I was a rotten high school student, a shirker and smart-ass of the first rank. I even found myself purged from a typing class for bad behavior - an event I regret to this precise moment, since touch-typing is obviously a convenient skill for someone in my profession. Afterward, I had to choose another "elective." Naturally, I seized upon home economics - in which, I hoped, I'd spend my time amusing girls with wisecracks and whipping up desserts from boxed mixes. If memory serves, that's exactly how it played out - especially the bit about the just-add-water confections. Mmmm, instant cake.

In other words, I retained just as much from my home ec class as I did from my failed stint as a student of the keyboard: which is to say, nothing. Yet Ruth Graham's recent Boston Globe essay "Bring back home ec! The case for a revival of the most retro class in school" strikes me as spot on. Graham isn't talking about the home ec of my wayward '80s youth, nor that of quaint stereotypes featuring "visions of future homemakers quietly whisking white sauce or stitching rickrack onto an apron."

She means a revitalized, contemporary home economics for all genders, one capable of at least exposing youth to basic skills that so many adults (i.e., their parents) lack: "to shop intelligently, cook healthily, [and] manage money." And I think such a reimagined home ec should move from the shadowy margins it now occupies - the field has been rebranded as "Family and Consumer Sciences," Graham reports - and become mandatory for all high school kids, and - why not? - even elementary school ones.

I have witnessed firsthand the vexed state of basic cooking skills among the young. When I helped run the kitchen at Maverick Farms for seven years, I noticed that most of our interns couldn't chop an onion or turn even just-picked produce into a reasonably good dish in a reasonable amount of time. And these were people motivated enough about food to intern at a small farm in rural North Carolina. If I had their cooking skills, I'd be tempted to resort to takeout often, just to save time.

It's true that in my home ec class nearly a quarter century ago, we weren't taught how to handle a knife or follow a simple recipe for a from-scratch dish. But home ec wasn't always so vapid. Graham points to New York Times reporter Michael Moss' great 2013 book Salt Sugar Fat, which contains a brief history of the home ec trade in US public schools.

The convenience food industry that's so powerful and entrenched today was just taking root in the 1950s. And as it began to aggressively market its products to a growing US middle class, it faced "one real obstacle," Moss writes: the "army of school teachers and federal outreach workers who insisted on promoting home-cooked meals, prepared the old fashioned way."

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to 'detect' homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country - or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), according to a Kuwaiti government official.

GCC member countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - already deem homosexual acts unlawful.

This controversial stance is being toughened, according to Yousouf Mindkar, the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry.

Police tell CBS News' Crimesider that a security guard at a Victoria's Secret store in New York City found a dead fetus inside the bag of a teenage girl on Thursday.

A security guard at the store in midtown Manhattan stopped two teenage girls to question them about possible shoplifting at around 1 p.m. and discovered that one of the teens was carrying a plastic bag with the fetus of a baby boy inside, according to the NYPD.

Police say both teens are being questioned, one at Bellevue Hospital and one at a local precinct. CBS New York reports both girls are 17 years-old.

According to the station, one of the girls admitted she had a baby in her bag when stopped by the store security guard. The girl later told police that she had given birth to a fetus Wednesday and did not know what to do with the body, reports the station.

Police say the medical examiner will determine the status of the baby fetus.

A new report shows that over one third of Israelis are at risk of falling below the poverty line, almost twice the rate of poverty risk in the European Union, itself plagued by a financial crisis.

According to a report released by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) on Wednesday, about 31 percent of Israelis are close to the poverty line. The current figure is up from 26 percent in 2001.

The report also indicates that some 40 percent of Israeli children are facing the risk of poverty, which is also double the rate in Europe.

The rate in 2011, the same as this year's, was even higher than in debt-ridden Spain and Greece, where 20 percent of the population was at risk of poverty.

Momi Dahan, an official at Hebrew University in al-Quds (Jerusalem), said the high poverty rate is due to Israel's constant cuts in welfare benefits over the past 30 years.

He added that the 2013 Israeli austerity budget "continues the current policy of cutting welfare spending, mainly through cuts in children benefits, which now became even lower."

You may have heard my story, thanks to Anonymous who trended #justice4daisy. I'm not done fighting yet.

Winter: cold, bleak, bitter, ugly. Almost like summer has taken off its mask and shown its true colors. Everyone is forced to see how ugly life can truly be. Others get a season of beauty: summer.

My whole life since January 8, 2012, has been a long, reckless winter.

The night everything changed I was having an old friend over to catch up and have fun. Her name is Paige, and she is a year younger than I am. At the time, she was 13, and I was 14.

