Young Women

Up to half of sexually active young people will get a sexually transmitted disease by the time they are 25, yet many don't seek testing because it may be difficult, costly or embarrassing. Public health officials nationally and in particularly affected cities like Baltimore, however, say they've found a method that seems to address the major hurdles — a website that supplies free in-home testing kits for three of the most commonly reported STDs. "The highest prevalence is in young adults, and we knew we had to reach these kids," said Charlotte A. Gaydos, a professor of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Of course, I agree with The Sun's general comments in the editorial regarding the Johns Hopkins Student Government Association's overturning of the decision to deny recognition to Voice for Life, a pro-life group ("Hopkins students get it right, at last," April 11). However, your spin on the story, where you claim that young women fear that they could be harassed by this group, is typically outrageous. You further state that any challenge to abortion rights is a personal affront to young women and their control over their bodies.

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.

It's been widely observed that there aren't enough females entering the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, as they're popularly lumped together. That perception is much more than an anecdotal one. Men outnumber women in STEM careers in the United States by 3 to 1, according to the National Math and Science Initiative, which promotes educational programs to increase America's competitiveness. Fewer than 15 percent of American engineers are women, although women comprise 48 percent of the nation's workforce, NMSI data reveals.

Howard County police are searching for a man who installed a video camera in the bedrooms and bathroom of an Ellicott City condominium where two young women live, unbeknownst to the women. Police released footage of the suspect that was found on the camera after its discovery last month, and are asking for the public's help identifying him following an unsuccessful investigation to date. The man allegedly entered the condo of the women, both in their 20s, multiple times over a period of four months to change the location of the hidden camera, police said.

Tom Peters has asked several colleagues to guest-author his column while he is traveling abroad. This is the third of five guest columns. Mr. Peters will return later this month.Your daughters are at risk. Your sons are, too, though in different ways. But until the American Association of University Women published its report ("How Schools Shortchange Girls") and the Ms. Foundation urged everyone to "take them to work," girls got precious little attention.Consider this: 40 percent of teen-age girls will get pregnant at least once before the age of 20. The school dropout rate for teen-age girls in urban centers is often as high as 60 percent.

"I am not a feminist," she said. "I don't believe in feminism."She said it as if she didn't need to be a feminist. As if it wasn't relevant anymore. As if she would get by on her own merit. She is a college student, and she said the feminists on her campus offended her. Their ideas offended her. And she said it as if feminism means hating men, forswearing marriage and children, behaving like a battle ax in public.I had heard it before from young women, this notion that you don't have to be a feminist to succeed.

I wrote a column last month, in the wake of the acquittal of Naval Academy Midshipman Lamar Owens on rape charges, saying that any young woman who knowingly drinks herself to the point of blacking out bears some responsibility for what happens next, be it an auto accident or sexual assault. I wrote that the verdict was a warning to all college-aged women that society is unlikely to consider them a victim if they deliberately drank themselves stupid. "It is not that a man is free to have sex with a woman who is too drunk to object.

3/8 TC Howard County police are continuing their four-month investigation of a Columbia man accused of fondling four young women in county parks while posing as a professional photographer, and they are seeking information from other possible victims, they said yesterday.Police said they arrested Richard Charles, 28, of the 8800 block of Flowerstock Row at his home Aug. 12 in connection with the investigation after the four women, between the ages of 15 and 21, said they had been fondled by a man who posed as a photographer.

Washington -- I didn't see Denise Brown, although I heard about the T-shirt she contributed. I saw Salt of Salt 'N Pepa. And either Cagney or Lacey, whichever one has dark hair.Toad the Wet Sprocket showed up. BETTY and Joan Jett were there.So was Jesse Jackson. And Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita, described as a singer/activist.But I didn't come for the celebrities.I didn't come for the nun carrying the pro-choice sign either, or even this choice sign: "Republicans Don't Need Abortions, They Eat Their Young."

T'Jae Gibson, of Abingdon, won first place in the Community Relations-Special Events category at the major command level in a U.S. Army public affairs competition. She leads the Army Research Laboratory's broadcast services area. She also serves as the public affairs office's designate for public affairs planning and project integration. A panel of eight civilian sector and government public affairs practitioners from around the country judged the competition. As a result of winning at the Army Materiel Command level, the program will compete at the Pentagon to be named a 2012 Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware Public Affairs award winner, a pinnacle achievement for Army public affairs practitioners.

