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Nine male students were suspended from Bell Middle School for allegedly masturbating while looking at pornography on their cell phones during English class. Students were suspended during the month of May, the district confirmed in an e-mail to NBC San Diego. But the email also states, the district is "prohibited from commenting on confidential student or personnel matters." The teacher, Ed Johnson, is reportedly under fire because he did not respond to students who told him about the behavior while it was allegedly happening – only saying he would give students referrals if he caught them – then went on...

The United Nations is increasingly concerned at the spread in Europe of "baby boxes" where infants can be secretly abandoned by parents, warning that the practice "contravenes the right of the child to be known and cared for by his or her parents", the Guardian has learned. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reports on how well governments respect and protect children's human rights, is alarmed at the prevalence of the hatches – usually outside a hospital – which allow unwanted newborns to be left in boxes with an alarm or bell to summon a carer....

J.C. Penney has released a Father's Day advertisement that features a same-sex couple consisting of two fathers playing with two children, which has outraged the American Family Association's One Million Moms who feel the company is "promoting sin."

ROSEAU, Dominica (AP) -- Two California men on a gay cruise of the Caribbean were arrested Wednesday in Dominica, where sex between two men is illegal. Police Constable John George said police boarded the cruise ship and arrested the two men on suspicion of indecent exposure and "buggery," a term equivalent to sodomy on the island. He identified the men as John Robert Hart, 41, and Dennis Jay Mayer, 43, but did not provide their hometowns. George said the men were seen having sex on the Celebrity Summit cruise ship by someone on the dock. The two were later charged...

I"m a nurse anesthetist, and I just got a work-related email from my boss. Basically it said "please conserve midazolam, fentanyl, morphine, and hydromorphone.....supplies are CRITICALLY short & the hospital is struggling to maintain supplies". Um, ok. The last time I checked, this was the United States, not Crapistan. How are we "critically short" on all of the major anesthesia drugs that we use??? Am I supposed to offer the patient a bullet to bite? Are there any FReepers out there who have ties to the pharm industry and can explain this? Speaking with others throughout the hospital, I have...

CHICAGO (AP) - A small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are getting support from parents and from doctors who give them sex-changing treatments, according to reports in the medical journal Pediatrics. It's an issue that raises ethical questions, and some experts urge caution in treating children with puberty-blocking drugs and hormones. An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient. Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, "I a boy" and has stuck with that belief. The family was shocked but now refers to the...

Discussing the recall of two Pfizer brands of birth control pills on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry pressed Dr. Keri Peterson on an "option" for women who "may be now vulnerable to being pregnant." Peterson offered this tip: "There are options....You're going to want to use condoms immediately...there are also over-the-counter termination kits available that you can take right away." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] At the top of the broadcast, fellow co-host Matt Lauer warned about a "false sense of security" in the wake of the recall and promised viewers advice was...

Phones were ringing off the hook on Wednesday in the Regent Square offices of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. "I hope you're having a better day than I am," said Kathy Purcell, local executive director of the charity dedicated to trying to eradicate breast cancer. Although it was only the lunch hour, the affiliate already had taken "close to a hundred" calls and digital messages, with most people objecting to the national Komen's decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Facebook and Twitter also were ablaze Wednesday by posters assailing the move against Planned...

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (CBS Cleveland/AP) — Former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno died Saturday night from lung cancer at the age of 85, Onward State, the student-run university website, reports. The winningest major college football coach of all time, Paterno was diagnosed shortly after Penn State’s Board of Trustees ousted him Nov. 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky. Paterno was getting treatment since, and his health problems worsened when he broke his pelvis — an injury that first cropped up when he was accidentally hit in preseason practice last...

A satanic rock band from Sweden known as Ghost is planning a 13-stop tour in America beginning in New York City on January 18. The band, whose keeps the names of its members anonymous, is actually a devil-worshiping ministry that features a lead singer who calls himself “Papa Emeritus” and dresses up as a kind of satanic pope in a skull mask and cardinal’s robes. Their “13 Dates of Doom” tour in the U.S. will include two other “doom rocker” bands, Blood Ceremony and Ancient Wisdom. Their flyers advertise the tour in this way: “In the name of Satan, we...

