$100 Jack

Rock Therapy

Spencer’s new affinity for beads and therapeutic crystals is amazing. Taking style tips from his super chill friend by practicing alternative medicine, Spencer claims to be “vibrationally tuned in,” wearing the key from Atlantis around his neck, and carrying stray bird feathers in his pockets. “Crystals have calmed me down a lot,” he said in a recent episode.

Trying to spread the word of their magic healing powers, he brought Kristin a large crystal – to help drive away the bad drug rumors that have been plaguing her lately. But just as Spencer thought he had found his new wellness mantra, Stephanie started to cry after feeling shunned by her brother. Spencer’s veins began to pop out of his head, and he ultimately questioned the power of this surefire quick moral fix. “I know they’re not working, that’s why there’s HUNDREDS on me right now,” Spencer laments to his pal, who suggests the problem lies beyond any malfunctioning jewelry he may be wearing: “Maybe take them all off and look in the mirror.”

Playing Games

Guerdwich Montimere

A West Texas student who led his high school basketball team to the state playoffs last season was actually a 22-year-old man, police said Tuesday.

Police say the basketball star was really Guerdwich Montimere, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti who school officials say was recognized last month by Florida coaches as having been a star high school player in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a few years ago.

Ector County school district officials said the man posed as 16-year-old Jerry Joseph and enrolled at Permian High School in Odessa for the 2009-2010 academic year. He also presented himself as homeless to the school's basketball coach, Danny Wright, who took the boy in last summer, the coach said.

Montimere was arrested at Permian High on Tuesday and booked into Ector County jail on a charge of presenting false identification to a peace officer.

Officials said Jerry Joseph originally enrolled at the local junior high as a 15-year-old in February 2009, then moved on to high school.

Permian High officials say suspicions about the player's identity first arose when three Florida basketball coaches familiar with Montimere recognized him last month at an amateur tournament in Little Rock, Ark. The Odessa American reported that the coaches recognized him as Montimere, who graduated from Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale in 2007.

The revelation means Permian likely will have to forfeit the 2009 basketball season in which the 6-foot-5 player known as Jerry Joseph led the team to District 2-5A state playoffs and earned newcomer of the year accolades.

Permian High School's football program and the community support for it inspired the book Friday Night Lights.

Rockin' The Keys

Can a sixth grader do Lady Gaga better than Gaga can?

Greyson Michael Chance stupefied his classmates and stole at least one girl's heart (check out the blonde in the black top, especially during the big finish) when he performed a rousing piano cover of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at a recent school festival.

According to his YouTube profile, Chance, whose Facebook fan page launched Tuesday, is "very inspired" by Gaga, along with rock band Augustana. (No, he does not name Justin Bieber, despite the haircut).

"Lady Gaga is a freak but she has so much talent and her style of music is what I would like mine to be when [I'm] older," he writes.

The Forbidden Fruit

Ten-year-old Leighann Adair came home in tears, terrified to tell her parents she'd been slapped with a week's worth of detention for possessing a contraband substance: a piece of Jolly Rancher candy.

A teacher at Brazos Elementary School in Wallis, Texas, took the unopened piece of candy away from the third-grader two weeks ago after a friend handed it to her.

Both Leighann and her friend were ordered to serve detention during lunch and recess, and they had to write an essay about what they did and why it was wrong.

But school officials are standing by the punishment. They say they have to be strict in order to enforce their no-gum, no-candy policy. Candy and gum, they say, can cause a mess.

Jack Ellis, superintendent for the Brazos Independent School District, says it's also a matter of following state guidelines to limit the amount of junk food in schools. "Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules," Ellis told KHOU-TV in Houston.

A piece of Jolly Ranchers candy has 23 calories and provides 2 percent of the daily value of carbohydrates. But there's nothing in the rules that compels a school to punish a student for possessing junk food, says Texas Department of Agriculture spokesman Bryan Black.

He said students at the school are required to wear a belt, and a few months ago Leighann's brother was given in-house suspension for failing to wear one – even though the father said he called the school secretary to explain that their new puppy chewed up the boy's only belt that morning.

