Young People

It was a few days after Christmas when 16-year-old Amanda Custer and her mom made a rare stop for a takeout burger. The indulgence ended badly for Amanda. Soon after, she said, "I felt real nauseous. Food was, like, gross. I got really bad cramps, a whole bunch of heartburn and an upset stomach. " And it didn't go away. "I would feel OK and try to eat something, and then I'd regret it," she recalled. "The pain afterwards was horrible. A couple of hours after I ate, I'd be going to the bathroom, feeling nauseous.

The Rev. John F. Guidera, a Jesuit missionary who lived in India for six decades while retaining close ties with his Maryland benefactors, died of septicemia May 16 in Jamshedpur. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Govans, he was a 1943 Loyola High School graduate. He then entered the Jesuit seminary in Wernersville, Pa., and attended Weston College in Weston, Mass. "It was on a November evening in 1950 that the SS Chusan took him to Bombay harbor ... a young Jesuit far from his home in Baltimore, dispatched as a missionary to work for the rest of his life in the land of the poor, the leprotic, the dying and the hungry," a 1986 Evening Sun column said.

Pudgy, pink Gerber babies are no longer the typical children being born in the United States. According to theU.S. Census Bureau, moms who are Latino, Asian, African American or mixed race are now giving birth to just over 50 percent of American babies. Though the median age of Americans of European heritage is 42, the median age of Latinos is 28. The median for Asians and blacks falls somewhere around 33. You do not need a biologist or sociologist to tell you younger people make more babies, so this historic trend toward an increasingly multiracial nation will continue.

Pudgy, pink Gerber babies are no longer the typical children being born in the United States. According to theU.S. Census Bureau, moms who are Latino, Asian, African American or mixed race are now giving birth to just over 50 percent of American babies. Though the median age of Americans of European heritage is 42, the median age of Latinos is 28. The median for Asians and blacks falls somewhere around 33. You do not need a biologist or sociologist to tell you younger people make more babies, so this historic trend toward an increasingly multiracial nation will continue.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a man typically married at age 23 and a woman at age 20. With a high school education, the husband could find a steady job to support his wife and, later, their children. Today, that family would stand only a 50 percent chance of living above the poverty level, says Timothy Smeeding, a public policy and economics professor at Syracuse University. Gone is the ample supply of well-paid blue-collar jobs that allowed earlier generations to establish households in their late teens or early 20s. Now, the job market is more competitive, making it difficult for young adults to become financially self-sufficient and take the traditional steps to adulthood: career, marriage and child-rearing.

William S. Reese's excellent op-ed ("A welcome focus on global youth," March 9) about the Global Youth Jobs Alliance speaks to the powerful role young people can play when public policy leaders reserve a place for them at the policymaking table. This strategy rings true for Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP), a national and international non-profit organization that delivers cost-effective alternatives to the incarceration or other institutional placement of high-risk youth. YAP, with programs in 25 major cities, including Baltimore, achieves this by connecting caring advocates to work with young people from their communities.

Look closely at the faces of protestors surging into the streets of Cairo and you'll see that many of them are strikingly young. Their passionate demands for freedom, democracy and an end to corruption and autocratic rule ring out loud and clear. Yet only when we look at the cold, hard numbers of youth unemployment and social marginalization in Egypt can we fully understand the powerful underlying causes driving these young people to topple their government. In Egypt — a country of 78 million people — the median age is 24. The vast majority of these Egyptian youths are struggling to find a job, support their families and help shape the future of their country.

I recently had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to visit Washington, D.C. to talk to lawmakers about the need to support legislation that helps young people get on — and stay on — the right track. I spoke at a briefing on Capitol Hill with young people and program directors from across the country — from rural, urban and Native American communities — who all had the same message: Programs that serve out-of-school, out-of-work young people change lives, and with more funding they could help even more struggling young Americans.

In the late hours of Labor Day, 2006, on Interstate 64 near Sand Springs, Okla., Thomas Kirby Jr. lost control of his vehicle, crossed the median and slammed head-on into another vehicle carrying four. The impact triggered a fiery and fatal explosion, killing Mr. Kirby, 47, and his passenger Lisa Adams, 38. Sarah Foster, 19; Steven Dillion, 18; Isaac King, 20; and Aaron Davis, 20, were also killed in the crash. Mr. Kirby was later found to have been under the influence of a practically lethal amount of alcohol and methamphetamine at the time of the crash.

