Teenagers

Each week, they cram into a dark, hazy cinderblock gym in Aberdeen, bobbing their heads to hip-hop beats and exchanging high-fives. Amid machine-made fog and the frenetic flickering of strobe lights, a blur of limbs and dreadlocks flies in all directions as dancers shake and shimmy the night away, climaxing in a midnight krump showdown. Patrons pay $6 to enter through a garage door into the dingy building, which has no bathrooms, no bar and no drinks. Most of them aren't old enough to buy alcohol anyway.

An 18-year-old male has been charged with manslaughter and other charges in a September accident in Finksburg that killed two teenagers, state police said yesterday. The teen, whose name was withheld by police because he was a juvenile at the time of the accident, has been charged with two counts of manslaughter by automobile and two counts homicide by vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, in addition to other charges. The accident occurred about 1:40 a.m. Sept. 5 when the teenage driver of a 1998 Jeep Wrangler hit a tree while negotiating a sharp curve on Slasmans Road west of Niner Road.

TWO APPARENTLY unrelated stories that appeared in newspapers on the same day are in reality not nearly as unrelated as they might seem. One story appeared under the headline, "High School Students Debate Steroid Ethics." The other story had the headline: "Economic Time Bomb: U.S. Teens Are Among Worst at Math." We have known for a long time that teenagers in Japan scored much higher on international math tests than American teenagers. But did you know that teenagers in Poland, the Slovak Republic, Iceland, Canada, and Korea -- among other places -- also score higher than our teenagers?

Since the age of 10, Rey Rivera has dreamed of becoming a rapper. "I always knew that I wanted to pursue something that I was passionate about," said Rivera, a senior at Long Reach High School, adding that he found inspiration in all types of music, including rock 'n' roll and jazz. With family members screaming his name and the leaves of the trees beginning to fall, Rivera urged the audience Sunday afternoon to clap along with him and "fall back into reality" as he claimed first place at the third Columbia Teen Idol Competition.

WHEN FANTASIA Barrino, American Idol winner and now pop star, released her new album this spring, two songs quickly made top singles lists and placed her in the middle of a long-running debate about the glorification of unwed, early pregnancy among teenage girls in general and among black and Hispanic girls in particular. One of the songs, "Baby Mama," the singer's anthem to single mothers, was criticized for sending the wrong message to young fans. Ms. Barrino, herself a black, single mother who became pregnant at age 17, said she was misunderstood.

WE WANT YOUR OPINIONS THE ISSUE: The Anne Arundel County Health Department sent a warning to public high school students last week after four teenagers contracted a rare and hard-to-treat skin infection while getting tattoos in a tattoo artist's home. Two of the teens were hospitalized for several days before being released. According to the health department, tattoo artists aren't required to have licenses in Maryland, and their establishments aren't routinely inspected. YOUR VIEW: Are regulations regarding tattoo artists and where they work too lax?

Baltimore County police have two youths in custody in a stabbing early yesterday in Dundalk. David Jacob-Lindsay Cenidoza, 19, of the 5100 block of Clifford Road in Nottingham was at a party in the 2800 block of Eighth St. when he learned that two teens, with whom he had had a dispute, were headed to the party, police said. Police said Cenidoza left the party and found the teens at Millers Island and Cuckold roads. Cenidoza later told police that he and the pair argued and fought, investigators said.

DSS must find new places for teens in trouble How did Baltimore's Department of Social Services get to the point of placing teenagers in an office building overnight and sometimes over the weekend ("State uses downtown office to house troubled teens," June 14)? This office building is not a licensed foster care shelter; it doesn't have showers and it doesn't meet other basic requirements to be licensed as a shelter. The office is zoned as a commercial building. The children slept in chairs and on the floor.

On July 13, a Friday night, five teenagers - four of them students at Centennial High School in Howard County - got a break. So did their parents. The boys were driving around together just past midnight when the 16-year-old driver lost control of an Acura and crashed. All were injured badly enough to put them in the hospital. Thankfully, none died. This was a story that struck close to home because my son just graduated from Centennial in June. Some of the names were very familiar. I'm glad it didn't turn out worse.

The hip-hop vibe filled the cramped amateur sound studio in the basement of a youth center in West Baltimore. As a teenage boy rapped into a microphone about street life, a sound engineer in the booth next door manipulated the prerecorded beats. "Gimme something positive!" said the 28-year-old engineer, Joshua Wilson, as police, probation officers and teenagers moved their feet or nodded their heads to the beat. "I ain't never write something positive!" the boy yelled back, laughing. It's a moment in the life of a new initiative called the Juvenile Intervention Program, led by the Baltimore Police Department.