses. "I can see someone spitting on him or punching him, but shooting him is pretty stupid," said 16-year-old Curtis Wisterman.

Three years ago, Julie Fox commemorated 9/11 with her students by asking them to write journal entries recounting where they were when the planes hit and how they felt at that moment. But the Norwell High School social studies teacher has had to retire that assignment. Too few students remember the day, the succession of ever-worsening reports, the horror of the World Trade Center towers cascading into dust, employees fleeing the Pentagon, and investigators combing through the wreckage in a Pennsylvania field. Now, instead, she spends class time on Sept. 11 explaining the basics of what happened that day and...

Mascanomet High School senior Olivia O'Malley wants to make sure nobody ever forgets what happened on September 11, 2001. Armed with a box of American flags, she began her mission on Thursday to plant a flag for each person who lost their life 8 years ago. "We can never forget it started as an ordinary day." List: Mass. 911 Victims Olivia has been planting flags on the lawn at Mascanomet High School each year as a reminder. She says her mission began three years ago when, on the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, there was no announcement made at...

Teenagers’ obsession with mobile phones and computers is taking a toll on their education, suggests a new research. Andrew Kakabadse, professor of international management development, Cranfield School of Management, found that almost 60 per cent of teenagers were submitting coursework downloaded from the web without reading, rewriting, or understanding it. The survey also found that the students’ addiction to text messaging was also affecting the standard of English, reports Times Online. Three in ten respondents used text-message abbreviations, such as l8 (late) or RU (are you) in their coursework, with more than half of the 260 pupils saying they were...

Friend of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com, Eugene Delgaudio of Public Advocate, will be holding a freep of Obama outside Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA, tomorrow morning. He's inviting Freeepers in the Northern Virginia-D.C. area to join him.He'll be there from 10 a.m. onward through the 12 noon scheduled speech at the edge of the security perimeter at Dinwiddie and Geo. Mason. Look for the Gadsden flags and the angry Arlingtronians trying to run Eugene out of their liberal haven :-)

After the judgement of the Delhi High Court legalising gay sex, a number of parents have approached private detective agencies to spy on the sexual preferences of their children. The trend, which was going on covertly for past many years, has seen a significant increase especially after the court verdict, detective agencies say. "We have been approached by parents to help them in finding their children's sexual orientation. Our detectives spy on them to find out whether their wards are homosexuals or lesbians," said Sanjay Singh, Chief Executive Officer of Indian Detective Agency. Parents are even taking the help of...

Pity the unemployed, but especially pity the teenage unemployed. According to today’s job report, the overall unemployment rate (the percentage of people in the labor force not working but looking for work) in August rose to 9.7 percent, its highest level in 26 years. The teenage unemployment rate, however, is at 25.5 percent, its highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping track of such data in 1948. Take a look at the chart below, which shows seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for teenagers (workers 16 to 19), nonteenagers (20 or older) and older workers (55 or older). You’ll...

One can see a grassroots revolution in America in three places: The "tea parties" in the public square, the noisy "town hall" meetings between congressmen, senators and their constituents, and the abandonment of evangelical churches by the teens. These three represent most extraordinary developments, the like of which I have never seen during my lifetime. One might see an obvious connection between the tea parties and town halls but what has that to do with the teen walk-out? Many think there is no connection. I think there is a connection. This may be the most daring leap of pattern recognition...

San Marcos: Two Teens Dead, One Hurt in Shooting Newsroom 9/4/2009 Two Luling teenagers are dead and a third seriously wounded after they were shot by a resident in an attempted home invasion early Friday in San Marcos. The shootings happened shortly before 2 a.m. on Chestnut Street on the west side of San Marcos. One 16-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene and a second 16-year old died at Central Texas Medical Center. A third teen, also 16, was transported to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin with serious wounds. Police are withholding the identities of the teenagers as the investigation...

Teens 4 Palin is a Network of Teens who Support Sarah Palin! This site was created with the mission of providing a place for all teens to socialize, who are fans of Sarah Palin. Here you can post vids, pictures, blogs, chat, etc. I hope you enjoy the site! Please join this site if you are a fan of Sarah Palin!