100 Years Ago A fine Ford in E.C. "Quite a number of young people of our neighborhood attended the play in the Masonic Hall, Mt. Airy, on last Friday night. Mrs. Annie Wheeler of Washington spent the week end with relatives in the neighborhood. Mr. Charles DeLashmutt attended the automobile show in Baltimore on Tuesday and purchased for himself a fine Ford Automobile. 75 Years Ago Adrift In the Times there was a story about a recent snow storm: "Lack of Snow Plows and Highway Equipment Bring Criticism of Officials.

Just in time for Mother's Day, your article on the mother of the young man who inexplicably committed suicide ("Dulaney graduate's mother will accept his college diploma from Temple," May 9) was a clear and strong wake up call to all mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends of those suffering from depression or other problems. My own 25-year-old son from Parkville, successful on the outside, committed suicide last month, having said nothing to show he felt so burdened. Suicide needs to be rejected and spoken of openly in the public square.

I'm writing in response to the decision of Baltimore prosecutors to reduce charges in the St. Patrick's beating ("Half of the charges are dropped in taped beating," May 10). I believe that the government should take this case more seriously. They have evidence due to this videotaping that four people beat and robbed a tourist. Is that not enough? Why are the charges being dropped? If you cannot walk down a Baltimore street without being attacked, obviously the government officials are not doing their jobs.

Two new government studies show young people are still putting themselves at risk for skin cancer by getting sunburned and going to indoor tanning beds. One study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that half of those aged 18 to 29 had at least one sunburn it the past year, though they were increasingly using sunscreen, seeking shade and wearing protective clothing. The other study by the National Cancer Institute found 32 percent of those 18 to 21 were going to indoor tanning salons and 30 percent of those 22 to 25 were.

Brenda Brewington, an ecclesiastical administrator at St. Peter's Episcopal Church of Ellicott City who had taught earlier in its preschool, died Thursday in her office in a double shooting that also claimed a pastor's life. She was 59. "Brenda had a big, infectious laugh and was the loudest cheerleader at any track meet in Howard County and a few other counties as well," said her sister-in-law, Lisa Brewington of Centerville, Va. "She was a world-class mom, to her own boys and to so many other young people.

John Elder Robison taught himself electronics while growing up and was so skilled that despite dropping out of high school in ninth grade, he designed pyrotechnic guitars for the rock group Kiss and sound effects for electronic games. Yet to hear him tell it, some of Robison's greatest work comes while he's standing on stage speaking to crowds about how he's lived with Asperger syndrome and conveying to young people with the disorder a message that no one told him when he was a child.

Who knew rocker Tommy Lee was such a softie? The creators of Baltimore's Show Your Soft Side campaign, apparently, since they convinced the founding member of Motley Crue to join their movement pushing for the humane treatment of animals. Lee's ad was just unveiled. It shows the drummer, with a tattoo of lipsticked lips visible on his neck, leaning in to plant a wet one in the same spot on a small, honey-colored pup. The copy with it reads, "This bad boy has added a new four-letter word to his vocabulary.

I was disappointed to read "In-state tuition opponents have the signatures for referendum" (July 8). Maryland's new law would have extended in-state tuition rates to young, undocumented residents, but now the law has been blocked, and it will await the decision of the voters in November 2012. I am frustrated at how this issue has been framed by The Sun. The Sun has repeatedly referred to the beneficiaries of this new law as "illegal immigrants. " It is more accurate to call them children of Maryland residents who lack official citizenship documents.

Fall auditions for the Annapolis Youth Chorus drew young people to Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts on Monday. The chorus, for singers ages 6 to 18, has three parts. The junior division is for grades one to seven, the senior division is for grades eight to 12 (with unchanged voices), and the mixed division is for grades eight to 12 (with changed voices).

Lauren Alaina, the 2011 "American Idol" runner-up, heard about the Easter Sunday suicide of Glenelg High School sophomore Grace McComas, 15, from a Twitter message. Alaina, 17, of Georgia, said Sunday that she was saddened to hear about Grace, whose parents said she took her life after being cyber-bullied. Alaina helped the hashtag "blue4grace" trend online when the singer sent a personal message to her nearly 300,000 followers. Blue was Grace's favorite color. "It is horrible," Alaina said of Grace's death.

President Barack Obama's re-election largely hinges on his ability to play young voters for suckers -- again -- and whether Mitt Romneywill let him. In 2008, Mr. Obama won the youth vote by better than a 2-1 margin, 66 percent to 32 percent. Even more impressive, he actually expanded the share of young voters going to the polls by some 3 million. Those extra voters helped tip several swing states. Mr. Obama owed his success to being a charming political unknown onto whom young people could project their hopes.