Pittsburgh residents are up in arms over a new countywide reassessment that has seen some property values triple or quadruple for tax purposes, but real estate attorney Richard Milesky Jr. thinks he can top them all. Milesky's 18-by-10-foot parking space in his condominium complex has been valued at $5,000 in past years, but now it's supposedly worth $287,800, the Post-Gazette reported. For the record, Milesky's condo is being assessed at $228,700 -- up $55,000 from the last assessment. Milesky plans to appeal the parking spot reassessment he assumes is a simple mistake. The city has said anti-windfall laws will prevent...

Local observances of Kwanzaa will get a special boast this year by the return of Maulana Karenga, the man who created the holiday 45 years ago. A reverent and joyous celebration of family, community and culture based on values derived from African heritage, Kwanzaa is observed from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 by an estimated 20 million to 30 million people worldwide. Unlike Hannukah and Christmas, which precede it, Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday. "Certainly, Kwanzaa has both a particular and universal message," Karenga says. "It first speaks directly to African people, offering the best views and values from...

Most people have no idea how close we are to a biological doomsday. All over the world, incredibly dangerous "superbugs" are being created by virologists and military researchers. This reckless tinkering with nature will eventually cost millions of lives because it is inevitable that some of these "superbugs" will eventually get released either on purpose or by accident. When the time comes, we will have absolutely no protection against them. But a lot of these scientists don't seem to care about the risks. In fact, a team led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre has created a "killer...

A decorated Army veteran, who has never been in jail before, has been behind bars since Monday, and looks to be spending Christmas there as well. "It's been quite an experience that, to me, is very unjustified," Doug Madison told Channel 4 Action News' Jim Parsons Madison is scheduled to be in the Greene County Prison until Wednesday. Madison told Parsons he was driving a chemical tanker from South Carolina to Halliburton's plant near Carmichaels, Pa., on Monday when his GPS directed him off Interstate 79 and onto country roads that have a 10-ton weight limit. Madison's truck weighed three...

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it's going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem. Here's how it works and what you can do about it. SOPA's coming to a vote very soon. In fact,...

A 10 percent tax on billboard advertising could provide enough revenue to help cash-starved Pittsburgh replace police cars and other vehicles on a regular basis, city council budget director Bill Urbanic said Tuesday, as lawyers for the area's biggest billboard company called the proposal part of a vendetta against their client. Councilman Doug Shields hopes to push through legislation authorizing the tax before he leaves office at year's end, but it's too early to say whether he'll succeed. Council next meets Dec. 30. At a public hearing on the proposal Tuesday, Mr. Urbanic said the tax on about 1,000 billboards...

This is the season of the year when Salvation Army volunteers are on the streets and outside stores ringing their bells to encourage donors to fill their red kettles with money for the poor. The longtime Christian organization provides food, shelter, elderly services, disaster relief, prisoner rehabilitation and many other forms of aid. But it also has adopted a position statement that is a step toward abortion, and pro-life leaders are expressing alarm at what they see developing. In its statement on abortion, the Salvation Army says: "A number of biblical and theological principles underpin The Salvation Army's position on...

Like McDonald's versus Burger King or Wal-Mart against Target, U.S. hospitals spent $17 billion on new buildings the past two years to get your business. "If there's a new hospital, somebody has to pay for it," said Nancy Griffith, 67, a hospital volunteer in Illinois. Unlike 36 states, Pennsylvania doesn't regulate hospital construction. The Trib looked at two states that do (Illinois and North Carolina) and one that doesn't (California).

Six years ago, Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania bought and renovated a historic Downtown building that it uses for family planning services and abortion procedures. If a bill passed this week by the state Legislature is signed into law, the organization would soon be in possession of a building wildly out of compliance with new rules holding abortion clinics to the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers. "What we expect is that the majority of abortion providers in Pennsylvania would be shut down for some time," said Rebecca Cavanaugh, vice president for public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania....