Lady Gaga Medley

Showcasing some more talent today -

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (ukulele)

This little boy is so cute - watch and tell me what you think.

Bullied Girl Posts Video, Gets Help From Police

Her choppy blue-and-blond hair hiding the fear in her eyes, a 15-year-old voiced her dislike for a hip-hop music group and got punched in the face by a classmate. The whole thing was caught on tape, and social media helped police in their investigation.

A crowd of six to 10 classmates were following the self-described emo girl and her boyfriend home from school in Newark, Ohio, on an autumn day in September. Some kids were taping it and others were egging on the assailant, who was on the school wrestling team. It all started because Alexis Xanders doesn't like Insane Clown Posse.

One of the students who recorded the incident contacted Xanders on MySpace and sent her the video two months later. The teen says she wanted something done, so she uploaded the video to YouTube and CNN iReport last week.

While only six to 10 people witnessed the alleged assault, the video has received more than 1,000 views on CNN iReport to date.

A local newspaper reporter saw the video and alerted the local police department, says Newark Police Sgt. Scott Snow. A police report was filed Sept. 24, and authorities are investigating the other kids in the video who were goading the suspect.

The 15-year-old suspect, who CNN is not naming because she is a minor, was charged as a juvenile Tuesday with individual counts of assault, menacing and unlawful restraint, Licking County Prosecutor Ken Oswalt said. He also confirmed they are looking into charging other people from the video for inciting the fight.

The same day as the bullying incident, Chicago honors student Derrion Albert was beaten to death. The incident was captured on video and shared online. Three teens pleaded not guilty and were set to appear at a hearing Wednesday.

These examples of bullying are not isolated incidents. Cameras are very accessible these days, and social networking has made it easy to post videos for anyone to see.

Dr. Patricia Walton Agatston, a counselor with the Cobb Prevention/Intervention Center in Marietta, Ga., is co-author of "Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age." She says posting videos online allows for bullies to be more visible to authorities.

Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, says tracking bullying arrests and charges that arise from videos posted online is no easy task. "There's no source of that kind of data. Nobody's in a position to track that," she said.

When Xanders posted the video to CNN iReport, she wanted something to happen, but she didn't expect to see a detective at her door the next day.

"Someone did see it and sent it to a detective. I didn't think anything would actually happen with all of this because it happens all the time," the high school freshman told CNN. The mother of the teen suspect could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Xanders says the suspect hasn't liked her since fifth grade, when the harassment allegedly started. "I don't really know why. She just never liked me," she said.

"They would wait for me every day after school. ... I didn't go to school the day before. They were in a big huge group, waiting and stuff. Once all of my friends were walking, we'd have five or six people, but that day it was only me and [my boyfriend], she did something."

Officer David Bardsley and the school principal held a peer mediation session between the two girls a couple of days before the assault.

The suspect said, "They were talking crap about me," according to Bardsley. But, after a 20-minute conversation, the girls assured him everything had been smoothed over.

Whenever the school becomes aware of bullying, it gets Bardsley involved immediately. He's been the officer on the grounds of Newark High School for nine years. He stands behind the peer mediation process at the school, which has 1,700 to 1,800 students enrolled.

"I would say that more than 90 percent would be an accurate success rate," he said. "Most of the kids say that when we rationalize with them, they realize that they're being silly."

Doug Ute, the superintendent of Newark City Schools, confirmed Wednesday that the suspect agreed not to attend the school's homecoming celebrations.

Since charges were filed, the high school has barred her from participating on the school wrestling team. The suspect is no longer a student, as she withdrew from the school, Ute said.

"Anytime there's bullying or harassment, it's an unfortunate incident, and we discourage that type of behavior with our students," he said.

Xanders, who dyes her hair frequently and rocks out to alternative and scream-o music, uploaded the video to iReport and says she told her parents about it afterward. Tanya Xanders, her mother, said she didn't mind, especially if the video might help bring attention to bullying.

In the video, Xanders did not push back or return a punch. "She's not a fighter ... that's what she's all about," her father, Chad Bartlett, told CNN.

