Children

More than 500 people gathered on a rainy Friday for the funeral of 4-year-old Roberto Lopez Jr., who was shot and killed near his Los Angeles home in what police believe was gang violence. Inside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told the congregation to never forget the preciousness of children and that "we have a responsibility to help this family."

First Lady Michelle Obama, who has described herself "first and foremost . . . Malia and Sasha's mom," has defended her daughters' likenesses, saying it is not proper for a company that makes the plush Beanie Babies to produce dolls called Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia. "We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes," Obama's press secretary, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said in a statement Saturday. Oak Brook, Ill.-based toy maker Ty Inc.

Last week, the Supreme Court quietly let die a federal law dubbed the Child Online Protection Act, which made it a crime in the United States to post sexually explicit material on the Web for commercial gain without making provisions to block kids from gaining access. A lower court in Philadelphia had struck down the law, arguing that parents could already shield their children from such material by installing Internet filters.

Gene therapy seems to have cured eight of 10 children who had the potentially fatal "bubble boy disease," according to a study that followed their progress for about four years after treatment. The eight patients were no longer on medication for the rare disease, which cripples the body's defenses against infection. The successful treatment is reported in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and offers hope for treating other diseases with gene therapy.

The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week already has six young children and never expected that the fertility treatment she received would result in eight more babies, her mother said Thursday. The woman, who has not been publicly identified, had embryos implanted last year, and "they all happened to take," Angela Suleman said, leading to the eight births Monday. "I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful."

President Obama and his congressional allies took a modest step toward reshaping the nation's healthcare system Thursday as the Senate passed legislation to expand health insurance for children. But rather than building momentum for the sweeping healthcare reform Obama has promised, the victory on Capitol Hill -- a largely party-line vote, 66 to 32 -- marked a rocky start for what many hope will be the biggest reform campaign in a generation.

A 6-year-old girl remained hospitalized late Saturday after being struck by gunfire while playing video games in her grandfather's South Los Angeles home. First-grader Ivy Hernandez was hit in the back Friday by one of about a dozen bullets fired at the home in the 900 block of East 22nd Street. Ivy, a 5-year-old cousin and a 16-year-old aunt were inches away from a door when it was pierced by bullets, relatives said.

End war, forever. Make the planet greener. Please help my dad find work. Make it rain candy! Thousands of kids detailed their hopes and expectations for President Obama in letters and drawings as part of a "Dear Mr. President" project, with 150 chosen for publication in a free e-book being released today, on Presidents Day. Most had tall orders for the new guy in the White House. Anthony Pape, 10, of DuBois, Pa., offered: "I hope that we will have no war ever again.

Three people have been arrested in connection with the shooting of a 7-year-old girl in South Los Angeles, police said Thursday. The suspects include the girl's aunt and her boyfriend, who authorities said was a known gang member. "It's a horrific case. It's a case that really defies understanding," said Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz of the Los Angeles Police Department.

A 9-year-old Arizona boy accused of shooting his father and another man to death at their rural home pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of negligent homicide, a development that will spare the beleaguered town of St. Johns a highly publicized trial. The November slayings drew international attention to the town of 4,000 after a police video was released in which the boy, clad in pajama pants, appeared to confess to shooting his father, Vincent Romero, and family friend Timothy Romans with a .