If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may have an Internet addiction. But now there’s help. The reStart Internet Addiction Recovery Program — a first of its kind center in the U.S. — recently opened its doors on a tranquil 5-acre spread in Fall City just a few miles away from Microsoft’s headquarters.

Most people go to treatment for cocaine or booze, but the creators of reStart say Internet addiction is a growing problem.

The 45-day program — which costs $14,500 — is designed specifically “to help internet and video game addicts overcome their dependence on gaming, gambling, chatting, texting and other aspects of Internet Addiction,” according to the press release.

It goes on to say that as much as 10 percent of the online population is dependent on various aspects of the Internet, with the directors of the center noting that similar programs have arisen in places like China and South Korea.

King 5 spent some time at the 6-bed facility, interviewing an Iowa teenager whose parents enrolled him after he dropped out of school because of his addiction to World of Warcraft.

“I’d have all these rationalizations of, well, it’s not a big deal to just miss this one class,” 19-year-old Ben Alexander tells King 5.

At the rate things are going, my wife may want to check me into the program. I just completed the questionnaire to see if I would qualify as having a computer addiction. (Three to four affirmative answers signals abuse, while five or more indicates an addiction.)

I registered seven positive answers, including changes in sleep patterns; feeling restless when not engaged in the activity and neglecting friends and family.

With that, I am calling it quits for the night. Time to hop on my bike.

Techflash

The baby’s father, Jose Alvarenga, was told by doctors that his son had died shortly after birth.

Staff from the state-run hospital in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital, delivered the infant’s body to Mr Alvarenga’s home fours hours later.

Shortly afterwards, the grieving father opened the baby’s coffin to bid an emotional farewell to his son.

“I opened it to look at his remains and found that the baby was breathing,” Mr Alvarenga said. “I began to cry.”

He rushed back to the hospital with his unnamed baby in his arms and nurses placed the infant in an oxygen chamber.

He is now reported to be in a stable condition.

“This is a very unusual case,” said Ernesto Weber, head of paediatric intensive care at the hospital.

He acknowledged that the doctor handling the case did not properly check the infant’s vital signs, and said an investigation would be carried out.

However Aida Notario, a doctor at the hospital’s birthing centre, said that medics tried to revive the baby for a whole hour. “His pulse was so low that it was undetectable,” he said.

According to medical records, the baby weighed only 500g (17.6oz).

The smallest on record was an American baby who weighed just 280g (10oz), born at less than 22 weeks.

Two years ago, a baby boy from Leeds ‘came back to life’ 30 minutes after doctors pronounced him dead.

Medical staff at Leeds General Infirmary had tried in vain to resuscitate two-week-old Woody Lander after the little boy suffered a heart attack.

He was handed over to parents Jon and Karen Lander so they could say goodbye, but half an hour later the couple heard the boy cough and doctors started his heart.

Police moved in swiftly and dispersed about 50 protesters, mostly women, who were supporting Lubna Hussein, a former U.N. worker facing 40 lashes on the charge of “indecent dressing.” Some of the women demonstrators wore trousers in solidarity with Hussein while others wore more traditional dress.

Trousers are considered indecent under the strict interpretation of Islamic law, adopted by Sudan’s Islamic regime which came to power after a coup led by President Omar al-Bashir in 1989. But activists and lawyers say the implementation of the law is arbitrary.

Hussein was among 13 women arrested July 3 in a raid by the public order police on a popular cafe in Khartoum. Ten of the women were flogged at a police station two days later and fined 250 Sudanese pounds, or about $120.

But Hussein and two others decided to go on trial. She has sought to publicize her case internationally, inviting human rights workers, Western diplomats and fellow journalists to witness her trial.

“I am not afraid of flogging. … It’s not about flogging. It’s not about my innocence. It’s about changing the law,” Hussein said, speaking to The Associated Press after the hearing Tuesday.

She said she would take the issue all the way to Sudan’s constitutional court if necessary, but that if the court rules against her and orders the flogging, she was ready “to receive (even) 40,000 lashes.”

