Justin Bieber and his legal team have issued a cease-and-desist warning to software developers Mark Kaye and Robb Chamberlain of RC3, Inc, creators of the iTunes app Joustin’ Beaver.
The game, with a five star rating so far, features a beaver who looks a little bit like the teen icon. Players must get the beaver to sign as many “otter-graphs” as possible while avoiding Phot-Hogs, pigs with cameras who work for TeaM Z.
The single-player arcade-style adventure hit the market in early February and can be downloaded to iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android devices for $0.99 USD.
In a legal missive to RC3, Bieber’s camp threatened legal action unless the software company pulls the game from iTunes and other app stores. Chamberlain and Kaye have been ordered to provide a report of all profits that have been generated thus far.
Roger Simpson said he looked down the road and saw a little girl running outside her home but didn’t give it another thought. Police, however, said the man witnessed a murder in progress. Witnesses told deputies Savannah was told to run and not allowed to stop for three hours on Friday, an Etowah County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman said. The girl’s stepmother, 27-year-old Jessica Mae Hardin, seen below, called police at 6:45 p.m., telling them Savannah was having a seizure and was unresponsive.
Simpson said he saw a little girl running at around 4 p.m., but didn’t see anybody chasing or coercing her. “I saw her running down there, that’s what I told the detectives,” Simpson said from his home on a hill overlooking the Hardins. “But I don’t see how that would kill her.”
Authorities are still trying to determine whether Savannah was forced to run by physical coercion or by verbal commands. Deputies were told the girl was made to run after lying to her grandmother, 46-year-old Joyce Hardin Garrard, seen below, about eating some candy, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Natalie Barton said.
Savannah Hardin died Monday at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s release said an autopsy report showed the girl was extremely dehydrated and had a very low sodium level. A state pathologist ruled it a homicide.
The sheriff’s office received calls from concerned citizens who witnessed the girl running. No other details were released, but an official with the local volunteer fire department said rescuers thought something seemed odd when they responded to a call about the child.
“One of the ones who were down there said he didn’t feel like everything was right,” said Ruby Ward, vice president of the Mountainboro Volunteer Fire Department.
Gail Denny and her husband Phil, live just up a dirt road from the home. They’ve known the family since they moved to the area in northeastern Alabama seven years ago. The couple said they were used to seeing Savannah and other neighborhood children out waiting on the school bus in the morning. Gail Denny said her grandson had a crush on Savannah.
“My grandson asked her to be his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, and she said ‘yes,’” she said before dissolving into tears. She left a candle and stuffed animal outside the girl’s home Wednesday night, saying a prayer as she paused beside the road.
The trailer where Savannah lived was surrounded by a wooden fence, playground equipment and toys. Neighbors say they never saw children playing in the yard. They said Garrard owned a lot of property along the road and much of her family lived in homes on that property.
“It seems like a very happy extended family around here,” Denny said. “There are mothers, grandmothers, kids. It sounds like a punishment that got out of hand.” Garrard and Jessica Mae Hardin are being held in the Etowah County Detention Center, each on a $500,000 cash bond.
Court records show that Robert Hardin filed for divorce in August of 2010. In his complaint, he asserted his wife was bi-polar and had alcoholic tendencies. He accused her previously of having run off with the couple’s own child. In her response, Jessica denied all of Robert’s allegations.
Five months after filing for divorce, the two asked a judge to dismiss their case. Savannah Hardin was a third-grader at Carlisle Elementary School. Superintendent Alan Cosby said her desk had been turned into a makeshift memorial where her classmates could leave notes and mementos. He said counselors and social workers were made available for students.
“This is obviously a very tragic, devastating, heartbreaking situation,” Cosby said. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.” So sad.
The shooting that critically wounded an 8-year-old girl at a Bremerton school Wednesday was accidental, the Bremerton Police Department said. A third-grade boy at Armin Jahr Elementary School brought a gun to school and it discharged in his backpack and struck Amina Kocer-Bowman, a classmate.
Kocer-Bowman, was rushed to Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton and later airlifted to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center. She underwent surgery and is listed in critical condition in intensive care, says KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporterAlison Grande.
The boy was arrested on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, bringing a dangerous weapon onto school grounds and third-degree assault based on criminal negligence, police said. He was booked into the Kitsap County Juvenile Detention Center. Investigators are working to find out how the boy gained access to the gun.
The police chief of Tutwiler Mississippi, and four other city employees were fired after a video posted on Youtube captured them cheering as cinnamon was poured into the mouth of a mentally disabled teenager. Town clerk Angela Chandler can be seen pouring cinnamon into the mouth of Danareus Martin, 18, who was doing community service at city hall as a way to pay off some misdemeanor fines.
Martin’s lawyer believes Martin was singled out for comments he made in court.
