J1 News

Four Florence High School baseball players are suspended and the head coach is under investigation by district administrators after a sub-varsity player was held down and bitten by other players as part of an alleged hazing incident approximately two weeks ago, two sources familiar with the incident said. One source called the biting "a ritual that has gone on for years."

"With the entire world watching, Louisville outlasted Michigan, 82-76, in an absolute classic that will instantly go down as one of the best national championship games in a long time."

"Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" of British politics, who put her country on a rightward economic course, led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet Union through the cold war's difficult last years, died on Monday. She was 87."

"KABUL, Afghanistan - An American military airstrike in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border was reported to have killed 18 people, including at least one senior Taliban commander but also women and children, raising the thorny issue of civilian casualties for the third time in roughly a week."

"Florida's endangered manatees, already reeling from an unexplained string of deaths in the state's east coast rivers, have died in record numbers from a toxic red algae bloom that appears each year off the state's west coast, state officials and wildlife experts say."

"ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear program broke off Saturday with scant signs of progress, much less an agreement on tighter controls demanded by six world powers in exchange for some easing of sanctions that have a stranglehold on the Iranian economy."

"(CNN) -- A federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, has ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make the morning-after birth control pill available to people of any age without a prescription. The order overturned a 2011 decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to require a prescription for girls under 17."

"The president on Tuesday announced  a $100 million initiative called BRAIN, which he referred to as "the next great American project." The initiative stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. It aims to accelerate the development and use of new technologies that will allow scientists to get a real-time, dynamic look at how the brain works and how nerve cells function, in the hopes of understanding more about how the brain processes information, stores memories and impacts behavior."

"WASHINGTON - Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, is likely to be the next United States ambassador to Japan, according to people familiar with the appointment process."

"Slipped into the Agricultural Appropriations Bill, which passed through Congress last week, was a small provision that's a big deal for Monsanto and its opponents. The provision protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks and has thus been dubbed the "Monsanto Protection Act" by activists who oppose the biotech giant. President Barack Obama signed the spending bill, including the provision, into law on Tuesday"

"Rutgers fired Mike Rice, the coach of its men's basketball team, on Wednesday, a day after a video surfaced showing him berating his players during practices, throwing balls at them, kicking them and taunting them with slurs."

"HAWTHORNE, Nev. - A mortar shell explosion killed seven Marines and injured a half-dozen more during mountain warfare training in Nevada's high desert, prompting the Pentagon to immediately halt the use of the weapons until an investigation can determine their safety, officials said Tuesday."

"At a packed event in New York's Radio City Music Hall Thursday, Samsung revealed its newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S 4. Following in the footsteps of the bestselling Android phone on the market, the Galaxy S III, the S 4 sports a number of unique new features, while keeping some favorite options from its predecessor."

"Two days after the European Union revealed a €10 billion rescue for Cyprus, the tiny island nation said its banks would not reopen at least until Thursday to give it more time to win the backing of parliament for a controversial tax on deposits."

"ublic support for gay marriage has hit a new high as Americans increasingly see homosexuality not as a choice but as a way some people are, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll."

"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate passed a bill Wednesday to keep the federal government running after March 27, approving a six-month spending measure that adds to the unpopular cuts of sequestration. The $984 billion "continuing resolution" passed by a vote of 73 to 26. It makes additional across-the-board cuts of 1.9 percent to 2.5 percent in various categories of spending on top of the $85 billion in annual cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 -- the infamous deal that created the failed super committee and the resulting budget sequestration that slices $1.2 trillion over a decade."

"Parents at a high school in California have complained that articles in Mountain View High School's The Oracle were inappropriate and obscene. One of the articles in question was an inforgraphic titled "What they teach you in health, and what you really need to know" that dispelled myths about sexual activity and gave information about safe sex. The topic came up at a school board meeting earlier this week, where once again parents expressed concern over the newspaper's content and asked the school district to assume greater control over the content in the paper."

Click on the link and the infographic. Do you think this is inappropriate content for a high school newspaper? Should the school board assume greater control (prior review) over the content of the paper? Click on the comment link above to reply.

"Two high school football players in the US state of Ohio have been found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl. The case came to light via text messages, online videos and social media posts made the morning after, attracting nationwide attention. The two were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile detention and the judge said both might stay in detention until they reach 21. The case was thrust into the national spotlight after attention by bloggers and the hacker activist group Anonymous. Some claimed that the community - including local police - had sought to cover up the crime to protect the accused, who were members of a celebrated high school football team."

"Last summer, physicists announced that they had identified a particle with characteristics of the elusive Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle." But, as often the case in science, they needed to do more research to be more certain. On Thursday, scientists announced that the particle, detected at the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle-smasher, looks even more like the Higgs boson. The news came at the Moriond Conference in La Thuile, Italy, from scientists at the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid experiments. These two detectors are looking for unusual particles that slip into existence when subatomic particles crash into one another at high energies."

"ANNAPOLIS -  Vice President Joe Biden's press secretary apologized to a Capital News Service reporter and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism Wednesday after a press office staffer demanded the reporter delete photos taken at an event in Rockville. The reporter, a credentialed member of the press who is a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, was covering a domestic violence event featuring Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder and Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin."