Youth

Everyone knows who Hannah Montana is. But perhaps only kids know she's been unseated as TV's reigning tween queen by one Carly Shay. When no one was looking, Carly, the plucky 15-year-old star of the Nickelodeon comedy "iCarly," overtook Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" -- and this year, "American Idol" -- in the ratings race for young audiences. Miranda Cosgrove, who plays Carly, is still a name that draws quizzical looks while Miley Cyrus sells out Cineplexes and concert stadiums.

The TV series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" opens with a 15-year-old girl coming home from band practice, reaching into her French horn case and pulling out a home pregnancy test. Her horrified look confirms the results. No less startled are some parents whose children watch the ABC Family cable program that revolves around the sex lives of high school students.

Since emerging from the primordial ooze, parents have wrung their evolving appendages over ways to shield their offspring from hungry predators, lurking maniacs and strangers from without.

Amber Medina has been looking for a job for five months, ever since her father, a metal-worker, was laid off and her mom began struggling to support the family of seven on her $15-per-hour job. But the 17-year-old has yet to find anything permanent, despite sending out resumes and visiting dozens of potential employers, including the clothing stores Old Navy and PacSun. "I'm looking for any job to help my parents," she said.

The police were polite but firm as they arrested Shahin Felakat, a lanky teen whose mussed-up strands of dirty brown hair reach in all directions, and charged him with singing lyrics that threatened Iran's Islamic order. After a few days in jail, the 18-year-old rapper ran back to the studio to rejoin his homeboys. "The authorities have a very negative view of rap," Felakat says. "They say rap has a corrupting influence.

The statute of limitations should protect us from prosecution, so let the truth be told -- we used anti-poverty funds to buy the Frankly Dankly bus in the landmark summer of '69. One of our group still insists we "passed the hat" to pay for the thing. But he's a respectable lawyer now, so we'll allow him that fog of memory. Everyone else is willing to 'fess up that we dipped into money intended to help the poor to procure the oil-leaking school bus we saw sitting in a lot with a "For Sale" sign.

When "Race to Witch Mountain" director Andy Fickman wanted to track down Kim Richards, the former child star who appeared in the original 1975 version "Escape to Witch Mountain," he sought an unlikely ally: Paris Hilton. As it turns out, Hilton is the niece of Richards, who had all but disappeared from the Hollywood scene 20 years earlier. "My first crush was on Kim Richards. She had long blond hair. It was 90 feet long," the director recalled.

Is the love affair between cars and young people starting to cool? That could be the case, according to a new study of auto-related online commentary among teens and young adults by J.D. Power and Associates. The market research firm analyzed hundreds of thousands of online conversations held from January to August on auto-related websites such as Autoblog, on personal blogs and on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The goal was to gauge the perceptions of Generation Y (those born in the 1980s and early 1990s)

Jennifer Taggart's testing gun seems an anomaly in this California Market Center room filled with pink tutus and flowery white baby gowns. She holds a laser gun, called the XRF Analyzer, to a tiny dress and waits. The scanner beeps: The garment doesn't contain any lead. Its designer sighs in relief. On Friday, clothing buyers from retail boutiques start pouring into the downtown Los Angeles garment emporium to decide which items to stock.

They show up with lunch sacks and stuffed bears, an occasional doll. On Wednesday morning, most simply walked up the sidewalk with their parents in tow to the green, wrought-iron gate. One arrived in a shiny, black Audi SUV whose driver popped out to open the huge door for his charge. After a moment, a pair of tiny feet clad in hot-pink Crocs sandals dangled out and another youngster headed into the First Presbyterian Nursery School in Santa Monica. They are preschoolers.