Schoolgirls

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Dozens of Nigerian schoolgirls were loaded into vehicles by armed militants and driven off in the middle of the night, according to Nigerian officials. The gunmen assaulted a boarding school in the town of Chibok, in the country's northeastern Borno state, on Monday night and ordered the students into three trucks and a bus, according to officials who spoke to Nigerian media . They also looted the school's food store and the town, killed some residents and burned dozens of houses, according to the reports . Some media accounts suggested the attack lasted six hours, as the militants carefully selected which girls to abduct.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Dozens of Nigerian schoolgirls were loaded into vehicles by armed militants and driven off in the middle of the night, according to Nigerian officials. The gunmen assaulted a boarding school in the town of Chibok, in the country's northeastern Borno state, on Monday night and ordered the students into three trucks and a bus, according to officials who spoke to Nigerian media . They also looted the school's food store and the town, killed some residents and burned dozens of houses, according to the reports . Some media accounts suggested the attack lasted six hours, as the militants carefully selected which girls to abduct.

Re "Protestants Again Taunt N. Irish Schoolgirls," Sept. 5: Can someone please explain to me why a little girl in Northern Ireland cannot go to school? Regardless of what her religion is? Timothy Ahrens Westlake Village Those cowards who are harassing little girls on their way to school in Northern Ireland should be extremely proud of themselves. It must take a lot of courage to confront those dangerous suspected IRA members. Mel Watson Mission Hills

LONDON -- Two videos were released Monday showing Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai speaking publicly for the first time since she was shot by the Taliban in October for campaigning for female education. The first , recorded by a public relations company on Jan. 22, days before the 15-year-old underwent complex cranial and auricular reconstruction surgery at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, features Malala announcing the launch of a special fund for girls' education in Pakistan.

Pope John Paul II today began a three-day visit to Paraguay, the last stop on his South American tour. His jet touched down in a torrential rainstorm as drenched schoolgirls in white smocks chanted a greeting. President Alfredo Stroessner, who has ruled this nation for 34 years, awaited the pontiff inside an airport boarding area protected from the rain.

To Mary Jaene Edmonds, the woman who guided the work of Elizabeth Drew was as much an artist as Picasso. Nobody knows her name, but she was a schoolmistress in Plymouth, Mass., at the beginning of the 19th Century. Unlike Picasso's, the schoolmistress' genius was exercised at a distance. Her masterpieces were created not by her own hand, but by those of her young female charges. Thus, Elizabeth Drew, 13 years old, carefully stitched the exquisite sampler her unknown teacher designed for her: a border of China roses, a meticulously executed alphabet, a pious dedication of "the first efforts of an infant's hand" to the Lord, and a landscape with four silken poplar trees in the middle ground and ships in the bay beyond.

I'd just like to say that in a world where babies are murdered by roving gang members, and citizens are beaten and killed for their shiny watches, and schoolgirls are assaulted and raped on campuses, and killer drugs are available all over town from your friendly neighborhood dealer, it's damn comforting to know that I'm at least being protected against somebody somewhere having unsanctified sex. PAUL KNEIPP, Los Angeles

Police said today they have arrested a suspect in the so-called "security building rapes" in which as many as 17 schoolgirls and young women were assaulted in afternoon-hour attacks in the Wilshire and Rampart areas. Ronald Nelson Melvin, 28, was arrested Wednesday at 3rd and Catalina streets during a police stakeout, Lt. Dan Cooke said. Most of the victims in the knifepoint attacks since August, 1984, were between 12 and 17 years old, police said.

A Panorama City man who kidnaped and sexually molested six San Fernando Valley schoolgirls in five assaults during 1981 and 1982 was sentenced to the maximum 44 years in prison. Albert M. Alegrete, 33, stood impassively as Santa Monica Superior Court Judge David Perez pronounced sentence and said, "It's clear to the court that the acts were cruel, callous and calculating." Alegrete pleaded for a lighter sentence, claiming that he was "seeing things" at the time of the molestations.

