Free Republic

President Barack Obama has brought a more relaxed style to the White House, according to Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times, among other things going suit coat-less in the Oval Office and allowing others to do the same. Obama critics will probably hold this against him and mark him down as disrespecting the presidency. But the Oval Office is an office after all, even if it is the world's most famous one. At bottom, it is a work space albeit it holds an almost sacred place in the hearts of many Americans. Most Americans probably won't begrudge Obama...

Murder defendant had nearly 600-page case file as juvenile Judge opted not to send teen to adult court in 2004 burglary-arson case Friday, January 9, 2009 10:30 PM By Holly Zachariah and John Futty THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Charlie Myers said this week that when he shot a woman to death in her Dayton-area home on Jan. 2, it was the first time he'd ever had a gun. That was a lie. On March 5, 2004, when Myers was just a few months shy of his 18 t h birthday, he broke into his neighbor's home in Union County and stole...

Nathaniel Abaraham was arrested overnight in Pontiac. Police say he was selling drugs. He shot and killed an 18-year-old man outside a Pontiac party store. Since his release, he's been working on a career in rap music. Most of his lyrics are about death, violence and drugs.

Response to 'Dispatch' request Dann releases 2,300 e-mails Tuesday, April 22, 2008 3:11 AM By Darrel Rowland, Alan Johnson, Mark Niquette and Randy Ludlow THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH The Daily Briefing Inside the e-mails: Marc Dann and Jessica Utovich DispatchPolitics # DispatchPolitics.com Complete election coverage. # Buckeye Forum Veteran political reporters examine Ohio politics in this weekly podcast. Nothing relating to an ongoing sexual-harassment probe was immediately apparent in hundreds of e-mails between Attorney General Marc Dann and his scheduler, Jessica Utovich, that were unveiled last night. After initially denying a Dispatch request for the communications, Dann's office released more than...

When the number of kids locked up at San Francisco's juvenile hall reached record numbers last spring, Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the population at the hall to be reduced and the city to recommit to partnering with community groups that work intensively with troubled youth while allowing them to live at home. Nine months later, however, executives with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a leading private funder of such initiatives around the country, say the $587,500 it has given San Francisco since 2001 to help achieve that very goal has been wasted and that change is happening at "a snail's...

Brett Bruce Belflower thought there was something suspiciously familiar about the green shirt he saw a man wearing Sunday night on S.C. 170 near Regions Bank. He pulled a little closer and recognized it as one of the items that went missing from his Beaufort home about three weeks ago. So, he jumped out of the car and asked for his shirt back. The problem is, he asked with a baseball bat in his hand, police said. Belflower, 19, has been charged with armed robbery for relieving a juvenile of a shirt and a pair of blue jeans that the...

Security officials in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province said Saturday they arrested a teenager allegedly involved in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last month. Aitezaz Shah, 15, told investigators he had been part of a five-man squad deployed that day in the city of Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, a senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. In the capital, Islamabad, however, a government spokesman said he could not confirm the official's claim. Interior Ministry spokesman Jawed Iqbal Cheema said he had no information about any...

Huckabee’s “Juvenile” Behavior Posted on January 11th, 2008 By Sean Hackbarth in Debates   There were two people who weren’t impressed with Fred at last night’s debate. One of them was MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough who thought Fred was nothing more than Sen. John McCain’s “hatchet man.”The other person not impressed was the target of Fred’s criticism: Mike Huckabee. Let’s roll the tape so you can see what bothered him: Fred on Huckabee and the Reagan Coalition Fred told voters the truth about Huckabee and how he won’t be able to hold together the Reagan coalition if...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A 15-year-old boy threw a football against a pregnant teen's stomach twice, causing the baby to be born prematurely and die hours later, authorities said. State prosecutors are reviewing the case to determine whether to file charges. Neither the boy nor the baby's mother, also 15, was identified. The boy's age, intentions and state of mind will be considered, said Maria Schneider, assistant state attorney in charge of the Juvenile Division. She said she likely will make a decision in January; the boy is not in custody. "When somebody shoots somebody in the head, it's very...

I'm listening to my scanner and Lake Havasu City PD officers are currently searching for a male juvenile seen toting a rifle in the vicinity of the local middle school. There was also a report of three shots fired in that area. Police just reported that the school is okay. Nothing further as of yet

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has learned that Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year old Iranian citizen of Kurdish origin from the city of Paveh, in the Western province of Kermanshah, has been sentenced by the government to execution. Makvan has been convicted of multiple counts of anal rape and sentenced to execution for crimes allegedly committed when he was 13 years old. IGLHRC calls for an international response to stop this scheduled execution. Imposing the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles is prohibited under international law as well as by the Iranian legal system. In addition,...