Hussein wore the same clothes Tuesday she wore when arrested, including the dark-colored pants that authorities found offensive. Although she was required to wear the same outfit to court so the judge and others could see the clothing, Hussein said she’s been wearing it every day to highlight her case.

In the clashes outside the courtroom, witnesses said police wielding batons beat up one of Hussein’s lawyers, Manal Awad Khogali, while keeping media and cameras at bay. No injuries were immediately reported.

“We are here to protest against this law that oppresses women and debases them,” said one of the protesters, Amal Habani, a female columnist for the daily Ajraas Al Hurria, or Bells of Freedom in Arabic.

While the police broke up the demonstration outside the Khartoum Criminal Court, the judge adjourned Hussein’s trial for a month to seek clarification from Sudan’s foreign ministry.

At the time of her arrest, Hussein was working for the media department of the U.N. Mission in Sudan, which gives her immunity from prosecution. She submitted her resignation after her trial began last week because she wanted to go on trial to challenge the dress code law.

Defense lawyer Jalal al-Sayed told reporters Tuesday the judge wanted to know whether Hussein still has immunity because her superiors have not yet accepted the resignation.

Hussein’s hearings first opened last Wednesday but immediately adjourned to give her the opportunity to resign.

Hussein has lauded her supporters, saying they showed that “Sudanese women from different political parties and groupings stand with us.”

The case has drawn criticism from the United Nations. The U.N. Staff Union urged authorities last week not to flog Hussein, calling the punishment cruel, inhuman and degrading.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned” about Hussein’s case and said flogging was a violation of international human rights standards.

AP

The Weber County Sheriff’s Office released dash-cam video of a 7-year-old boy who went to great lengths to get out of going to church on July 26. He took the family car and led police on a low-speed chase.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

The boy told deputies it was just too hot to go to church, so he went for a joyride. His parents had no idea their car and their child was missing.

“People in the neighborhood are talking about this,” said Weber County sheriff’s Lt. Matthew Bell. “They could tell there was a small, young driver in the car.”

Deputies found the car near the local high school and tailed it for 10 blocks, all while the driver weaved in traffic lanes and blew through stop signs.

“The deputies at one time had pulled up kinda close to him on the side and could see it was a very small person driving the car,” Bell said.

Deputies say this dime-sized, delinquent driver maintained speeds up to 45 miles an hour even though he had some trouble reaching the pedals.

“His speed was slow, but erratically; and so he would kind of scoot down lower to push on the gas and kinda sit up on the seat more to see right where he was going,” Bell said.

And where he went, was home. That’s when deputies got a better look at who they were dealing with: a 7-year old boy whose feet were as quick as his caper.

“Very unusual situation, very unusual. I mean, what can you say?” Bell said.

Investigators say the boy is too young to charge with a crime. They just hope his parents keep a closer eye on him.

KSL

A federal jury found 30-year-old John Puglisi guilty Friday of producing child pornography, possessing child pornography and persuading, inducing and enticing a minor to engage in sexual conduct.

He faces at least 15 years in prison when he’s sentenced on Nov. 23.

Puglisi, a father of two, is a former social studies teacher in Newark Valley, 60 miles south of Syracuse. He was accused of sending sexually explicit text messages to a 16-year-old girl.

The girl testified that she didn’t consider herself a victim and viewed the relationship as consensual.

Puglisi also faces a rape charge in state court.

Newsday

A Connecticut middle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone — anyone — in any way, you’re going to pay.

A violent incident that put one student in the hospital has officials at the Milford school implementing a “no touching” policy, according to a letter written by the school’s principal.

East Shore Middle School parents said the change came after a student was sent to the hospital after being struck in the groin.

Principal Catherine Williams sent out a letter earlier in the week telling parents recent behavior has seriously impacted the safety and learning at the school.

“Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment,” Williams wrote.

Students and parents are outraged. They said the new policy means no high-fives and hugs, as well as horseplay of any kind. The consequences could be dire, Williams warned in the letter.

“Potential consequences and disciplinary action may include parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school,” Williams wrote.