There is one word that describes ABC's "Sidekicks," a rather rum-dum, semi-dramatic series premiering at 8:30 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42: Hayahhhhhh!!!! If you saw the Disney movie pilot, you know that bachelor cop Jake Rizzo (Gil Gerard) has become the reluctant guardian of young Ernie (Ernie Reyes Jr.), a karate-chopping Asian kid who often recalls the teachings of his late grandfather (Keye Luke). Such as: "The way to catch a fly is to be quicker than a fly." I knew that.

Willow Shawl doesn't like to draw attention to her Type 1 diabetes. If a stranger asks about the insulin pump clipped to her jeans, the 10-year-old will say it's an iPod. Sometimes she'll forgo checking her blood-sugar levels to avoid the stares of her classmates as she pricks her finger. So for a while in third grade, when she started coming home from school with unusually high blood-sugar levels, her parents suspected she was slacking in her daily routine, even though Willow insisted otherwise.

A little French girl and her schoolmates will be making their presence known in Southern California this spring: Madeline and her friends are a theme of artwork for the 16th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, April 30 through May 1 at USC. Madeline is the beloved character introduced by Ludwig Bemelmans in 1939, the smallest of her compatriot schoolgirls who tread in two straight lines through a series of children's books, including "Madeline"...

Dozens of Afghan schoolgirls fell ill after a suspected poison gas attack on their school, local authorities said on Sunday, blaming the incident on the Taliban who oppose education for girls. Provincial police chief Abdul Razzaq Yaqubi said about 48 girls and several teachers became ill suddenly and many collapsed after smelling poison gas at the school in the northern city of Kunduz, where there has been an upsurge in insurgent violence.

The gig: As president of Warner Bros.' Telepictures Productions, Hilary Estey McLoughlin, 47, oversees one of the biggest syndication companies in television. Telepictures has more than 1,200 employees and nine shows on the air, including "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," George Lopez's late-night talk show "Lopez Tonight" and "Extra." It also owns Harvey Levin's tabloid empire, TMZ. A seed is planted: Estey McLoughlin grew up in Queens, New York, obsessed with television. "The thing about Queens is, everyone's TV is on all the time.

Doctors are investigating whether dozens of girls were poisoned at a high school in northern Afghanistan after 61 students were taken to the hospital because of sudden illness, officials said. Dr. Khalil Farangi said the 61 girls and one teacher from a school in Parwan, one province north of Kabul, complained of irritability, weeping and confusion. Several girls also passed out. Officials sent blood samples to Kabul and to the U.S. military base in Bagram for tests.

Faces peek out through the wire mesh in the green trucks that rumble through the morning. They are not prisoners, but they seem so. A back door opens and they drop out one by one in their black uniforms, scuffed shoes and clumsily tilted berets. Their rifles clatter, they are on the beat. They yawn and stretch and meander through the neighborhood, a trickling dark sea beneath the jacaranda and magnolia.

Shannon Wright, who shielded a sixth-grade pupil from gunfire and was fatally wounded as a result, was remembered Saturday as a hero as the final victims of Tuesday's shooting spree at Westside Middle School were laid to rest. The 32-year-old teacher, who leaves behind a husband and a 2-year-old son, was memorialized at a jammed church service just five miles from the scene of the bloody schoolyard ambush that claimed the lives of Wright and four young girls and injured 10 others.

Unidentified assailants attacked four girls on their way to a Christian high school in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province, beheading three and seriously wounding the fourth, police said. Sectarian violence in 2001-2002 killed about 1,000 Christians and Muslims.

Even amid the everyday brutality of war, it was an especially horrific attack: Assailants this month splashed battery acid on a group of Afghan girls, punishing them for going to school. On Tuesday, Afghan authorities announced the arrests of 10 men, described as Taliban militants, in connection with the Nov. 12 attack in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement.

Two sisters on their way to school were hospitalized Monday after being struck by a car in a crosswalk. The driver was later taken into custody, officials said. Monica Ramirez, 11, was in serious condition with a head injury after surgery. Her sister Rebecca, 12, was in fair condition with a broken leg and a skull fracture, said Simi Singer, a spokeswoman for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where both were being treated. The accident occurred about 7:20 a.m.