Xanders says that while she stood back from fighting, she'd tell other kids who are being bullied to fight back in another way.

"Tell somebody and do something about it," she said. "Don't just sit there and take it. You can use your words and not your hands."

Sarah Palin on The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien & William Shatner 12/11/09

Sarah Palin turns the tables on William Shatner on The Tonight Show. And dare I say that I LOVED IT!

10 Weird Work Stories from 2009

2009 marked another year of unforgettable occurrences in entertainment, politics and current events.

Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first African-American president of the United States. A global pandemic of the H1N1 virus, known as "swine flu," broke out. Rio de Janeiro was named the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Major American icons such as Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Sen. Ted Kennedy and Walter Cronkite passed away. Jon and Kate broke up.

In the midst of all of these happenings, other trends were going on in the job market. Unemployment numbers rose and fell. The number of jobless folks increased. Despite all of these dismal reports, a few other events caught our eye.

In case you missed them, here are 10 of the weirdest work stories and headlines we read this year:

1. 'Oops! Employee flips, damages borrowed Ferrari'

A 23-year-old woman driving her boss's borrowed Ferrari in California lost control of the car and flipped it, causing an estimated $125,000 in damage. The woman was unharmed, but her boss was said to be "irate." (MSNBC.com)

2. '34 hospitalized after co-worker sprays perfume'

When almost 150 people at a Texas bank call center became ill, reporting dizziness and shortness of breath, officials suspected carbon monoxide or some other toxic fume was the culprit. But when two people complained about dizziness after a co-worker sprayed perfume and then others began to feel sick, it was discovered that the perfume was to blame. Thirty-four people were taken to hospitals, 12 by ambulance, and 110 people were treated on the scene. No one knows what type of perfume was sprayed. (MSNBC.com)

3. 'Man hurt himself to "avoid work" '

Steven Reid, a 23-year-old hotel cleaner in Scotland, just wanted a day off of work. Rather than asking for one, Reid claimed he had been assaulted. To convince his boss, he took a razor from his pocket and repeatedly dragged it down his face. He also picked up a boulder and repeatedly hit himself on the head and body. He went to the police station to report "the assault." When asked about the incident, Reid said, "Looking back, I should have just phoned work and asked them for the day off." (BBC News)

4. 'Worker fired for all-caps e-mails'

Vicki Walker, of Auckland, New Zealand, was fired for sending e-mail messages in all-capital letters. The employer said that Walker's co-workers complained about her "shouty" and confrontational e-mails. Walker was awarded $11,500 on the premise that the company had no official e-mail style guide; therefore, her messages did not amount to grounds for dismissal. (UPI.com)

5. 'Bodybuilding firefighters accused of faking disability'

Two Boston firefighters were charged with fraud after they were caught bodybuilding -- despite having filed for disability. Albert Arroyo, 46, and James Famolare, 65, both sought accidental disability pensions after allegedly suffering injuries while on the job. Arroyo claimed he fell while walking in a fire station, saying it left him permanently disabled from the performance of his duties. Famolare claimed that he suffered a career-ending injury while moving a box of files. Arroyo was caught bodybuilding while on disability and prosecutorssay he "failed to disclose his repeated visits to gyms where he trained for a May 2008 bodybuilding competition." (TheBostonChannel.com)

6. 'Washington Post features editor punches colleague over 'charticle''

Chaos ensued at The Washington Post when Henry Allen, 68, features editor, reportedly punched one of his writers in the head. According to The Washingtonian, a style editor at the Post assigned a semi-political story to writers Monica Hesse and Manuel Roig-Franzia, asking them to compile a list of disclosures made by congressmen who are being investigated for ethics violations. They came up with a 'charticle' with a dozen examples. Allen was outraged, apparently at their creativity, and let them know his feelings. In the midst of Allen's barrage, Roig-Franzia apparently said, "Oh, Henry, don't be such a [expletive]." That's when Allen lunged at Roig-Franzia and started throwing punches. Allen was reportedly banned from the newsroom, just before his Nov. 28 retirement. (Daily Finance)