“He made some comments regarding the officers … that they weren’t doing their job and they weren’t right,” he said. And officers allegedly took those comments to heart. When Martin reported for duty, Pittman said he was taken to a shed behind city hall. The cops put on boxing gloves and gave him the opportunity to show ‘how the police aren’t nothing,’” he said.
The “cinammon challenge” involves swallowing a large amount of cinnamon without any water – a near impossible task that frequently results in people coughing a plume of the spice, choking and even vomiting.
Former Tutwiler Police Chief Terry Tyler (SEEN ABOVE) says, “It’s a bunch of lies and false allegations. I don’t have anything to hide. I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.” Click here to watch the video
Video shows Georgia girl, 7, fighting off alleged kidnapper at Walmart
A 7-year-old Georgia girl fought off a man who’d grabbed her in the aisle of a Walmart, with police eventually tracking down the suspect they accuse of attempted kidnapping. Georgeann Baxter told HLN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell that she was in the Bremen store with her daughter, Brittney, on Wednesday.
“We were walking around the Walmart, and we felt safe,” the mother said, talking about how they were looking at Valentine’s Day cards and toys in the west Georgia store, about 45 miles west of Atlanta. When Baxter asked her daughter if she wanted to join her to get strawberries, the girl said that she wanted to stay in the toy aisle for a few more minutes.
Soon thereafter, surveillance video from the Walmart — later released by Bremen police — shows a man approaching her. “He came up to me and started a conversation,” Brittney recalled Thursday to HLN. “After … I said, ‘I’m going to get my Mommy.” The man is seen in the video picking up the young girl and starting to carry her away, as she flailed.
Brittney said she responded as she’d been taught by family, including her brother in the U.S. Army, and a school counselor in a lesson on how to respond if you’re touched inappropriately. “Punch, kick and scream as hard as you can, and then tell somebody that you trust,” she said of what she did and what she’d tell others to do, if they’re in the same situation.
Eventually, the man put the girl down and fled the store. Police later caught and arrested Thomas Woods, whom they accuse of trying to kidnap Brittney. On Thursday, Woods, in his mid-20s, insisted to reporters including those from CNN affiliate WSB — that he was innocent. “I didn’t bother nobody. I was never there,” he said.
According to information from the Georgia Department of Corrections, Woods was released on parole last October after serving four and a half years of a 7-year term for voluntary manslaughter. Bremen Police Chief Keith Pesnell told HLN that he favored changing the rules, so that there were greater restrictions on people who are convicted of violent crimes — to prevent incidents like the one that allegedly happened to Brittney.
“I think it’s time we have to look at things, for the safety of the children,” Pesnell said. “Fortunately, things are in place to train our kids, and Brittney did exactly the right thing.” Speaking to HLN’s Vinnie Politan, Emily Altman — a counselor at the Tallapoosa Primary School — said that she’d taught Brittney and other students as young as four years old some self-defense basics as part of a program called “Good Touch, Bad Touch.”
“It’s never too early to say, you stay right with mom, or you yell and scream if somebody were to (grab you),” Altman said of the program. However she learned what to do, young Brittney responded “perfectly” to the alleged kidnapper, her counselor said. “I couldn’t be prouder or her,” Altman said
Call for Speakers Applications are now available for the South Florida Youth Summit, featuring Dr. Cornel West and Jeff Johnson on March 22-24, 2012. For an application, please email: jimmy@jnickmg.com
A drug bust on and around the Texas Christian University campus in Fort Worth Wednesday morning led to the arrest of 17 current students, school officials say.
During a news conference Wednesday morning, officials said those arrested sold drugs to undercover narcotics officers both on and off campus during a six-month investigation.
“There is no doubt, all of those arrested today, are drug dealers,” said Steve McGee, TCU Chief of Police. “These individuals engaged in hand-to-hand delivery, for money, with undercover narcotics agents. We will continue to work proactively to curtail drug use on the TCU campus.”
McGee said the investigation began six months ago after multiple tips were received from students and parents. “This shows that TCU students, staff and the community will not tolerate this kind of behavior on the TCU campus,” said McGee.
McGee said those arrested were selling marijuana, cocaine, Molly (ecstasy in powder form), ecstasy in pill form, acid and prescription drugs including Xanax, hydrocodone and others similar to Oxycontin.
Investigators have not yet released the names of those arrested Wednesday, but did say those implicated were all current students and included four members of the TCU football team and at least one member of a fraternity.
TCU Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. said the busts do not represent a football problem, but a student problem, and that it was shocking and disappointing to learn of the investigation and arrests.
In a letter to students earlier in the morning, Boschini said that the school has never experienced a magnitude of student arrests such as this and that those students who are involved were immediately separated from the school and subject to expulsion.
Officials said the investigation is ongoing and that more arrests are possible.
Video of an Asian boy running in the snow with only his underwear and sneakers on is has people in an uproar. The video shows the four-year-old crying and running toward the camera as someone, presumably his father, is heard speaking Chinese.