Women's lacrosse has been warning its people for years: Dial it back, or they will make us wear helmets. Coaches, players and referees knew that if their elegant game got rough, the powers that be would impose helmets. Goggles were required in 2005, and that was just the warning shot. Thanks to the National Football League and the National Hockey League, concussions are no longer the accident that sometimes happens to someone else's kid while playing sports. Brain injuries caused by repeated blows to the head are causing dementia - or worse, suicide - among yesterday's heroes in professional sports.

In generations past, the world's oldest profession was a tawdry trade practiced mostly in the shadows of unlit street corners and darkened alleys. Today, vulnerable young women and girls are still being tricked or forced into selling their bodies to strangers by predatory and amoral pimps who deceive, threaten and abuse them - but the locus of "the stroll" has changed from sidewalks to computer screens. Increasingly, traffickers are going online to market their victims, and as a new study by the Abell Foundation warns, the rise in Internet sex trafficking is rapidly outstripping efforts to combat it. The study's authors concede that hard numbers are notoriously difficult to come by, since the vast majority of transactions take place out of view of authorities, and traffickers have become extremely sophisticated in managing their businesses.

This time of year, "thankfulness" and "gratitude" are terms folks throw around so much that they almost become greeting card platitudes. Maybe people mean it, maybe they don't. Doctors have linked the concept of gratitude to inner peace, even physical well-being. It's at least true that there are people quietly living with real thankfulness, though they might not use that word. It's just life lived, something that warms them from the inside and maybe helps them sleep through the night.

Howard County police are searching for a man who installed a video camera in the bedrooms and bathroom of an Ellicott City condominium where two young women live, unbeknownst to the women. Police released footage of the suspect that was found on the camera after its discovery last month, and are asking for the public's help identifying him following an unsuccessful investigation to date. The man allegedly entered the condo of the women, both in their 20s, multiple times over a period of four months to change the location of the hidden camera, police said.

Loved ones and friends prepared to say goodbye to the two young women who perished in a train derailment in Ellicott City as the first of the viewings began Thursday evening. Cars lined both sides of the quiet residential street leading up to the Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City for the viewing for Elizabeth Conway Nass. At 6 p.m., about 100 people stood queued down a brick stairway of the Roman Catholic church from a sprawling parking lot where most of the spots were filled.

NEW YORK -- Young women in New York and several of the nation's other largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data. The shift has occurred in New York since 2000 and even earlier in Los Angeles, Dallas and a few other cities. Economists consider it striking because the wage gap between men and women nationally has narrowed more slowly and has even widened in recent years among one part of that group: college-educated women in their 20s. But in New York, young college-educated women's wages as a percentage of men's rose slightly between 2000 and 2005.

Patricia Anne Dziewit, a retired social worker, died of leukemia Feb. 7 at Carroll County Hospital Center. She was 70 and lived in Westminster. Born in York, Pa., and raised in Reservoir Hill and Hamilton, she attended Corpus Christi School and was a 1958 Catholic High School graduate. She earned a bachelor of arts degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art . Family members said she was born with physical disabilities and walked with the aid of prosthetic devices.

"We love our children with all our hearts," Gordon Livingston, psychiatrist, philosopher, author and twice-bereaved parent says from his home in Howard County. "We imagine that they will bury us. Then fate intervenes and we must bury them. Nowhere is the fragility of life or the randomness of death more apparent than in the deaths of children. " I contacted Livingston because of the train tragedy in Ellicott City - an event extraordinary in its randomness. A train pulling tons of coal derails on the bridge over Main Street.

Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr sat on the edge of the Ellicott City bridge dangling their bare feet over a dimly lit Main Street shortly before midnight Monday, a last get-together before parting for their junior year away at college. "Drinking on top of the Ellicott City sign with @r0se_petals," Nass wrote on Twitter at 11:40 p.m. At 11:51 p.m, Mayr posted a snapshot of their feet high above the road and what would be a final message: "Levitating. " Moments later, a CSX train traveling along railroad tracks atop the iconic red bridge derailed, burying the 19-year-old best friends in coal.