We had been best friends since we were both very young, and continued to be best friends, even though I had moved from Albany to Maryville. She was in the eighth grade, and I was in the midst of my freshman year.

Life, overall, was great.

I was on the varsity cheer squad, a competitive dance team and had a lot of friends.

A U.S. air marshal was arrested Thursday and charged with using a cellphone to take photographs up women's skirts at the Nashville, Tenn., airport, police said.

The Transportation Security Administration said Adam Joseph Bartsch, 28, of Rockville, Md., had been removed from active duty and was "in the process" of being suspended or fired.

Bartsch was on duty when he was arrested after boarding Southwest Flight 3132 from Nashville to Tampa, Fla. A fellow passenger who allegedly saw Bartsch taking the pictures notified a flight attendant.

"The last thing I expected was to not have a job," said Kristopher Oswald, 30, who was fired from Walmart this week after he intervened to help a woman who was apparently being assaulted in the parking lot of the store.

It happened around 2:30 a.m. outside the Walmart store in the Livingston County town of Hartland.

Oswald, who worked stocking pet food on the overnight shift at Walmart, was spending his lunch break in his car when he heard a woman screaming and a man hanging onto the hood of her car.

At first, Oswald wondered if it was just people horsing around recklessly, but when he walked over to see if the woman was really in danger, he says the man began to attack him, punching him in the head while yelling "I'm going to kill you".

Fair Lawn - An increasing number of roadside deer carcasses are being discovered decapitated, authorities told News 12 New Jersey.

Department of Transportation workers tell News 12 that many are taking the heads for show.

George Dante, the owner of a taxidermy shop in Woodland Park, told News 12 that "When they (sportsmen) see an animal by the side of the road with this magnificent headgear on it, you can't help but stop and take it home."

Police want residents to know that taking deer heads is against the law, and those who are caught can be fined $500 the first time and up to $1,000 for a second offense, the report said.

Residents in New Jersey are allowed to keep roadkill to eat, the report said, as long as they have a permit from the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

"We would love to be able to pick up a roadkill and recycle it and turn it into a beautiful mount, give it to an environmental center," Dante told News 12. "Unfortunately, we're not allowed to recycle our wildlife."

An estimated 30 million people worldwide are currently living as slaves, according to the inaugural Global Slavery Index published Thursday, with India said to have the largest number of enslaved people, though African countries still had the highest proportional figure based on population.

The index, compiled by the Walk Free Foundation (WFF), defined modern slavery to comprise of human trafficking, forced labour, and practices such as debt bondage, forced marriage, and the sale or exploitation of children; and found that slaves existed in all of the 162 countries surveyed.

"Today some people are still being born into hereditary slavery, a staggering but harsh reality, particularly in parts of West Africa and South Asia," the report said, as cited by Reuters.

"Other victims are captured or kidnapped before being sold or kept for exploitation, whether through 'marriage', unpaid labour on fishing boats, or as domestic workers. Others are tricked and lured into situations they cannot escape, with false promises of a good job or an education," the report added.

The countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery were Mauritania (0.4 percent), Haiti (0.2 percent), Pakistan (0.012 percent), India (0.012 percent), Nepal (0.01 percent), Moldova (0.01 percent), Benin (0.01 percent), Ivory Coast (0.01 percent), Gambia (0.01 percent) and Gabon (0.01 percent).

In terms of total numbers, the countries with the most people in modern slavery were estimated to be India (13.95 million), followed by China (2.95 million) and Pakistan (2.1 million).

Things are bad in Detroit.

But they're even worse in Puerto Rico.

The island's economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism, has been hammered by the drop-off in U.S. discretionary spending in the post-financial crisis era.

We recently told you how residents have been leaving the country in droves. The territory's unemployment rate is more than 13%.

Now, the yield on the Puerto Rican 5-year note has climbed to a staggering 9.4%.

As the New York Times' Mary Williams Walsh notes, Puerto Rico cannot declare bankruptcy - just like a state.

The pension fund of the Northern Mariana Islands tried this last year - and failed. A judge ruled that as a "governmental unit" it was explicitly barred from filing for protection under Chapter 11, which applies to corporations. (The NMI's lawyers themselves decided the territory was not eligible for Chapter 9, the bankruptcy statute Detroit and all cities and counties fall under.)

So some kind of bailout may be imminent, the president of the Puerto Rican Senate, Eduardo Bhatia, told her:

"[The administration is] wondering how they can help Puerto Rico send a very strong signal of stability right now...We are waiting for some sort of an announcement from the Treasury and the White House," Bhatia said without clarification.