Here is the February 2020 edition of Teenagers in The Times, a roundup of the news and feature stories about young people that have recently appeared across sections of NYTimes.com. We publish a new edition on the first Thursday of each month.
For ideas about how to use Teenagers in The Times with your students, please see our lesson plan and special activity sheet, both of which can be used with this or any other edition.
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Education
The Political Pundits of TikTok
Teenagers are campaigning, debating, running fact checks and forming party-based coalitions (hype houses). One of them called it “cable news for young people.”
Student Contest Winners: Teenagers Look at the News
We selected seven of our favorites from among the 200-plus entries in this year’s student letter-writing competition.
New Mexico Sues Google Over Children’s Privacy Violations
The lawsuit says that Google, the top tech brand in public schools, used its educational products to spy on students.
2 Americans, 19 and 20, Go on Trial Over Killing of Italian Police Officer
With defense lawyers and prosecutors giving widely differing accounts of the night in question, a jury will weigh the evidence over the killing of a paramilitary officer in Rome by a pair of teenagers.
Supreme Court Rules for U.S. Agent Who Shot Mexican Teenager
In one of two 5-to-4 decisions Tuesday, the court said Congress had not authorized lawsuits over cross-border shootings. The justices also ruled against a death row inmate seeking resentencing.
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Science, Health, Technology and Sports
What Happens When You Get Famous Off One Song?
Tom Austin released a hit. Now what? We asked him — and Rebecca Black.
Nikita Pearl Waligwa, Star of ‘Queen of Katwe,’ Dies at 15
The Ugandan teenager, who debuted in the 2016 Disney film about a chess whiz, died of brain cancer, her school said.
‘Cheer’: What to Read and Listen to After Seeing This Netflix Hit
The docu-series about Navarro College’s competitive cheerleading team has taken over the internet. Here’s the best of the conversation to dive into next.
“Once they were all over pop culture. When they retreated, an expanded view of what girlhood could look like was obscured, too,” writes the author of this Opinion essay.
Echo Brown’s ‘Black Girl Unlimited,’ Anna-Marie McLemore’s ‘Dark and Deepest Red’ and Adam Silvera’s ‘Infinity Son’ expand the possibilities for teenage heroes.
A Comic Coming-of-Age Novel Laced With Social Commentary
Gabriel Bump’s “Everywhere You Don’t Belong,” about a young black man from Chicago’s South Side, balances emotional heaviness and levity, Tommy Orange writes in his review.