7. 'Teller fired for foiling robbery'

Jim Nicholson was fired from his job as a bank teller at a Key Bank branch in Seattle after chasing down a bank-robbery suspect rather than giving into his demands. A potential robber approached Nicholson, gave him a bag and told him to fill the bag with money. Nicholson asked the robber to see his weapon and was told, "It's a verbal ransom." Nicholson threw the bag on the floor, jumped over the counter and took off after the would-be robber, who ran out of the bank and down the street outside with Nicholson in pursuit. With the help of another civilian, Nicholson caught the suspect and held him until police arrived to take him into custody. His heroics didn't last long, as he was fired for breaking bank protocol that employees are to comply with a robber's request to prevent others from getting hurt. (MSNBC.com)

8. 'Postal worker helps himself to $86,000 worth of Gamefly games'

Reginald Johnson, 34, of Germantown, Pa., admitted to stealing 2,200 Gamefly games, valued at $86,000, while working as a mail-processing clerk between April and September 2008. Gamefly is a video-game rental service that sends games to subscribers through the mail for $15.95 or $22.95 a month. Johnson allegedly traded the games to a GameStop for store credit. When federal workers tried to arrest him, Johnson led them on a car chase before crashing the car and getting caught. (Philly.com)

9. 'Worker sued over $29,000 tip'

Sara Gaspar, a former Notre Dame employee, is being sued by the school for spending a tip that was supposedly given to her by mistake. Gaspar was given a $29,387 tip after being paid for catering work in April. Notre Dame now says that it was a typing mistake and is demanding Gaspar repay the money. The problem is, it has already been spent, which resulted in the lawsuit. (WiredPRNews.com)

10. 'Hotel-casino worker exposed to secondhand smoke sues employer for $5 million'

Kanie Kastroll, a casino dealer at the Wynn Las Vegas, is suing the hotel for not protecting its employees against secondhand smoke from customers. Kastroll claims she developed asthma and other health problems because of secondhand smoke. She also says that the casino doesn't allow employees to request a smoke-free table and that management allows gamblers to blow smoke directly in the dealers' faces, forbids dealers from protesting, requires them to tell patrons that smoking is allowed and encourages smoking by offering free cigarettes to gamblers. Kastroll says that employees who don't follow these rules are disciplined. (AllHeadlineNews.com)

The House OK's a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations

The House passed the most ambitious restructuring of federal financial regulations since the New Deal on Friday, aiming to head off any replay of last year's Wall Street failures that plunged the nation deep into recession.

The sprawling legislation would give the government new powers to break up companies that threaten the economy, create a new agency to oversee consumer banking transactions and shine a light into shadow financial markets that have escaped the oversight of regulators.

The vote was a party-line 223-202. No Republicans voted for the bill; 27 Democrats voted against it.

While a victory for the administration, the legislation dilutes some of President Barack Obama's recommendations, carving out exceptions to some of its toughest provision. The burden now shifts to the Senate, which is not expected to act on its version of a regulatory overhaul until early next year.

The president praised the House action Friday, and called on Congress to act swiftly to get the bill to the White House for his signature.

"The crisis from which we are still recovering was born not only of failure on Wall Street, but also in Washington," Obama said. "We have a responsibility to learn from it and to put in place reforms that will promote sound investment, encourage real competition and innovation and prevent such a crisis from ever happening again. "

The legislation would govern the simplest payday loan and the most complicated high-finance trades. In its breadth, the measure seeks to impose restrictions on every house of finance, from two-teller neighborhood thrifts to huge interconnected conglomerates.

Democratic leaders had to fend off a last-minute attempt to kill a proposed consumer agency, a central element of the legislation and one the features pushed by the White House. The agency would take over consumer protection powers from current banking regulators, and big banks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vigorously opposed the idea.

Democrats said the broad legislation would help address problems that led to last year's calamitous financial crisis. Republicans argued that it overreached and would institutionalize bailouts for the financial industry.