According to various media websites, the father has said he wanted to teach his son “fortitude.” The dad says it is an education plan to counter developmental difficulties he was told his son may have to due to premature birth.
There was a home video that was taken last month in New York City, but has since been flagged as private, where the family was celebrating the Lunar New Year. In his home country, the man is being referred to as an ‘eagle father’– a reference to the eagle pushing its young out of its nest forcing it to fly.
President Barack Obama on Thursday will free 10 states from the strict and sweeping requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, giving leeway to states that promise to improve how they prepare and evaluate students. The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, a White House official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the states had not yet been announced. A total of 28 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled that they, too, plan to seek waivers — a sign of just how vast the law’s burdens have become as a big deadline nears.
No Child Left Behind requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Obama’s action strips away that fundamental requirement for those approved for flexibility, provided they offer a viable plan instead. Under the deal, the states must show they will prepare children for college and careers, set new targets for improving achievement among all students, reward the best performing schools and focus help on the ones doing the worst.
In September, Obama called President George W. Bush’s most hyped domestic accomplishment an admirable but flawed effort that hurt students instead of helping them. He said action was necessary because Congress failed to update the law despite widespread bipartisan agreement that it needs fixing. Republicans have charged that by granting waivers, Obama was overreaching his authority.
The executive action by Obama is one of his most prominent in an ongoing campaign to act on his own where Congress is rebuffing him. No Child Left Behind was primarily designed to help the nation’s poor and minority children and was passed a decade ago with widespread bipartisan support. It has been up for renewal since 2007. But lawmakers have been stymied for years by competing priorities, disagreements over how much of a federal role there should be in schools and, in the recent Congress, partisan gridlock.
In states granted a waiver, students will still be tested annually. But starting this fall, schools in those states will no longer face the same prescriptive actions spelled out under No Child Left Behind. A school’s performance will also probably be labeled differently.
We’ve learned that Real Housewives of Atlanta star Nene Leakes oldest son Brice, has been admitted to an hospital after a near deadly fight at bar outside of Atlanta. Allegedly a fight ensued after Brice, seen below, had words with a patron outside of the bar over a girl. Words turned into fists, and Bricev was severely beaten, suffering a shattered jaw and broken bones in his face.
However, he had enough energy once admitted to the hospital to tweet, “Yay, dey jus walked n wit my meds ill be on da moon in 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1″
Nene has yet to release a statement, we hope for a speedy recovery.
Teen Mom star Amber Portwood was pictured in a prison jumpsuit and shackles today as she was sentenced to five years in prison. Under a plea deal the reality TV star entered guilty pleas to one count of Class D felony possession of a controlled substance and one count of parole probation violation.
If she completes the terms of the Madison County Drug Court program the case against her will eventually be dismissed. But if she fails, Judge David Happe told Portwood she would be sent to prison to serve the five years he was suspending.
“I know it is going to be hard but I have a lot to lose – I have a daughter,” Portwood quietly told Judge Happe. For the sake of her daughter: Amber told the court that she was willing to do the program for the sake of her daughter Leah Shirley.
Part of the plea deal is a $10,000 college trust fund that Portwood must set up for her daughter, Leah Shirley. She must also pay a $10 fine, $165 in court costs, and a $200 processing fee.
Portwood was arrested on December 19 for violating several terms of her probation. On December 22 she was charged with Class D felony possession of a controlled substance – hydrocodone pills. She will remain in Madison County Jail until her Drug Court hearing on Thursday.
BREAKING: South L.A.-based Miramonte Elementary School, home to two separate incidents of child molestation allegations, plans to replace its entire staff, according to Los Angeles schools Superintendent John Deasy.
The unprecedented move is intended to build confidence among the many families who have lost faith in their neighborhood elementary school. More than a quarter of students did not show up for classes Monday.
Officials stressed that no one else on the Miramonte staff is under suspicion of wrongdoing but that the chain of events has placed a cloud over the campus that can be lifted only with a drastic response.
One of the largest elementary schools in the nation, Miramonte has about 1,500 students and a teaching and administrative staff of about 150.
That is in fact a drastic move. However, it is expected to be temporary: Officials say that most, if not all, teachers would return to the district eventually. The district has been rocked by allegations and charges over the past week.
Parents in New Ulm, Minnesota are upset with the school district over a disturbing new playground game. It’s called “Rape Tag.” Kids are encouraged to tag each other by pulling the other child’s private parts, NOT pictured. Almost two dozen fifth graders at Washington Elementary School in New Ulm were caught playing the game. When a parent told school principal Bill Sprung about it he immediately took action but didn’t tell other parents.
“I contacted fifth grade teachers, they all spoke to their classes and at that point I also notified all the recess supervisors,” he said. A letter was sent home to parents but not until 20 days after a parent first notified the principal about the tag. New Ulm Public Schools Superintendent says he’s comfortable with the way things were handled
R.I.P. Tyler | Watch the video that Tyler’s friend, Dominica Williams made in memory of him…
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