There are ways to prevent or mitigate the damage bullying can do to a child, experts stressed after nine Massachusetts teens were charged with harassment in the suicide of a 15-year-old. "Adults can have better control if they know what to ask a child and how to ask it," said Barbara Coloroso, who has written best-sellers on parenting and how to have a healthier schooling experience. Phoebe Prince hanged herself in her family's second-floor apartment in South Hadley in northwest Massachusetts in January, Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel said. The teen had ...

Nine teens have been charged in the “unrelenting” bullying of a teenage girl from Ireland who killed herself after being raped and enduring months of torment by classmates in person and online, a prosecutor said Monday. Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said 15-year-old Phoebe Prince was stalked and harassed nearly constantly from September until she killed herself Jan. 14. The freshman had recently moved to South Hadley in western Massachusetts from Ireland. “The investigation revealed relentless activities directed toward Phoebe to make it impossible for her to stay at school. The bullying for her was intolerable,” Ms. Scheibel said. Six teens — four ...

Cops are investigating whether cyberbullies contributed to the suicide of a Long Island teen with nasty messages posted online after her death. Alexis Pilkington, 17, a West Islip soccer star, took her own life Sunday following vicious taunts on social networking sites - which persisted postmortem on Internet tribute pages, worsening the grief of her family and friends. "Investigators are monitoring the postings and will take action if any communication is determined to be of a criminal nature," Suffolk County Deputy Chief of Detectives Frank Stallone said yesterday. Alexis' parents downplayed the Internet role, ...

One-third of America's youth is now overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Norwood, Massachusetts, 14-year-old Maria Caprigno no longer wants to be one of those statistics. Maria has been overweight since she was about 3 years old and as she got older, she just got heavier. She told CNN her eating habits were to blame. "I'm a junk-food person and because I'm a couch potato I don't like to get off the couch," she said. "It's also kind of just like my genes: Both my parents are heavy and that's just the environment I was raised ...

The latest trend at teen parties isn't warm beer or prescription medicines pilfered from parents' medicine cabinets. Instead, increasing numbers of youths are turning to an herb-based product to get high, and unlike marijuana, it's perfectly legal. It's known as K2 or Spice, a synthetic substance that, when smoked, gives users a marijuana-like high, according to drug authorities. Its growing popularity is causing increasing alarm among health care professionals, law enforcement authorities and lawmakers, with one Drug Enforcement Agency official calling its use the equivalent of "playing Russian roulette." Should some illegal drugs ...

A photo on a Facebook page shows them dressed in black suits, white shirts and stylish ties. They're at some sort of dinner and they look straight into the camera, their young faces full of hope and promise and that assuredness reserved for those for whom the future stretches endlessly. That future ended Friday for Jorge Antonio Mercado Alonso and Javier Arredondo Verdugo, shot to death in a firefight between Mexican army soldiers and gangsters who had sought refuge on a university campus. The two mechanical engineering graduate students at the Technological Institute ...

DEERFIELD BEACH — As Josie Lou Ratley remained in a medically-induced coma Friday, stunned family members struggled to understand why someone she barely knew could become angry enough to allegedly try to beat her to death. "She's not with us," said Ratley's aunt, Linda Sarmiento, describing the 15-year-old Ratley's condition at Broward General Medical Center. "She can't respond to us. She's in a coma." Ratley was taken to the hospital Wednesday after Wayne Treacy, 15, a student at Deerfield Beach High School, attacked her ...

A California appeals court ruled that Internet threats posted on a 15-year-old boy's Web site are not protected free speech in what may be the state's first case to examine the boundaries between free expression and cyber-bullying. The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled in a 2-1 decision Monday that the boy can sue schoolmates over the messages, which included threats to "rip out your ... heart and feed it to you" and to "pound your head in with an ice pick." The plaintiff, identified in court documents only as D.C., set up a Web site in 2005 to promote his music ...

Some kids are so full of energy and creative ideas, simply encourage them to follow their own ideas and magic often happens. Such was the case with Annie Wignall, When she was 11 years old, Annie heard about some local children who had to leave their homes in a hurry, unable to take their favorite possessions with them. Her solution was to start a program providing handmade, soft bags filled with toiletries, books, and stuffed toys for children in need. Other teens, and people of all ages from across the country ...

A Stockton high school senior is facing criminal charges for sending an explicit message to another student, according to authorities. High school student Austin Butler, 18, was arrested after he allegedly sent a graphic photo to an underage girl. The girl's mother found the photo and immediately contacted school administrators. It doesn't appear the picture was taken and sent during school hours, but Butler was cuffed on campus Monday afternoon. Police said Butler just turned 18 a few months ago, but is facing serious charges as an adult that could land him in prison, ...