"Let's put it to the American people: Do you prefer the Republican position of doing literally nothing to rein in these abuses or should we try to rein them in?" Rep. Barney Frank, who led the Democratic effort on the bill, asked moments before the final vote.

Republicans cast the regulatory bill as a burden to business and argued that it would continue to protect companies considered too big to fail. They offered an alternative that called for special bankruptcy proceedings to dismantle failing financial institutions. That alternative failed.

"This house has been on a spending spree, a bailout spree and a regulatory spree that I could never have imagined in any of my prior 18 years here in Congress," Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said.

Consumer advocates cheered the survival of the consumer protection agency but said the overall legislation fell short, especially in the regulation of complex investment instruments known as derivatives.

The legislation aims to prevent manipulation and bring transparency to the $600 trillion global derivatives market. But an amendment by New York Democrat Scott Murphy, adopted 304-124 Thursday night, created an exception for nonfinancial companies that use derivatives as a hedge against price, currency and interest rate changes rather than as a speculative investment. The amendment also provided an exception for businesses that are considered too small to be a risk to the financial system.

A Democratic effort to make more companies subject to derivatives regulations and to abusive-trading rules failed.

When the Obama administration first proposed a package of regulations, it called for regulations of derivatives without any exceptions. But a potent lobbying coalition that included Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc., General Electric Co., Coca-Cola and other big companies persuaded lawmakers to dilute the restrictions.

"It does fall well short of what the administration promised and what everybody assumed we would get," said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "It's a weakness in the bill and a win for Wall Street. Hedge funds and others that are not bona fide hedgers of commercial risk will slip through this language."

The bill would create a Financial Services Oversight Council made up of the Treasury secretary, the Federal Reserve chairman and heads of regulatory agencies to monitor the financial markets for potential threats to nation's system.

It would identify firms and activities that should be subject to heightened standards, including requirements that they place more money in reserve. Companies would have to plan for their own demise, detailing how they would be dismantled if they failed. The government could dismantle even healthy firms if they were considered a grave risk to the economy. Large firms with assets of more than $50 billion, and hedge funds with at least $10 billion in assets, would pay into a $150 billion resolution fund that would cover the costs of dismantling such a company.

It was that fund that Republicans argued amounted to yet another bailout pool.

The Federal Reserve, criticized for not spotting last year's crisis, would lose power in the legislation. The measure would limit the Fed's unilateral ability to inject large amounts of money into financial institutions. It also would take away the Federal Reserve's consumer regulation authority and would subject it to a broad audit by Congress' investigative arm.

The legislation also takes on Wall Street compensation. Company shareholders would get a nonbinding vote on the pay of top executives. Federal banking regulators would have to approve compensation practices, though not actual pay, at banks and bank holding companies.

Tiger Taking Indefinite Leave From Golf

Tiger Woods says he's taking an indefinite leave from golf to work on saving his marriage, using the word "infidelity" for the first time in a statement posted on his Web site on Friday.

"After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf," Woods said. "I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person."

Woods and his wife, Elin, have been married for five years and have a 2-year-old daughter and 10-month-old son.

The announcement came two weeks after a car accident that set in motion a shocking downfall for the world's No. 1 player, which has included sordid allegations of numerous extramarital affairs. One woman even shared a voicemail she said Woods left her two nights before his Nov. 27 accident.

Woods has not been seen in public since the accident. "I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children," Woods said. "I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I've done, but I want to do my best to try."

The U.S. PGA Tour said it supported the decision by its biggest star.

"His priorities are where they need to be, and we will continue to respect and honor his family's request for privacy," tour commissioner Tim Finchem said in a statement, the tour's first public comment since Woods mentioned his "personal failings" on Dec. 2. "We look forward to Tiger's return to the PGA Tour when he determines the time is right for him."

How long Woods will stay away from golf was unclear.

A year ago, he was out of golf for eight months while recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, and U.S. television ratings dropped 50 percent during his absence.