Teen

Lounges, programs for youths help groom future customers You'll never embarrass your teenager again. At least, not while you're all on vacation. Just book one of the growing number of hotels, resorts and cruises that give teens their own tour guides and lounges, with dance clubs, theater classes, spa treatments, video arcades and more. You and your offspring need meet only at meals -- and maybe not even then. Even Club Med, once synonymous with swinging singles in paradise, is catering to teens.

A 25-year-old Joppatowne woman was charged yesterday with attempted murder after three teen-agers apparently overdosed on prescription drugs, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said.Deputies found more than 200 prescription drugs, including muscle relaxants and morphine, inside a Joppatowne townhouse where two of the teens were found, said Detective Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office. The other teen was found outside the dwelling.A boy who went into cardiac arrest was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was in critical condition, Walsh said.

SAT SCORES, high school graduation rates and college enrollment are up.Teen sex, teen pregnancy and teen abortion are down.Condom use is up. Seat belt use is up.Physical fights on school property are down.Alcohol is used by an alarming 50 percent of all teens, but the good news is, it's not increasing.These statistics and others like them paint a picture of teen-agers today who are smarter and more ambitious, healthier and more safety conscious; wiser and more gifted; optimistic and with positive visions of their own futures.

A teen-age male died in Brooklyn yesterday when he lost control of the dirt bike he was driving and hit his head on the concrete. He was not wearing a helmet, police said.The teen was riding his motorcycle in the 4200 block of Thayer St. at 1: 30 p.m. when the accident occurred, said Officer Raymond Howard of the city traffic enforcement section. Police said the teen died at the scene."He was so young, he didn't know how to ride," Howard said.Police said late last night they had not identified the teen.

More than 300 Baltimore students and adults will spend this evening dancing, hanging out with friends and perhaps turning up on television in a nationwide party aimed at preventing teen violence.Called Safe Night, the program is expanding for the first time outside Wisconsin. Organizers estimate that it will include 1,100 parties in every state, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.The biggest Baltimore party, one of 26 in Maryland, will be held from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Pleasant View Gardens Multipurpose Center, 201 N. Aisquith St. Intended for students ages 12 to 15, it could be among the parties included in a broadcast by the Black Entertainment Television cable network and Maryland Public Television.

Two Glen Burnie High School teen-agers accused of planning to make bombs lost their appeals yesterday to leave the juvenile jail where they have been held since their apprehension April 29.As Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North denied their requests, one of the boys covered his eyes with his right hand and cried. The two, and a third who has not contested his incarceration while awaiting trial, are being held at Waxter Children's Center in Laurel. They are 14 and 15. The Sun does not identify juveniles charged with crimes.

Before "Dawson's Creek," before Old Navy polar fleece, before every retailer in America began mining the powerful pre-teen market, there was Delia's.It started as a catalog with a decidedly Gen Y attitude (clever phrases, cool clothes). It's exploded into a mega-bucks business that reaches more than 11 million girls. Internet properties and stores -- including a new one in Towson -- have extended its reach.Who's behind this can't-miss retail mix of retro toys, hip housewares and Soho-style clothes?

ON THE SAME afternoon that Colorado high-school kids were dying at the hands of classmates who were paint-ball freaks, my high-school kid called to say his new paint-ball gear had arrived via UPS. He was heading to the woods to try it out.My heart froze. "Oh God, Joe. Do you have to?"He had paid dearly with his hard-earned savings for a new laser scope and an extension for the barrel of his gun, and I knew without being there that he was probably dressed in his Army surplus cammo, boots and the sinister-looking black goggles and face mask that are regulation paint-ball safety equipment.

RECENTLY, A number of teen-agers found several of my columns, as well as a story I wrote about the popularity of "Titanic" among young girls, insulting. Insulting enough that they took the time to write to me.I get lots of letters, but few are from teen-agers, and fewer still are as well-written as these letters were.Ouch!Elena Cronin, a senior at Catonsville High School, crafted the first letter to me. It was signed by 33 of her friends and classmates, including three Eagle scouts. Three others followed, at my request.

The father of an 11-year-old boy who died in an April car accident with traces of drugs and alcohol in his blood has been arrested and charged with letting teen-agers drink and smoke marijuana in his home, Anne Arundel County police said.Edward Earl Cordova, 47, was arrested about 10: 15 p.m. Wednesday at his home at the 7900 block of McNeilin Way in Severn after county narcotics detectives searched the one-story ranch house for more than an hour on a search-and-seizure warrant. They found two teen-agers smoking marijuana and recovered a bag of the drug, Sgt. Jeff Price said.

