WASHINGTON - March 17, 2008 - The U.S. Supreme Court will this week step into a politically explosive case over gun rights that could influence some voters in the forthcoming general election.

WASHINGTON - March 13, 2008 - The White House has indicated it will not remove a loophole quietly inserted into a budget rule which allows contractors abroad to keep silent if they observe fraud or abuse on U.S. government contracts.

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut - March 13, 2008 - School officials have decided to go light on an eighth-grader caught with contraband candy in New Haven, Connecticut.

Michael Sheridan originally was suspended and lost his class vice president post after buying a bag of candy.

Sheridan, an eighth-grade honors student who was suspended for a day, barred from attending an honors dinner and stripped of his title as class vice president after he was caught with a bag of Skittles candy in school, will get his student council post back, school officials said.

Superintendent Reginald Mayo said in a statement late Wednesday that he and principal Eleanor Turner met with student Michael's parents and that Turner decided to clear the boy's record and restore him to his student council post.

Michael was disciplined after he was caught buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate. The classmate's suspension also will be expunged, school officials said.

The New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a district wide school wellness policy, school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo said.

"I am sorry this has happened," Turner said in a statement. "My hope is that we can get back to the normal school routine, especially since we are in the middle of taking the Connecticut mastery test."

Turner said she should have reinforced in writing the verbal warnings against candy transactions.

Michael had said that he didn't realize his candy purchase was against the rules, but he did notice that the student selling the Skittles on February 26 was being secretive.

Ed. Note: Get your children out of public school now or you are a bad parent!

WASHINGTON - March 13, 2008 - A largely unreported meeting held at the State Department discussed integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concert with a move toward a transatlantic union, linking a North American community with the European Union.

March 11, 2008 - The U.S. Government is planning to poison more than two million people in California this summer, using an untested biological substance. The chemical to be sprayed is classified by the EPA as a pesticide and the plan is to douse cities with this chemical designed to stick on everything for 90 days or longer.

UTAH - March 11, 2008 - A Vernal man shocked twice with a Taser during a traffic stop last year has accepted a $40,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed against the state and a Utah Highway Patrol trooper.

The Utah Attorney General's Office announced the settlement between Jared Massey and UHP trooper Jon Gardner on Monday.

"We think this is a legally defensible case because Trooper Gardner acted reasonably to avert a volatile and potentially dangerous confrontation on the side of a busy highway," said Assistant Attorney General Scott Cheney, who represented Gardner. "We recognize, however, that this is a close case."

The settlement comes on the heels of a decision by Tooele County prosecutors earlier this month that determined Gardner's actions were not criminal. An internal UHP investigation also cleared the trooper.

Video of the trooper zapping Massey, taken by the trooper's dashboard camera, came to prominence after Massey posted it on the Internet site YouTube. Since it was posted last year, it has been viewed more than 1.7 million times.

Massey's attorney, Bob Sykes, said Monday the offer to settle the case was not the state's first and that his client decided to take it.

Massey filed a lawsuit against Gardner in January alleging the trooper violated his civil rights when he zapped him during a traffic stop Sept. 14, 2007, on Highway 40 in Uintah County.

He was stopped for driving 61 mph in a 40 mph zone.

During the stop, Massey argued with Gardner about his speed and then refused to sign the citation. Massey then got out of his car and followed Gardner to his police car where he was asked to place his hands behind his back. When Massey refused, Gardner shocked him.

The suit said Massey fell screaming in pain after being shocked while Gardner taunted him by saying, "Hurts, doesn't it?" Massey struck his head against the pavement and was zapped a second time because he was unable to immediately obey an order to turn over on his stomach, according to the suit.

"We thought the amount of force used was outrageous," Sykes said Monday.

The settlement amount includes attorneys' fees. The Attorney General's Office says Massey has agreed to dismiss his lawsuit, all claims against Gardner and all potential claims against UHP, the Utah Department of Public Safety and the state.

NEW YORK - March 10, 2008 - The parents of two Bronx preschoolers are suing the city, charging that their children  were tossed out of class - and handcuffed by a school-safety officer - for refusing to take a nap.

Lawyer Scott Agulnick said Jaden Diaz and Christopher Brito - both then 4 and students at CS 211, The Bilingual School - told their parents that a substitute teacher took them and another boy to an empty classroom on Nov. 17, 2006, and left them there alone. Soon, the lawyer said, the school-safety officer entered the room, cuffed the boys' wrists, and further terrified them by telling them they that they would never see their parents again.

"I wasn't shot, but my hands were tied," Christopher, now 5, recalled, according to his mother, Vasso Brito, a 34-year-old office worker, who says the little guy is now scared of police officers.

Brito, who's trying to transfer Christopher to another public school, said she was "shocked" to learn of what she considers to have been an absolute abuse of authority.

"Right now, I feel [there are] monsters in school," she said. "I'm still perturbed. As I'm talking to you, I'm shaking."

Jaden, now 6, remembers that a man who was dressed like a cop walked in, sat at a big desk, "like the one the judge is on", and threatened them.

"He was police," Jaden said. "He said, 'You know what happens when you don't go to sleep in there? . . . 'When you go to jail, you're not going to have no fun, no TV, no toys.' "

Jaden - who asked his dad to move far enough away from him so as not to be able to hear his account of what happened - whispered to a reporter that he got a "little scared" when he saw the handcuffs attached to the safety officer's "costume."

He insisted that he was not handcuffed - though his mom, Sasha Diaz, said he confided in her that he was.

"It took me about a day to get it out of him. He didn't want to tell me . . . I don't know if he thought it was his fault," said Diaz, 27, an assistant teacher who now finds herself suddenly struggling to pay for her only child to attend Catholic school.

The families are seeking unspecified damages, said Agulnick, adding, "Failure to comply with nap time is hardly an offense that warrants being handcuffed, or threatened, for that matter. Nothing would've warranted that."

The city Department of Education and the NYPD, which oversees school-safety officers, did not return requests for comment.

The boys' claims recall two other recent cases. In one, a mentally challenged 10-year-old Brooklyn girl said a school-safety officer handcuffed her outside school. In the other, a 5-year-old Queens boy said a school-safety officer snapped the cuffs on him inside his school.

Ed. Note: How can we expect children to respect authority, when authority doesn’t respect the children?