Police have arrested a Florida teen who they say posted a Facebook message threatening to “bring a gun to school tomorrow and shoot everyone.”

The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s office said Thursday night that they received a tip from a parent who saw the threat from the 13-year-old student.

Neither the teen nor his school has been identified.

A sheriff’s spokesman says the student did not have access to any weapons. No schools were evacuated or locked down, but security at area schools had already been increased as a result of the mass shooting at a Connecticut school last Friday. The student is charged with a single second-degree felony charge of making a written threat.

Authorities say he is being held at the Juvenile Detention Center in Fort Pierce.

Instagram has abandoned wording in its new terms-of-service agreement that sparked outcry from users concerned it meant their photos could appear in advertisements.

In a blog post late Thursday, the popular mobile photo-sharing service says it has reverted to language in the advertising section of its terms of service that appeared when it was launched in October 2010.

Instagram is now owned by Facebook Inc. and maintains that it would like to experiment with different forms of advertising to make money.

Its blog post says that it will now ask users’ permission to introduce possible ad products only after they are fully developed.

The outcry to the changes announced earlier this week led the company to clarify that it has no plans to put users’ photos in ads.

State lawmakers and governors have wasted little time proposing new laws or offering opinions about existing gun regulations in the days after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Many Democratic legislators want to tighten gun restrictions, from requiring background checks for all sales to limiting the kinds of weapons and ammunition that can be manufactured.

Many Republicans are taking a wait-and-see approach, while others want to arm teachers and school authorities.

Officials from both sides say the best policy solutions must involve conversations about mental health.

Whatever the outcome, a key political question is whether the current public outcry carries over into genuine pressure for lawmakers to act.

The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, has remained mostly silent since the shooting. The group has promised a Friday news conference.

Interstate 80 from Utica to Kearney remains closed as of 11:00 a.m., (CST), due to snow pack and rough ice. The Nebraska State Patrol and the Nebraska Department of Roads are working to open the stretch of road, but no timeframe for reopening is yet available.

On other parts of Interstate 80 that are open, travelers are advised to reduce their speed, turn off cruise control, and use extreme caution due to snow being blown back onto the road and reduced visibility in some areas.

Motorists are encouraged to keep up to date with the latest weather and road conditions by utilizing 511, Nebraska’s Advanced Travelers Information System.

511 should be accessed via phone by calling 511 or 800-906-9069 from any cell phone or landline. Travelers may also access the webcams and weather forecasts from < www.ndortraveler.mobi>, which is viewable on any mobile device or PC.

The father of a 16-year-old Lincoln boy who hanged himself in a youth detention center has filed a lawsuit accusing county officials and employees of deliberate indifference to the teen’s mental illness and suicidal statements.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that the lawsuit filed in Lincoln’s U.S. District County names Lancaster County and five unnamed employees as defendants.

Detention center staff found Jonathan Kennedy unresponsive in his cell the night of Feb. 26. He was taken to a local hospital, where he later died. The teen was being detained due to suspected drug use and self-harming behavior.

In the lawsuit, the teen’s father says detention center staff should have protected the teen from himself. The lawsuit seeks funeral expenses and an unspecified amount for other damages.

Kim Kardashian decided not to sit out of the fight over Instagram’s new Terms of service policy, which has many users upset including one of Instagram’s top 10 most followed users, Kardashian.

The new policy that Instagram rolled out implies that Instagram can sell users photos without having to compensate the user.  TMZ reports that Instagram announced that they are revising the wording to clarify that they’re not going to sell any photos.

Kardashian is threatening to move her picture sharing to a different platform as a way to rebel from the possible policy change.

Kardashian has influence on many people such as her family who are also in the top 10 of Instagram.
Read more here

 

Police say a man dressed as a Super Mario Brother has been arrested for groping a woman in New York City’s Times Square.

An NYPD spokesman says 34-year-old Damon Torres of North Bergen, N.J., was charged with forcible touching on Wednesday. Police say Torres blocked a 58-year-old woman’s path in front of 4 Times Square and grabbed her thigh before walking away.

The woman notified police officers, who arrested Torres at the famous tourist attraction. Torres was also charged with marijuana possession.

Thousands of people are without power in eastern Nebraska and across parts of Iowa as a powerful snow storm sweeps the Midwest.

The Omaha Public Power District says more than 36,000 customers in its service areas in eastern Nebraska are without power. The hardest-hit area is in and around Omaha, where 25,000 customers are without electricity. The utility says heavy snow and high winds gusting to more than 50 mph are hampering efforts to restore power in many areas.

In Lincoln, television station KOLN reports that many residents are also without power.

In Iowa, MidAmerican Energy reports that more than 31,000 of its customers are without electricity, including 25,000 in the Des Moines area. More than 6,000 customers are without power in western Iowa’s Council Bluffs.

Sheriffs in Nebraska’s three largest counties are reporting record requests for firearm certificates in the wake of last week’s school shooting in Connecticut.

Officials in Douglas, Sarpy and Lancaster counties said Wednesday that they’ve each recorded single-day highs this week in certificate applications. The certificates are good for three years, and can be used to buy more than one gun.

Douglas County Sheriff Chief Deputy Martin Bilek said his office processed an all-time high of 115 applications on Tuesday, and denied seven other requests. The Sarpy County sheriff’s office received about 80 on Tuesday. In Lincoln, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said his office received a record of 63 requests on Monday.

Officials say the increases may be driven by fears that the shooting will inspire new gun control laws.

A new movement has taken off to honor the 26 people killed at a school in Newtown, Conn.

The campaign sparked from a question NBC News correspondent Ann Curry asked herself after Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School: “What can I do?”

The answer she arrived at was performing 26 acts of kindness. On Sunday, she shared that suggestion on social media, inviting everyone to join her.

By Wednesday, the hashtag “26acts” was trending on Twitter and a “26 Acts of Kindness” Facebook page had exceeded 17,000 likes.

The social media sites describe acts of kindness directed toward members of the Newtown community, as well as to others across the nation and even globally.

Curry wrote on the NBC News website that the movement is a way to “help heal us all.”