Many think the school’s no tolerance policy goes way too far. Others said it’s utterly ridiculous.

“Now it’s almost as if it’s a sanitized school. Where you have to keep your distance from everybody? And that’s not what school is about,” one father said.

“What if they are out on the playground at recess, or in gym class?” parent Kathy Casey wondered. “You know, gym class is physical.”

In a spring rite that has become as predictable as cherry blossoms in the nation’s capital, public school employees throughout California warned of wrenching classroom cuts as local officials faced a deadline for issuing layoff notices to educators.

The state Department of Education estimates that preliminary pink slips will have been handed to 26,500 teachers by the Sunday cutoff – two-and-a-half times as many as were issued last year. Another 15,000 bus drivers, janitors, secretaries and administrators also were expected to receive the written warnings, said Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.

Because of the state’s less-than-rosy economic outlook, California’s 1,000 K-12 school districts have been instructed to absorb more than $8 billion in funding cuts over the next year. To draw attention to the situation, teachers and parents wore pink clothes and waved pink protest signs for a day California’s largest teachers’ union dubbed “Pink Friday.”

Rosemarie Ochoa, a fifth-grade teacher who’s in her third year with the San Lorenzo Unified School District, said she was pulled out of class Monday by a district official bearing a pink slip.
“I smiled at her because I knew what she was there for,” said Ochoa, 28, who was among 76 of the district’s 640 teachers who got a notice this week. “Then I had to go back to my students and retain my composure.”

But in another annual ritual, many, if not most, of the early layoff notices could end up being withdrawn by June, especially if the state can devote some of its federal stimulus money to education, officials said.

Six years ago, for example, all but 3,000 of the 20,000 teacher pink slips that went out statewide were rescinded.

O’Connell, who donned a pink tie for an appearance at Gianola’s school Friday, allowed that tens of thousands of teachers were unlikely to be let go, but said that with so huge a budget gap to fill, schools would probably increase class sizes, reduce library hours and lose counselors.

Ochoa said officials in San Lorenzo, a working class suburb 15 miles east of San Francisco, told her that some of the cuts probably would be permanent as the district planned to increase primary grade class sizes to save money.

Another unknown is whether the state’s financial picture will worsen in the months ahead. If voters do not approve the spending package that will be the subject of a special election in May, schools would have to cut even more deeply and be unable to avert mass layoffs, he said.

“The cuts we are experiencing in public education are debilitating. These cuts have real consequences for real students,” he said.

O’Connell, a Democrat who is considering a run for governor next year, said the dispiriting cycle would continue until state officials find a long-term and reliable way to pay for schools.

W. Norton Grubb, the director of a principal training program at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of “The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity,” agrees that years of uncertainty take their toll on schools even when layoffs do not come to pass.

“What is happening in these schools when the pink slips go out is everything stops, everyone is discouraged, everyone is busy worrying whether the money will come through, and all the efforts to get schools going basically grinds to a halt and remains ground to a halt for the rest of the spring,” Grubb said. “A state that has these kind of crises year after year is really doing a poor job of planning.”

Teachers, students and parents at Alhambra High School, located in the eastern Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra, were familiar with the Pink Friday routine from previous years. Some parents dropping off their children at school had pink paper taped to their car windows or honked to show their support for the 40 teachers who stood outside in pink wigs, bows and T-shirts.

Justin Li, a 17-year-old senior, photographed the protest for the school paper. The effects of the budget cuts have been noticeable, he said.

“We are seeing teachers being laid off year after year and we want to do something, because all the good teachers are leaving and more and more classes are being cut,” Li said. “Teachers work too hard to lose their jobs.”

The Alhambra district has seen a $6-million budget cut this school year and 38 teachers have received layoff notices, said Rosalyn Collier, vice president of the Alhambra Teachers Association.

“The cuts have left no wiggle room in the master schedule for the fall. Every class will be at 36 students and no less,” said Kathleen Tar, an English teacher for 33 years. “So, if we have honors classes that do not meet 36, those classes will go away.”