A 16-year-old boy admitted Wednesday that he took part in the firebombing of a Piney Orchard townhouse that was intended as retaliation for the recent homicide of a Crofton teenager. In the equivalent of a guilty plea, he admitted in Juvenile Court his involvement in conspiracy to commit arson. The deal requires him to testify against three others, two juveniles and 22-year-old Jonathan R. Myers, also accused in the June 3 crime that charred the front of the home but did not injure anyone.

Woman loses control of car at ceremony A Baltimore woman lost control of her Ford Crown Victoria sedan yesterday in Northwest Baltimore and careered past politicians and other state officials getting ready for an event that would feature Gov. Martin O'Malley. Margarie Hall, the driver, said that when she put her car into gear in the parking lot of the shopping plaza near Wabash Avenue and West Northern Parkway, it accelerated and she couldn't stop it. She hit a parked car and then maneuvered past state officials and a transit bus, up an embankment and across a busy intersection, crashing into railroad tracks near a Maryland Transit Administration maintenance facility.

The teenager described his state of mind when a teacher at his Howard County high school allegedly pulled down the student's underwear after school one day last year and took photos of him nude. "I was extremely shocked," the 18-year-old testified in Howard County Circuit Court yesterday. "I didn't know what to do. I was scared. I froze. I basically stopped thinking." The student's account of the events of Jan. 8, 2007, came on the first day of testimony in the trial of Alan Meade Beier, 53, a former River Hill High School science teacher.

HC DrugFree and the Atholton PTSA will sponsor a free program for parents, "What Is Your Teen Thinking?" from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the media center at Atholton High School in Columbia. The program, for parents only, will address questions such as "How do teens think?" and "Why do they do what they do?" Mark Donovan, an adolescent therapist with Integrative Counseling, will share his view of why teens do what they do as it affects their grades, use of alcohol and other drugs, and other risky behaviors.

After 14 years of steady decline, the rate of teen births rose 3 percent last year, according to a federal study released last week. Bill Albert, deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group, said that after years of declining teen birthrates, "perhaps complacency has become the enemy of progress here." The new numbers were compiled by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using 2006 birth records covering 99.9 percent of the United States.

An Annapolis teen has been charged in the robbery of another Newtowne 20 teen. Police said two young men approached a 19-year-old resident of Newtowne Drive about 11:20 p.m. Wednesday and while one pointed a gun at the teen, a second stole his wallet. Reco Ramon Johnson, 19, also of Newtowne Drive, was arrested the next night. He is charged with armed robbery, assault and related offenses and was being held at the Jennifer Road Detention Center on $35,000 bond. Police are still searching for a second suspect.

For the past month, the banner on Buontempo Brothers restaurant on Main Street in Bel Air has been urging viewers to "watch and vote for Bel Air's own Julienne Irwin on America's Got Talent." The message has been heard: In recent weeks, the 14-year-old country singer has steadily advanced to the final four of the hit NBC talent contest. Tonight, the winner of the $1 million prize on television's highest-rated summer show will be announced. But whether the rising freshman at Harford Christian School in Darlington takes home the money, she is already the beneficiary of one of the most successful marketing campaigns of the TV year - a skillful job of packaging the teen's image and voice that all but guarantees her a recording contract and singing career.

Lounges, programs for youths help groom future customers You'll never embarrass your teenager again. At least, not while you're all on vacation. Just book one of the growing number of hotels, resorts and cruises that give teens their own tour guides and lounges, with dance clubs, theater classes, spa treatments, video arcades and more. You and your offspring need meet only at meals -- and maybe not even then. Even Club Med, once synonymous with swinging singles in paradise, is catering to teens.

On their 2005 debut, All We Know Is Falling, the musician friends of Paramore just wanted to have fun. "We wanted to tour and hope people would latch on to the music," says lead guitarist Josh Farro, the available spokesman for the teen emo-pop band. The Tennessee quartet -- fronted by charismatic lead vocalist-songwriter Hayley Williams and featuring Farro's brother Zac on drums and Jeremy Davis on bass -- generated a fair amount of buzz on the Vans Warped Tour in the past two years.

It came to Paula Chase-Hyman one Saturday morning: What would happen if, down the line, her daughter's interracial friendship hit a snag along the color line? She took that musing, poured it into characters who live in an Annapolis suburb like the one where she grew up and three weeks later had the first draft of her debut young adult novel, So Not the Drama, which arrived in bookstores late last month. Chase-Hyman, who grew up reading the syrupy Sweet Valley High series, Judy Blume's equally white coming-of-age novels and Mildred Taylor's black historical fiction, said she wrote the kind of book she wanted her 12-year-old daughter, Aliyah, to read.