Students Get New Assignment: Pick Books You Like David Walter Banks Lorrie McNeill gives her middle school students a wide choice of reading in Jonesboro, Ga. More Photos MOTOKO RICH Published: August 29, 2009 JONESBORO, Ga. — For years Lorrie McNeill loved teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the Harper Lee classic that many Americans regard as a literary rite of passage. But last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42, did not assign “Mockingbird” — or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh-...

Paganism and Witchcraft in Youth Culture Written by Crusade    Wednesday, August 26, 2009 Mrs. Linda Harvey Mrs. Linda Harvey is the founder of Mission: America, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to help in dealing with cultural issues such as feminism, homosexuality, education and New Age influences. She is the author of Not My Child—Contemporary Paganism and New Spirituality and her articles have appeared in USA Today and Whistleblower. Mrs. Harvey is a frequent guest on radio talk shows and has testified on legislation before the Ohio General Assembly on numerous occasions. Crusade: How would you define witchcraft?...

<p>High-school students' performance last year on the SAT college-entrance exam fell slightly, and the score gap generally widened between lower-performing minority groups and white and Asian-American students, raising questions about the effectiveness of national education reform efforts.</p> <p>Average scores for the class of 2009 in critical reading dropped to 501 from 502, in writing to 493 from 494 and held steady in math, at 515. The combined scores are the lowest this decade and reflect stalled performance over the past three years. The reading scores are the worst since 1994.</p>

A judge in Florida has determined arguments over a young Christian who ran away from her Muslim parents in Ohio when her father allegedly threatened her life will continue in Florida, and she will not be returned immediately as her parents wished. Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, an honor student and cheerleader, was raised in a Muslim family in Columbus, Ohio. She became a Christian four years ago as a result of her interactions with children at school. But Bary, a native of Sri Lanka, hitchhiked to a bus station and ran away from home July 19 because she says her...

A young Christian runaway in custody of child protective services awaits her hearing tomorrow when Florida authorities will decide whether she will be forced to return to her Muslim parents – whom she says will kill her for converting to Christianity. Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17, an honor student and cheerleader, was raised in a Muslim family in Columbus, Ohio. She became a Christian four years ago as a result of her interactions with children at school. Atlas Shrugs' Pamela Geller has followed Bary's case closely, reporting that the girl's friends accompanied her to the school counselor after they noticed bruises...

AMES, Iowa -- As a new mother herself, Brenda Lohman admits to being shocked by the results of a new study she co-authored. It found that among nearly 1,000 low-income families in three major cities, one in four children between the ages of 11 and 16 reported having sex, with their first sexual intercourse experience occurring at the average age of 12.77. "So if 12 years was the average age here, that meant that some kids were starting at 10 or younger," said Lohman, an Iowa State University associate professor of human development and family studies (HDFS). "A handful of...

For somebody associated with making some of the most resonant teen comedies in modern cinema history, John Hughes still doesn’t receive enough credit—mainly because, before John Hughes, there really was no such thing as the teen comedy. Teens have controlled the marketplace for quite some , so it’s hard to believe that before the early 1980s only a marginal selection of films were directed specifically at this audience. By the late 1950s, teen taste had become the largest, most marketable, and most potentially profitable controlling factor in setting music industry trends, cemented by Beatlemania in the mid-60s. The film industry,...

HUNTINGTON BEACH – A 17-year-old boy, who was riding atop his friend's car and thrown off onto the road, died from his injuries, authorities said today. Christopher Hernandez II, of Huntington Beach, was pronounced dead at 2:50 p.m. today at UCI Medical Center in Orange, according to the county coroner's Web site. About 9:05 p.m. Friday, police received a call to assist the fire department with a teen who had fallen off of a moving vehicle near Brannen Drive and Wildrose Lane. Hernandez was riding on the roof of 2006 Nissan Altima traveling eastbound on Brannen and was thrown from...

Florida is changing its policy on youths who opt for a GED to finish high school in less than four years. Until now, those looking for a shortcut could earn the same diploma as others. But Education Commissioner Eric Smith says that's not fair... So Smith has notified school districts that all who take the General Educational Development test must now receive a high school equivalency diploma, just like dropouts who later go through the GED process.

