Below The Fold: Good News About The Flu?

With media eyes focused on Iraq (certainly not a bad focus to have) here's a look at some other stories from newspapers across the country that caught our Eye today.

Looking through some local papers, it seems that the threat of violence in schools is an ever present problem. Yesterday, a high school in Penfield, NY, received its 14th bomb threat in two months. Two boys from Hunterdon County, NJ, have been suspended until at least June 2007 for allegedly bringing a .22 pistol and a BB gun to their middle school. And just today, a 14-year-old student arrived at a Manchester, NH, high school with "a loaded .32-caliber handgun tucked in his waistband," writes the Manchester Union Leader.

Perhaps Missouri has the answer to such bad behavior. The Kansas City Star reports that "Corporal punishment is alive and well" in the state. A recent US Department of Education report ranks Missouri "10th nationally in annual paddlings at elementary and secondary schools. Missouri and Kansas are among 22 states that allow corporal punishment, but schools in Kansas deliver far fewer swats than Missouri."

Some Connecticut schools, it seems, have a different form of discipline that hits students where it really hurts – their wallets (or, more likely, those of their parents.) The Hartford Courant writes that "there will be no more f-words, b-words or s-words spoken, yelled or hissed in classes at Hartford Public or Bulkeley high schools" … "city police officers assigned to the schools have started doling out tickets with $103 fines. They have charged about two dozen students over the past few weeks with creating a public disturbance."

Elsewhere in Connecticut, the Courant has discovered that there is actually one more angle to the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Battle Royale – some people don't really care about it. "For many people in Connecticut," writes the Courant, "the fierce battle of evolution vs. intelligent design in places such as Kansas and Pennsylvania might as well be happening on another planet."

And on this planet, it appears there is at least some good news to report that actually includes the word "flu." The Tallahassee Democrat reports that local doctors "have plenty of the flu vaccine on hand and they also are reporting few cases of flu-like illnesses." Perhaps we won't see a re-run of last year's flu vaccine shortage extravanganza after all. At least not in Tallahassee.