Clipmarks | BobbyDelray's 'children' clips

Third-graders plotted attack on teacher, police say

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:20:51 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.

The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said Tuesday.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren't interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don't know."

The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

They could be expelled, but a prosecutor said they are too young to be charged with a crime under Georgia law.

Who Are the Sandwich Generation?

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:39:04 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: carestation.agis.com

If the term Sandwich Generation leaves you feeling hungry, you may not know about the new buzz surrounding a subset of caregivers nicknamed the “Sandwich Generation”. This colorful name refers to caregivers who find themselves squeezed between caring for younger loved ones (usually children) and elderly parents or family members. This may be nothing new, but these caregivers are becoming a rising interest within American society.

Who are the Sandwich Generation?

hey are the nearly 10 million boomers that are now raising kids, teenagers or young adults while providing financial support for an aging parent.

According on one survey, 70 percent of the Sandwich Generation are providing care simultaneously for parents and children

“You either are a caregiver, will be a caregiver or someone will be caring for you between now and whenever you die,” Donna Schempp, of the National Family Caregivers Alliance

Tags: caregiver, elder care, family, caregiving

Financial Ties to Parents and Children Affect Boomer Retirement

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:05:50 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray
clipper's remarks: This was extracted from a good and interesting blog-- Sometimes I Feel Like a Piece of Bologna. This blog is worth visiting and adding to the reader.

Clip Source: generationsandwich.blogspot.com

Boomers, though arguably the most prosperous generation in American history, face mounting demands on their financial resources from both their adult children and their aging parents. In fact, one in six Boomers surveyed is "sandwiched," providing assistance to both their parents and adult children, according to Ameriprise Financial’s Money Across Generations study.

Boomers are torn between helping their adult children pay off debts and get started, and helping their aging parents with necessities. This help often comes at the expense of funding their own retirement.

My husband and I have very different perspectives on this. His parents provided everything for him through college, and were generous until their deaths. My parents provided nothing. I paid for college, grad school, and all expenses from junior high forward. Yes, it was very hard and I missed out on a lot. But I learned to be independent and make my own way.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Piece of Bologna

Tags: boomers, seniors, retirement

Magnets Tried for Kids’ Chest Repair

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:23:50 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

The Health Blog remembers none too fondly having to eat nothing but mush after getting our braces tightened by the orthodontist oh so many years ago. Now imagine getting magnets adjusted to pull your chest out. Sound appealing? Well, compared with surgery to crack the chest open, it just might be a less painful way to go.

A teenage boy recently became the first patient to try the new approach to repair a sunken chest, called pectus excavatum in medical lingo. His experience was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle. Pectus excavatum, described in more detail here, can arise when children grow up and their sternums and ribs fold in. It’s a problem in about 1 in 800 births.

A surgeon at UCSF Children’s Hospital attached a magnet the size of a hockey puck to Richard’s sternum, which is now slowly being pulled outward by a second magnet stuck to a brace the boy wears on his chest.

Michael Harrison, told the Chronicle, “I was doing these brutal surgeries on kids, and I hated it.”

Tags: chest, surgery, magnets, kids, pectus excavatum, richard nave, michael harrison

Are the Chinese Trying to Poison Our Children (Aqua Dots)

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:15:35 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: money.aol.com

Millions of Chinese-made toys for children have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.

Millions of Aqua Dots art sets were recalled on Nov. 7 after several children in the U.S. and Australia were hospitalized. The toys contain beads coated with a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested.

Scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate. When eaten, the compound - made from common and easily available ingredients - can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

The two U.S. children who swallowed Aqua Dot beads went into nonresponsive comas, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said Wednesday afternoon.

Tags: toy, containing, 'date-rape', drug, pulled, aqua, dots, chinese, children

Global Warming Bad for Kids

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:24:18 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

Global warming is likely to disproportionately harm the health of children, and politicians should launch "aggressive policies" to curb climate change, the American Academy of Pediatrics said today.

•Air pollution does more damage to children's lungs, causing asthma and respiratory ailments, because their lungs are still developing, they breathe at a higher rate than adults and are outdoors more.

•Waterborne infections, such as diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, hit children especially hard. These infections rise sharply with more rain, which is expected as the climate warms.

•As mosquitoes are able to move to higher ground, the malaria zone is expanding. Kids are especially vulnerable; 75% of malaria deaths occur in children younger than 5.

The report briefly mentions that mass migrations are expected as regions become uninhabitable. "Children fare very poorly in these major population shifts," says Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness

Tags: global warming, children, pollution, waterbrone infections

Americans getting 'heads blown off for the president's amusement'

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:05:10 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., has added another item to our catalogue of the sort of discourse that now defines so much of American politics.