This week was the third time Steve Chambers, 47, a 5th-grade teacher at Allen At Steinbeck K-8 School in San Jose, has gotten a pink slip, but this is the first time that he has been truly worried. The economy is so bad everywhere, he has little confidence he would be able to get a teaching job elsewhere.

“It’s irritating, the fact that I am an eight-year veteran and I could be out of a job for a year,” said Chambers, who brought his class to listen to O’Connell’s remarks.

Besides Chambers, Principal Nico Flores gave pink slips to four other teachers, one of his vice principals and a counselor. Flores said San Jose is better off than many school districts because it had a spending freeze and large reserve fund in place, but the topsy-turvy budget situation for schools makes him nervous.

“It’s like crying wolf, crying wolf, and then suddenly the wolf is really coming and no one is listening,” he said.

Venessa Mills was in the fourth year of home schooling her children who are 10, 11 and 12 years old. They have tested two years above their grade levels, she said.

“We have math, reading; we have grammar, science, music,” Venessa Mills said.

Her lessons also have a religious slant, which the judge said was the root of the problem.

“My teaching is strictly out of the Bible, and it’s very clear. It is very evident so I just choose to follow the Bible,” Venessa Mills said.

In an affidavit filed Friday in the divorce case, Thomas Mills stated that he “objected to the children being removed from public school.” He said Venessa Mills decided to home school after getting involved with Sound Doctrine church “where all children are home schooled.”

Thomas Mills also said he was “concerned about the children’s religious-based science curriculum” and that he wants “the children to be exposed to mainstream science, even if they eventually choose to believe creationism over evolution.”

In a verbal ruling, Mangum said the children should go to public school.

“He was upfront and said that, ‘It’s not about religion.’ But yet when it came down to his ruling and reasons why, ‘He said this would be a good opportunity for the children to be tested in the beliefs that I have taught them,’” Venessa Mills said.

All sides agree the children have thrived with home school, and Vanessa Mills thinks that should be reason enough to continue teaching at home.

“I cannot sit back and allow this to happen to other home schoolers. I don’t want it happening to my children,” Venessa Mills said.

Mangum said he wouldn’t talk with WRAL News Thursday about the details of the case because he hasn’t issued a written ruling yet. He said he expected to sign it in a few weeks.

An estimated 71,566 students were taught at home during the 2007-08 school year, according to figures released by the state Division of Non-Public Education. The enrollment amounts to about 4 percent of students ages 7 to 16 in North Carolina – students in that age range are required by state law to attend school. About two-thirds of the schools classified themselves as religious schools.

Home school students and their parents plan to come to Raleigh on March 24 to lobby at the state Legislature. They want to demonstrate they have a strong voice regarding education.

WRAL

A 75-year-old widow in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for mingling with two young men who are not close relatives, drawing new criticism for the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious police and judiciary.
The woman’s lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that he would appeal the verdict against Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi. The attorney, Abdel Rahman al-Lahem, said the verdict issued March 3 also demands that Sawadi be deported after serving her sentence.

He said his client, who is not serving her sentence yet, was not speaking with the media, and he declined to provide more details about the case.

The newspaper Al-Watan said the woman met with the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread at her home in al-Chamil, a city north of the capital, Riyadh.

Al-Watan identified one man as Fahd al-Anzi, the nephew of Sawadi’s late husband, and the other as his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein. It said they were arrested by the religious police after delivering the bread. The men also were convicted and sentenced to lashes and prison.

The court said it based its ruling on “citizen information” and testimony from al-Anzi’s father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.

“Because she said she doesn’t have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed,” the court verdict read.

Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam prohibits men and women who are not immediate relatives from mingling. It also bars women from driving, and the playing of music, dancing and many movies also are a concern for hard-liners who believe they violate religious and moral values.

Complaints from Saudis have been growing that the religious police and courts are overstepping their broad mandate and interfering in people’s lives, and critics lambasted the handling of Sawadi’s case.

