Pick good friends, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell tells 5 grade class Minors can go to adult prisons for gang-related offenses, he warns. Picking your friends is so important, doing it well might help you do well in life. Doing it poorly could lead to problems, including serving time in prison.

More students getting free breakfasts Students from low-income families are eating more free and reduced-price breakfasts at school, an anti-hunger group said Thursday. The federal breakfast program feeds only two in five who need it. Still, it reached a record 7.7 million low-income children in the 2005-2006 school year, according to a report from the Food Research and Action Center. New Mexico posted the biggest increase, with 58 children getting breakfast for every 100 getting free and reduced-price lunches, up from 53 a year earlier.

Kids keep online threats secret from parents Schoolchildren are being "victimized, teased and mocked" on an internet "spider web" of instant messaging and blogging kept secret from parents, including instances of students exchanging insults, threats and explicit pictures via a network of home computers. Police say they have investigated and, in some cases, charged children for such cyber-bullying crimes as stalking, harassment and menacing other students, as well as child pornography. The reputations of children who make a mistake can be trashed. Kids can be victimized, teased and mocked for their boy or girl friends. Criminal offences relating to the behavior of school children online have definitely been reported to police and they have been investigated," he said.

Violent Games UK to join EU campaign against violent video games An EU official was recently quoted as saying "We are not calling for censorship, but the sale of cigarettes and alcohol is prohibited to minor why not violent games."

Court rules video games do not encourage violence  A court has overturned a law banning violent video games, saying that there is little evidence they encourage violent behavior in children.  In June this year the Louisiana State Legislature passed a law that restricted the sale of video games, which included violence to the over 18s only. However, the law was immediately challenged in the courts and on December 2, 2006 it was ruled unconstitutional by Judge James Brady.  He wrote that "the evidence that was submitted to the legislature in connection with the bill that became the statute is sparse and could hardly be called in any sense reliable." He also said that any connection between video game and real-world violence was "tenuous and speculative" at best.