Stark took to the House floor yesterday to speak in favor of overriding President Bush's veto of legislation that would have expanded a children's health insurance program. He somehow veered into Iraq, saying that young Americans are getting their "heads blown off for the president's amusement."

"The truth is, Bush just likes to blow things up in Iraq, in the United States and in Congress," Stark says.

What do you think about what he said and how he said it?

Tags: president, bush, pete stark, children's health insurance program, iraq, war

House Democrats fail to override SCHIP veto

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:57:08 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

House Democrats came up short this afternoon when they tried to override President Bush's veto of legislation that would have expanded a children's health insurance program known as SCHIP.

When the roll call ended, supporters of the expansion still needed 13 votes to enact the proposal over the president's objections.

Tags: schip, veto, health insurance

The dump that is said to be poisoning children

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:59:06 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

This photo, by Khalil Senosi of the Associated Press, shows an apartment in Nairobi, Kenya, engulfed by toxic smoke from one of Africa's largest dumps.

Each day, the 30-acre trash pile receives some 2,000 tons of garbage, including industrial and medical waste such as used syringes. Reuters found Willis Ochieng, 10, digging through the pile of smoking refuse. "I have been coming here with my friends since I was eight," he says. "We come every day from the morning to the night. We come for plastic bags, anything metal we can sell."

Tags: dump, kids, children, poisoning, nairobi, kenya, smoke

Detectives set bait for Web predators

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:36:14 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.orlandosentinel.com

TAVARES - In a small room on the third floor of the Lake County Sheriff's Office, two detectives sit behind computers with an unsettling task -- to search for sexual predators who stalk children in cyberspace.

Detectives Chris Loyko and James Vachon make up the law-enforcement agency's recently formed Cyber Crimes Investigations Unit, which has been tracking criminals since the end of August.

Loyko and Vachon pose as teenage girls and wait as adult men approach them in chat rooms to engage in conversations, which quickly turn sexual.

Tags: internet, crimes, against, children

Kids' Health

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:23:24 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

The fight over expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is “the biggest domestic policy clash” of the Bush presidency and “will reverberate into the 2008 elections,” proclaims the front page of this morning’s Washington Post.

As expected, the Senate last night followed the House’s lead and passed a bill to expand the program to cover millions more children at a cost of an additional $35 billion over five years. The increase would be funded largely by higher taxes on cigarettes. The president has promised to veto the bill on the grounds that it would unduly expand the role of government in health care. And that threat, despite the widespread popularity of the measure, is leading some prominent Republicans to break ranks with Bush.

“I am very disappointed that before the administration even received the final language, their minds were apparently made up and a line was drawn in the sand opposing this compromise,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the WaPo reports.

Tags: kids, health, insurance, care

Spears' Bodyguard Tells of Her Wild Ways

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:22:22 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: news.aol.com

Britney Spears' former bodyguard tells News of the World that as a father himself, he "couldn't stand by and let the kids stay around" while Spears allegedly did drugs and abused alcohol.

> Full Coverage

Britney Spears' former bodyguard Tony Barretto told News of the World that he witnessed Spears nearly overdose, abuse alcohol and neglect her children.

Tags: britney spears, bodyguard, tony barretto, children

Kids’ Health Deal Means No Extra Medicare Money for Docs

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:39:33 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray
clipper's remarks: Should we provide health insurance for all children under the age of 12? If we did, wouldn't this lower the costs to taxpayers in the long run?

Clip Source: www.google.com

The House and Senate have cut a deal on an expansion to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. From the sound of this story in the New York Times, the House has basically agreed to support the less sweeping (but still plenty ambitious) bill passed by the Senate.

President Bush has repeatedly promised to veto the bill as an unwarranted expansion of government-funded health care, and a White House spokesman called the compromise bill “far away from legislation that we would find acceptable.”

The bill, which would be funded by higher taxes on cigarettes, would provide $60 billion over five years for the program. That’s $35 billion more than current spending levels, $15 billion less than the House had wanted, and $30 billion more than Bush has proposed.

Tags: kids, children, health care, bush, veto, state children’s health insurance program, schip, taxes

Man accused of online sex extortion is headed to court

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:39:41 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.themilpitaspost.com

Patrick Halsey Jr., the Illinois man arrested last March on charges of extorting a Milpitas minor to perform lewd acts via the Internet, is scheduled to return to a Santa Clara County courtroom Monday.

Tags: sexual predator, internet crimes against children, child pornography

Noblesville man faces child porn charges

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:30:55 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: www.indystar.com

A Noblesville man arrested Wednesday on preliminary charges of child exploitation remains under investigation by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in Hamilton County.

Royce D. Moody, 53, was taken to the Hamilton County Jail after the Fishers-based task force obtained a search warrant and seized computers at his home.

Tags: internet crimes against children, child pornography, internet crimes against children sexual predator