High School Students

More than 600 elementary and middle school students at Crossroads School in Santa Monica will watch the swearing-in of the nation's 44th president today on 9-foot by 12-foot projection screens. Final exams were delayed a day for the high school students so they could participate.

At Corona del Mar High School, the show will go on. After a flap that raised the ire of the gay community and ruffled feathers across the Newport Beach campus, drama students will be allowed to stage a production of "Rent," a musical about struggling artists in New York City. "I never had a problem with the play selected" by drama teacher Ron Martin, Corona del Mar Principal Fal Asrani said in a statement released Wednesday by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

Germany is known for having strict gun possession laws. The legal age for owning recreational firearms was raised from 18 to 21 after a 2002 shooting in Erfurt that killed 16 people. Weapons cannot be bought without a license, which can be acquired only after proving expert knowledge of firearms and a need for the weapon. Still, Germany has not been immune to school shootings.

Chris Schultz breaks down as he worries that his younger brothers will become homeless because his family is four months behind in rent. Evelyn Aguilar's home was foreclosed, so her family is among a dozen people sharing a one-bedroom apartment. Victoria Gonzalez may delay college for a year to support her family. These students, all 17, and 14 of their classmates tell their tales in "Is Anybody Listening?", a nine-minute video made by students at Village Academy High School in Pomona.

The young quarterback rolled out and found himself, quite suddenly, alone. No linemen blocking, no receiver breaking open, only tacklers bearing down. At that point, UCLA freshman Richard Brehaut realized he had turned right when the play was supposed to go left. It was only practice, but coaches pulled him off the field, yelling. "I screwed up," he said. "They got on me real good."

Narbonne High School football coach Manuel Douglas gathered his varsity team Tuesday morning to talk about losing their teammate Dannie Farber Jr. He said the last time he spoke with Farber was Thursday, when he was escorting a Michigan football scout out of the school. In the hall, Farber took his hand and pulled him, as if wanting to speak with him. "I said, 'Hold on, I'll be back,' " Douglas recalled. When Douglas returned a few minutes later, Farber was gone.

Charles Clow has some advice for the Obama administration on how to get the U.S. out of the recession. "The wheels here need to be greased," Clow said. "People have to want to spend money again and that's our problem -- they don't want to spend money. We need to increase government spending and cut income taxes and payroll taxes and get money flowing."

Heven Ambaye remembers that moment of elation when the apprehension of being a ninth-grader at Brentwood School wore away, when she realized she had new friends to lean on, when the classes and teachers didn't intimidate her as much. It came at a volleyball game as she was cheering wildly for the home team and sharing the joy of school spirit. "The kids are very athletic, and going to the games was so much fun -- and our team won," she said.

After he offended the entire nation of Kazakhstan, the Los Angeles Unified School District was apparently child's play for comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen, in his new guise as gay Austrian fashionista "Bruno," appears in a cover story in the latest issue of GQ magazine that includes a photo shoot with the Birmingham High School football team.

Trevor Niemann has grown up along the cliffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean as his backyard playground. To this 17-year-old avid beachgoer, it just makes sense to be concerned about the welfare of the coastal waters and marine life. Niemann, a senior at the Chadwick School, signed up for marine biology this year, but he and his classmates have taken their studies outside of the classroom, supporting proposals under review by a state-appointed task force to preserve a large swath of coastal water from fishing.