High Schools Students

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Attention, students: If someone you don't know tries to friend you on Facebook, ask yourself whether it might actually be your high school principal. Consider "Suzy Harriston. " Her profile picture showed only penguins, and a bunch of students friended her despite having no idea who Suzy was. Then came the warning: "Whoever is friends with Suzy Harriston on Facebook needs to drop them," a former Clayton, Mo., football player wrote on April 5, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

As they do on many Saturday afternoons, the teenagers from across Los Angeles county descended on the nondescript Fairfax district office building. It was time for the weekly editorial meeting at L.A.Youth the newspaper by teens for teens. The latest issue had just hit the hallways of L.A. schools, and the deadline for the next one was fast approaching. As more than a dozen students sat around a square of folding tables, Amanda Riddle, one of the adult editors, kicked things off with a question: What did they know about Trayvon Martin?

They were not even born at the time their city erupted in flames, violence and rage against a system that would not convict Los Angeles police officers of brutally beating a black man. But high school students Jiaya Ingram, Ashley Torres and Jessica Maldonado have been gripped by accounts of the 1992 Los Angeles riots as they learn about them through poetry and plays, readings and recollections of their parents and others. They say they felt shock over police actions, horror over the mob violence and an uneasy feeling that it could happen again, particularly as unarmed African Americans are killed, most recently in Florida, Oklahoma and Pasadena.

Why We Broke Up A Novel Daniel Handler, with illustrations by Maira Kalman Little, Brown: 354 pp., $19.99, ages 15 and older Most of us have been there, experiencing the unprecedented high of a first love followed by the debilitating low when it crumbles. But few of these tragic trajectories have been written about as poignantly as in "Why We Broke Up. " The young-adult debut from Daniel Handler, a bestselling author better known as Lemony Snicket, is an illustrated novel that is its own series of unfortunate events, chronicling a brief but intense teen relationship gone wrong.

There are very few specific details I remember about my experience with lung cancer, though it was just eight years ago. But there are some moments I will never forget. It has been difficult for me to put those into words; now, my words are needed only to point out a handful of scenes from the new movie "50/50" that artfully convey situations and emotions I could never quite express. It all started the summer before my senior year of high school and what seemed, at first, like a case of pneumonia that would not go away.

Congressman Joe Walsh fielded some tough questions Tuesday morning from a high school government class in Mundelein, Ill. with students asking why he plans to boycott a jobs speech by President Barack Obama and how he's handling his ex-wife's lawsuit alleging he owes child support. The Tea Party -backed freshman from McHenry, Ill. told students in the advanced placement class that he plans to read the president's speech, scheduled Thursday night, but not attend the joint session of Congress.

Naomi Hung remembers her stint as a House page as a transformative experience. "It actually gave me a really deep sense of respect for government, which I honestly think is missing a lot now in people my age," she said. About to begin law school at UC Berkeley, Hung, 26, was dismayed to hear that the historic House page program is history. "Personally, I hate to see it go," she said. "Sometimes if something like that changes a person's life, maybe it's worth it. " But citing the $5-million annual cost and dwindling need in the age of electronic communication, House leaders announced Monday that the program is over.

Los Angeles school nurses on Wednesday exhausted their entire supply of 600 doses of thewhoopingcoughvaccine on students who began their academic year this week at area campuses that are on a year-round schedule. But officials came up with a new strategy that they hope will keep hundreds of students in class. If students return signed consent forms from parents or guardians, they can remain in school until the school district receives more vaccine doses, said Kimberly Uyeda, the district's director of student medical services.

For those concerned about teens drinking too many sugary beverages, this may be good news: Water, milk and fruit juice are the drinks most likely to be consumed by high school students, not soda. Or so they say.  In a survey last year of high school students, 72% said they drink a glass of water each day, 42% drink at least one glass of milk, and 30% drink fruit juices daily. Only 24% said they drank regular soda (or pop), though when other sugary drinks such as sports drinks, sweetened coffee drinks (ah, yes, those sweetened coffee drinks)

I made a mistake Those were apparently the last words of a despondent young mother in New York who piled her four children into the minivan and drove off a bridge into the Hudson River. Lashonda Armstrong drowned along with three of her children — an 11-month-old daughter and 2-year-old and 5-year-old sons. According to her 10-year-old son, who escaped through a van window, she had second thoughts the minute the van plunged into the river. But by then, of course, it was too late.