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Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered an energy source that you can see only through a microscope. The researchers devised a process for generating electricity using nanotechnology. They plan to refine the process in hopes of creating a new environmentally friendly battery, among other products.

hree people connected to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were killed in two drive-by shootings, a senior White House official told CNN Sunday.

Arlington, Virginia (CNN) -- The man who authorities say shot and wounded two police officers outside the Pentagon Thursday before he was fatally shot had a history of mental health problems and a penchant for spouting anti-government conspiracy theories

A new law mandating orange decals on vehicles of new drivers to make them readily identifiable to police was upheld today by a judge, and is scheduled to take effect on May 1 as planned.

Channel 7 went dark in parts of New Jersey this morning as Disney and Cablevision remained mired in a distribution stalemate

Because of budget cuts, many schools around the country are leaving driver's ed by the side of the road. They are cutting back on behind-the-wheel instruction or eliminating it altogether, leaving it to parents to either teach their teenagers themselves or send them to commercial driving schools.

Already, 21 states allow early graduation, according to the Education Commission of the States. And among the other 29, it's not entirely clear whether state law actually prohibits it. Thirty-five states allow students to finish high school based on mastering proficiency standards in state tests rather than satisfying course credit requirements or years spent in school. By the fall of 2011, a small group of high schools in eight states will take part in a new initiative, announced last week, that will allow high school sophomores who pass a series of "board exams" to graduate two years early and move directly to a two- or four-year college.

Whatever else they do, school-issued laptops encourage kids to retreat into their own lairs. And that can't be good for them or their families. That might be an acceptable cost if we knew that laptop programs were helping kids learn. But the truth is that we don't. For every study demonstrating a slight increase in achievement as a result of one-to-one computing programs, there's a study showing no effect at all. In one especially extensive study in 2004, Texas researchers found no significant difference in test scores between 21 middle schools that gave students laptops and an equal number that didn't. But students consistently report that laptops enhance learning. And so do school boards, which hold the purse string

"Last week, allegations that a school-issue laptop computer had secretly snapped a photo in a Lower Merion teen's bedroom sparked a furor among many students, parents, and privacy experts in this region and nationwide. But there was one group less surprised than others: computer professionals, who have long worried about increasingly common Web cams and their ability to intrude anywhere laptops go."

Across the country, many school districts that provide laptops to students rejected the technology after seeing potential problems - ones that did not deter Lower Merion education officials. Other districts chose to keep computers in the schools, and some are now reexamining security and privacy guidelines to prevent abuses of those laptops that do go home. In Lower Merion, school-issued laptops contain cameras that the school can trigger remotely, then retrieve the photos taken. The district has said cameras were part of its security precautions and were activated only to track lost or missing computers.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, accuses district officials of using a webcam on the school-issued laptop of a Harriton High School sophomore to spy on the boy in his home, and to snoop on other students at home." The case has riveted not only students and parents, but also privacy experts who called it unprecedented - and perhaps a harbinger of the future as the reach of technology expands beyond school walls. "This is the first one where we've seen this scenario," said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "This is definitely a new one."

"Staff members of the student newspaper at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire were told by school administrators Tuesday to publish a newspaper composed of only administration-approved content. The issue will be absent stories initially included in the Nov. 20 issue of the paper that the administration removed following a prior review of the publication. Told their grades were dependent on the issue's distribution, newspaper staff requested to remove their bylines from the published stories as a sign of protest, as well as to include an editors' note explaining the circumstances under which the newspaper was published. The administration refused both requests, according to newspaper staff members."

"PENNSYLVANIA -- Students of Council Rock High School South have united to form South Students Against Literary and Cinematic Censorship in order to combat attempts by some parents to limit media use in the curriculum. Ryan Carlin founded the group after parents petitioned the school board to ban R-rated films in the classroom."

"A former Florida high school student will now be able to move forward with a lawsuit against her principal after a federal magistrate ruled Feb. 12 that her Facebook post complaining about a teacher is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. Katherine Evans, a former student of Pembroke Pines Charter High School in Pembroke Pines, Fla., was suspended by her principal months after she made a Facebook page in 2007 about her Advanced Placement English teacher Sarah Phelps. On the page, Evans wrote: "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met. To those students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred.""

Blogs are so last decade. The preferred mode of communication, at least among young people, is social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. According to the report, only 14 percent of teen Internet users (12 to 17 year olds) in the United States today say they blog, compared to 28 percent in 2006."

Community service may have inched closer to becoming a graduation requirement for New Jersey high school students under a bill signed into law in the final days of the Corzine administration.

Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. Cell phones. Blogs. Time thieves, all of them. Or at least that's how they've sometimes been portrayed in news media, common lore, and even the occasional scholarly study. Social media just add to the Great American Isolation, right? Not so, says a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Widener University, as of July 1, will become the first four-year college in the Philadelphia area to change policy by banning smoking and use of other tobacco products on its campuses - indoors and out.

The Youth Citizen-Journalist Network (YCJN) is a social media video and text-reporting educational project sponsored by Instituto de Formación Democrática (the Institute of Democratic Education). High school and middle school students are invited to send their informed opinions about democracy, voting, national and local issues that affect them and and their families and candidates for public office to: newsroom@ycjn.us . Details are available on this website.