Websites such as Facebook and MySpace encourage teenagers to view friendship as a "commodity" and are leading them to suicide, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has warned. Archbishop Vincent Nichols said the sites are leading teenagers to build "transient relationships" which leave them unable to cope when their social networks collapse. He said the internet and mobile phones were "dehumanising" community life. His comments follow the death of 15-year-old schoolgirl who took a fatal overdose of painkillers last week after being bullied on Bebo, another networking site. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer, the top administrative official for the chamber, says that six teenage Senate pages have "turned up with flu-like symptoms," though there is no hard evidence yet that the pages have contracted the H1N1 virus. Gainer described the symptoms as "mild," including a runny nose and a sore throat. He indicated that there was "no panic" in the Senate. At this stage, doctors do not test to determine whether it is the H1N1 flu, Gainer said, adding that's consistent with national policy. Four of the pages are roommates and have been restricted to...

Recent high school grad charged with bombing Related Topics: Ray Kelly | Starbucks Corporation A teen arrested in the bombing of an upper East Side Starbucks was inspired to plant the explosive device by the movie "Fight Club," cops said today. Kyle Shaw, 17, of Chelsea, was charged with arson, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon for placing the bomb at the E. 92nd St. coffee shop, police said. Shaw was inspired to plant the bomb at the Manhattan eatery by watching the anarchic behavior of Brad Pitt in the film "Fight Club." He picked the site because...

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...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Rhode Island's governor has vetoed a bill that would let 16- and 17-year-olds register to vote. It's the fourth time that Gov. Don Carcieri has vetoed the legislation. The bill would have let teens "pre-register" to vote, with their registration automatically becoming active when they reach 18. Rep. Edwin Pacheco, D-Burrillville, who introduced the House measure, has said enrolling teens would help get more of them involved in the political process. Carcieri says the current law, which allows teens to register if they are eligible to vote by the next election, has served the state well....

NEW YORK - Two young women have been named best couple at their Bronx high school. Seniors Vikky Cruz and Deoine Scott beat out two opposite-sex couples for the honor at Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School.

A California mom says her public school administrators violated her daughter's First Amendment rights when they ordered the seventh-grader to take off her pro-life T-shirt. Anna Amador has gone to court on behalf of her daughter, who she says was ordered by her principal to change her shirt on "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day." The shirt the girl was wearing displays two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb. The incident occurred in April 2008 at McSwain Elementary School, a K-8 school in Merced, Calif. Amador alleges in her legal complaint that school Principal Terrie Rohrer, Assistant Principal C.W....

A 30-year-old Long Island man was brutally beaten by a pack of teenagers on a Valley Stream street early Sunday, leaving him in critical condition, police said today. Nassau County cops said the attack took place at about 12:15 a.m. Sunday -- but the man, whose identity has not been released, did not seek medical treatment until later in the day. He was admitted to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside in critical condition with a concussion, police said. Police said as many as 15 attackers were involved in the fight.

GAFFNEY, S.C. – A teenage girl shot while helping her father in their family's small furniture and appliance store died Saturday, becoming the fifth victim of a suspected serial killer terrorizing a small South Carolina community, authorities said. Abby Tyler, 15, died about 11:15 a.m. at a Spartanburg hospital after fighting for her life for two days, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said. Tyler was wounded and her father was killed Thursday as they worked to close the Tyler Home Center near downtown Gaffney. County Sheriff Bill Blanton said investigators believe the killings are linked and the search is on...

Not since 1965 has it been so hard for teens to get work. Think an unemployment rate of 9.5% is bad? It could be worse. You could be a teenager. For teenagers, the summer job market has not been so bleak in generations. During what should be the start of the bustling summer job season, the unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds who want work is 24%--the worst since 1965. The outlook for teen jobs is so bleak that it's weighing down the entire employment report, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Thursday. The country is headed for...

A group of teenagers misunderstood a woman's screams during sex and, thinking they were stopping an assault, beat a 25-year-old man in her bedroom, police said. A 16-year-old girl who lives in the same Torrington home as the 34-year-old woman overheard her and the man on June 6 and rounded up four friends to stop what they thought was an attack, police Lt. Bruce Whiteley said Thursday. One of the five teens beat the man with a bat and others punched him, police said. The man was treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening, and was released...