An Italian priest backtracked from his idea to organize an online beauty pageant for nuns, saying Tuesday that he had been misunderstood and incurred the protests of the faithful and local religious authorities. ...more

August 27, 2008

Paddlings, swats, licks. A quarter of a million schoolchildren got them last year - and blacks, American Indians and youngsters with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, a study by a human rights group found. ...more

August 20, 2008

"So what do you do," I asked my schoolteacher wife, "when your entire class gets out of hand? Do you send them down to the principal's office or whack 'em in the back of the neck with a ruler, or do you just have them write down something 500 times on the blackboard?" ...more

July 28, 2008

BRADENTON - Schoolteacher Ruth Patricia Gerding was driving drunk last July when a motorcyclist slammed into her car, throwing the biker to her death. ...more

July 23, 2008

Schoolteacher-turned-sex-offender Debra Lafave no longer will have to provide Florida Department of Corrections officials her daily schedule, and they no longer will keep minute-by-minute track of her whereabouts. ...more

July 11, 2008

This is no ordinary soup kitchen. For starters, it doesn't serve soup. ...more

June 14, 2008

You turn around one day and they're gone. In a city like Tampa where permanence is sometimes measured in seasons instead of years, change is a part of our lives. The landmarks that we gauge the timelines of our lives by - old schools, favorite restaurants, family stores - don't seem to have the value they used to. ...more

June 13, 2008

TAMPA - A West Palm Beach attorney says she is representing three boys who accused a Polk County schoolteacher of having sex with them. ...more

June 6, 2008

It was up, up and away, this morning. At least I, and a bunch of others, including Elizabeth Stewart, hope it was an up, up and away morning. Elizabeth, you see, is celebrating her 90th birthday on June 4. Since there isn't a whole lot of things you can get for a member of the eldest set, her daughter Barbara is surprising her with a hot air balloon ride today - weather permitting. It's a first for both of them. Not only that it is also a kind of a gift package. Barbara – yes that's county commissioner Barbara Stewart – is celebrating her May 12 wedding anniversary by taking husband Fred along on the same ride. ...more

May 31, 2008

Seven women and five men will decide whether movies distributed by a Hollywood movie producer who uses the name Max Hardcore violate the standards of the Tampa area community and are criminally obscene. ...more

May 28, 2008