A 17-year-old male was charged Wednesday in Ford County District Court with having unlawful voluntary sexual relations with a 15-year-old girl. The suspect is accused of having sex with the girl sometime Friday afternoon at a home on Lampton Circle in the Lazy Acres Trailer Park, according to a news release from the Ford County Sheriff's Office. He was taken into custody Saturday morning and taken to the Southwest Kansas Juvenile Detention Center in Garden City, where he was being held until formal charges were filed. The suspect was charged with unlawful sexual relations because he is younger than 19...

Boy, 12, charged with assault after throwing cocktail sausage in 'Just William' prank How the law made a meal out of a boy's childish prank By JAYA NARAIN - More by this author » Last updated at 21:50pm on 22nd August 2007 Food for thought: The boy of 12 contemplates all the stress caused by throwing a sausage A 12-year-old boy has been brought before the courts for throwing a cocktail sausage at a neighbour District Judge Tim Devas compared the incident to a story from boys' adventure book Just William. The case has been brought before Manchester City...

BAGHDAD — A juvenile detainee education facility opened at Camp Victory, Iraq, Tuesday. Dar Al-Hikmah, or “The Wisdom House,” is designed to give juvenile detainees an education, which would benefit their eventual release and reintegration into society. “Al-Qaeda and other extremists are using juveniles against us,” said U.S. Army 1st Lt. Rob Glenn, the Dar Al-Hikmah education program manager. “As a consequence, we’re detaining many juveniles.” “In order to prevent another generation of insurgents and those who would do harm (against) the future of Iraq or Coalition forces, we’re educating them,” he added. Dar Al-Hikmah, or “The Wisdom House,” provides...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Every week, Janet Sisk rises as early as 5 a.m. and drives nearly 100 miles to spend her Sundays with a teenager who was just 12 when he murdered his grandparents in their sleep. She planned to spend part of Easter weekend sitting across a table from Christopher Pittman at his maximum security prison in Columbia. She also made the trek from her home in Charlotte, N.C., to spend Christmas Eve with him. She's not alone — a half-dozen people drawn to Pittman's case visit him weekly. Another woman has flown from Michigan to see him twice...

COVINGTON, La. - Police said they caught a 16-year-old robbery suspect who had eluded authorities on several previous occasions when his baggy pants fell down, causing him to stumble as officers chased him. "We literally caught him with his pants down," Lt. Jack West of Covington police said.

The mother of a boy convicted Friday in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl on Labor Day told a judge the girl was also to blame and that her son was the victim of "little flipper girls" who think it's cool to have sex with multiple partners. That prompted Milwaukee County Children's Court Judge Mary Triggiano to abruptly interrupt her. "What he did was rape that girl," Triggiano said, calling the deflection of responsibility to the girl appalling. "He got caught. He didn't take responsibility until something pegged him

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- One of the teenagers responsible for beating a Holly Hill homeless man to death asked a judge to reduce his 22-year prison sentence Monday. Warren Messner and three other teens pled guilty to killing the man because they were bored, but Messner said prison is too hard. Messner is a big boy. He was 15 at the time he was brought into the woods to see the homeless man his friends had been beating. Even at that young age, he outweighed the victim, Michael Roberts, by 200 pounds when he jumped on his chest, crushing his...

When a maximum-security jail for dangerous juveniles closed just over two years ago, some legislators, law enforcement personnel and juvenile corrections employees sounded alarms. Putting violent, predatory teens into general jail populations was dangerous for everyone, they argued, especially teens who were incarcerated for lesser offenses. Now, after two alleged sexual assaults within days of each other at the Youth Diagnostic and Development Center in Albuquerque, the alarms are growing louder. Ed Abreu, superintendent of the New Mexico Boys' School, is speaking out for the first time about the violence that erupted at his facility when high-risk juveniles were moved...

WASHINGTON (July 31) - City officials are moving up a nighttime curfew as they try to overcome a spike in crime that's been marked by a rise in juvenile arrests. Beginning Monday, most juveniles could be taken into police custody if they are found on the streets of the nation's capital between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The curfew used to begin at midnight. "Too often, young people are becoming involved in violent crimes," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams. "This earlier curfew hour is necessary in order to protect them from becoming victims of crime or from becoming involved in...