“How can a verdict be issued based on suspicion?” Laila Ahmed al-Ahdab, a physician who also is a columnist for Al-Watan, wrote Monday. “A group of people are misusing religion to serve their own interests.”

Sawadi told the court she considered al-Anzi as her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court denied her claim, saying she didn’t provide evidence. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.

Sawadi commonly asked her neighbors for help after her husband died, said journalist Bandar al-Ammar, who reported the story for Al-Watan. In a recent article, he wrote that he felt the need to report the case “so everybody knows to what degree we have reached.”

The woman’s conviction came a few weeks after King Abdullah fired the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing owners of TV networks that broadcast “immoral content.” The move was seen as part of an effort to weaken the hard-line Sunni Muslim establishment.

Two Bountiful Junior High School teachers are accused of sexually assaulting the same 13-year-old student, after their separate relationships with him spiraled from personal conversations to the exchange of sexual text messages and phone sex, authorities said.
On Friday, the Davis County Attorney’s Office filed first-degree felony charges of rape and sodomy on a child against Linda R. Nef, 46, and Valynne Bowers, 39.
Nef, a Utah studies teacher and cheerleading adviser, and Bowers, who teaches math, each confessed to having sex with the student, said Bountiful Police Lt. Randy Pickett. Until recently, the two teachers did not know about each other’s relationship with the same boy, Pickett said.

Linda Nef

The charges were filed after Nef arranged a meeting with police on Thursday and admitted having sex with the boy for more than a year, Pickett said. Their sexual relationship allegedly began in October 2007 and lasted until December 2008, he said.
During the meeting, Nef revealed Bowers’ relationship with the boy, Pickett said. Bowers allegedly began having sex with him in December, and she also has acknowledged the relationship, he said.
Nef was booked into the Davis County Jail on Friday afternoon and has her first court appearance scheduled for 1:30 p.m. March 27.
Bowers also was arrested and booked into the jail on Friday, Pickett said. She later appeared in court, where she waived her right to a preliminary hearing and was ordered to stand trial. A felony arraignment in her case is scheduled for 9 a.m. March 16.

Valynne Bowers

Nef, who began her career with the Davis County School District in 2004 as a physical education teacher at Taylor Elementary School, resigned from her post at the junior high on Monday, said school district spokesman Chris Williams.
Bowers was placed on administrative leave while district officials conduct their own investigation. Bowers has taught in the district since 1996 and was an elementary school teacher for nine years before she transferred to Bountiful Junior High in 2006, Williams said.
“So far, there is nothing to indicate that there are any other students involved, or any other faculty or employees involved,” Pickett said.
In separate conversations, the boy and the two teachers began discussing personal problems, Pickett said. That led to text messages, including ones involving sexual matters, then phone sex and the alleged sexual assaults, Pickett said.
The investigation so far indicates none of the alleged sex acts occurred at the school, Pickett said. Instead, the teachers allegedly went with the student to homes, parking lots or parks in Bountiful, Woods Cross, Farmington and Kaysville.
Williams said parents picking up their children from the school Friday expressed disbelief and shock. Jenifer Wright, whose eighth-grade daughter attends the school, said the news alarmed her.
“It makes me very worried. I’m very protective about my children,” she said.
Holly Ruhr, whose seventh-grade daughter attends the school, said she is not worried by the charges because she has been “impressed in every way” by Bountiful Junior High.
“My daughter is thrilled to go to class every day,” she said. “This is just a case of one or two teachers. Not a bad school.”
Another parent struggled to believe the allegations, defending Bowers as a great teacher.
Recent cases
Since 2007, at least 10 other Utah teachers or school employees have been charged with engaging in sexual acts with students. Among recent cases:
In November 2007, Frank Laine Hall, 37, was sentenced to prison for molesting 11 of his first-grade students at Rosamond Elementary School in Riverton.
Also in 2007, former West High School guidance counselor Marco R. Herrera, 53, received three consecutive one-to-15 year prison terms for engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl at least 10 times. An honors teacher at the same school was charged in 2008 with multiple counts of having sex with the same girl; his case is pending.