2/15/10 Teen News: Local and National

Teen skaters ready for 2014 Olympics – 15-year-old Miles Addison of Enloe High School, who has been skating since he was 3, wakes up everyday at 4:45 a.m. to train with his partner Kay Bergdolt of Cary Academy for 90 minutes before school and two hours after school.  The pair won bronze in this year’s Junior National Championships. “You always have bad days and it’s always hard to get back up and fight through those. But whenever you have a good day and you land a new jump, it’s so exciting and you just want to do it again and again,” said Kay. (VIDEO by MYNC.com)

Cary finishes 2nd in wrestling championships - 30-0 Cary Imps, who had won the three previous 4-A state championship fell 38-14 in the state finals to Parkland High, who had won the three previous 3-A state championships before moving up a division this year.  “Any time you beat a team with 20 state championships, you’ve done something pretty great,” Parkland coach Ronnie Sigmon, still dripping from the Gatorade shower his team had just given him, said. “And this victory demonstrates that 3A wrestling in this state is just as good as 4A.”  (SWWake News)

Parents sue over suspended children - Two Beaufort County families are suing the school system after the school suspended their children for fighting but did not offer educational options during the long-term suspension. “It affected the family drastically,” Harvey-Barrow said. “It also threw her behind. She was working toward going to a university. By her missing the whole semester, her GPA fell. She had to struggle with that.” (N&O)

Who is the creator of ChatRoulette? - A 17-year-old high school student from Russia. I created this project for fun. Initially, I had no business goals with it. I created this project recently. I was and still am a teenager myself, that is why I had a certain feeling of what other teenagers would want to see on the Internet. I myself enjoyed talking to friends with Skype using a microphone and webcam. But we got tired of talking to each other eventually. So I decided to create a little site for me and my friends where we could connect randomly with other people. (NYT)

CC& Co. Dance Complex’s Holiday Wishes

(click images to enlarge – photos by wjzo.com, please see www.ncholidaywishes.com for more info)

Thursday’s teen news – local(∆) and national

(∆) Cary teen hosts free tennis camp – Aneesh Kodali of Car y Academy runs the Kids for Kids camp which seeks to introduce tennis to disadvantaged youth.  The camp started with only 30 participants last year but already has 130 campers this year.  “I wanted to combine my desire to do volunteer work with my passion for tennis,” Kodali explained. (MyNC.com)

Texas ed. chief wants ban on hiring H.S. dropouts – State Education Commissioner Robert Scott said businesses in Texas should quit hiring school-age dropouts to force those teenagers to either remain in school or continue their education elsewhere, such as through an online program. Business leaders appear unwilling to participate, arguing that the schools need to do a better job preventing dropouts. (Dallas News)

In program giving cash, more pass A.P exams – The Reach program pays students at 31 NYC high schools $1,000 if they pass an AP exam.  The number of students passing the test increased from 1,161 to 1,240 but critics are skeptical that such cash for success programs are effective. (NYT)

Mandatory screening for teen depression? - Some pediatricians and mental health professionals believe that many teen suicides can be prevented through a five- to 10-minute questionnaire that singles out at-risk teens for follow-up diagnosis and treatment. Experts in the story debate whether the screening should be mandatory.  Suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people in the US. (LA Times)

Teen’s sight improving after stem-cell transfusion – Lawrence Brown of Texas traveled to China for a stem-cell transfusion, a medical practice not endorsed in the US. Two weeks later, he says his sight has already begun to improve. (Dallas News)

Chinese teen dies at Internet rehabilitation clinic -“My son was very healthy and was not a criminal. He just had an Internet addiction when I left him at the camp,” Deng Fei tells the paper. “We can’t believe our only son was beaten to death.” A survey last year found that more than 10% of China’s 100 million teenage Internet users are Internet addicts. (USA Today)

Top new career: statistics – The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data.“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.” (NY Times)

Parents: Taliban brainwashing teens to become suicide bombers -“I am ready to carry out a suicide attack against any target with approval of my ameer (chief),” said 15-year-old Hamad, who claimed he received 40 days of training from the Taliban after being snatched last year. “The Taliban completely brainwashed my son, who was studying in ninth grade. He is now even more violent and doesn’t let his mother and sisters watch TV, calling it un-Islamic,” Furqan said. (AFP)