He said his son had to "sit in a room all day and stare at a wall."

Leighann’s family and members of the community plan to attend the next school board meeting to contest the school's stringent candy policy.

(T)here Is Hope!

The June, 2010, edition of Playboy magazine will feature a centerfold model whose picture was taken with a 3-D camera, and a pair of 3-D glasses, the first time the magazine has done such a thing. The edition will be on newsstands Friday May 14.

"What would people most like to see in 3-D?" asked Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. "Probably a naked lady."

Hefner makes no secret of hoping to capitalize on the popularity of 3-D movies such as "Avatar" and "How to Train Your Dragon," even as he makes no secret of not quite getting what all the fuss is about.

"I'm not a huge enthusiast of 3-D," he said in a telephone interview. "I leave real life to go to the movies and 2-D is fine with me."

If the thought of grown men sitting back in their recliners with a pair of 3-D glasses doesn't quite say "Playboy," it should be noted that a few months ago the magazine put Marge Simpson -- yes, the blue-haired animated mother of Bart -- on the cover and in a two-page centerfold.

"In today's print environment you have to create newsstand events," said the editorial director of the Chicago-based magazine, Jimmy Jellinek. "Marge Simpson was one of those."

Playboy certainly must do something to get more people, especially younger people, to buy a magazine that has seen circulation plummet from 3.15 million in 2006 to 1.5 million today.

Toddler For Life

Scientists are hoping to gain new insights into the mysteries of aging by sequencing the genome of a 17-year-old girl who has the body and behavior of a toddler.

Brooke Greenberg is old enough to drive a car and next year will be old enough to vote — but at 16 pounds and just 2-and-a-half feet tall, she is still the size of a 1-year-old.

Until recently she had been regarded as a medical oddity but a preliminary study of her DNA has suggested her failure to grow could be linked to defects in the genes that make the rest of humanity grow old.

If confirmed, the research could give scientists a fresh understanding of aging and even suggest new therapies for diseases linked to old age.

“We think that she has a mutation in the genes that control her aging and development so that she appears to have been frozen in time. If we can compare her genome to the normal version then we might be able to find those genes and see exactly what they do and how to control them.”

Brooke, who lives with her parents and three sisters in a suburb of Baltimore, Md., has shown some development, including crawling, smiling and giggling when tickled but she has never learnt to speak and still has her infant teeth.

She has also suffered a succession of life-threatening health problems, including strokes, seizures, ulcers and breathing difficulties — almost as if she were growing old despite not growing up.

Howard Greenberg, Brooke's father, said he wanted the genome research carried out in the hope it might help others. "Brooke is just a wonderful child.” he said. “She is very pure. She still babbles just like a 6-month-old baby but she still communicates and we always know just what she means."

Walker and his colleagues, who are working with Brooke’s parents to ensure she benefits from any research findings, have just published a research paper which suggests that in reality some parts of her body have indeed aged — but slowly and all at different rates.

The Grassy Knoll

Peter Hesford, 61, collapsed while gardening at his home in the Chorlton area of Manchester, England, but he has no memory of what happened to him.

Greater Manchester Police reported Hesford's wife, Marie, had found him on the ground on April 19 – where he was conscious but unable to speak. "Initially, it was thought he had suffered a stroke," a police spokesperson said.

When Hesford got to the hospital, doctors discovered he had an object lodged in his head and they alerted police. Ballistics experts who examined an X-ray concluded that the object had entered his head through his eye.

At first, they could not be sure that it was a bullet — but a CT scan has since confirmed he was shot.

"The bullet is still in Hesford's head,” the police spokesperson said. “There has been an attempt to remove it surgically but (doctors) were not able to because of its position."

Lofty Goals

A 12-year-old boy has become the youngest bowler to earn money at a Professional Bowlers Association event -- but he can't spend that cash right away.

Kamron Doyle of Brentwood, Tenn., finished 30th in the PBA's Canton (Ga.) Open Regional tournament Sunday, receiving $400 that will be deposited into a scholarship account.

Bowling as a non-PBA member, he had a 2,797 13-game pinfall total for a 215.1 average. The sixth-grader was competing against a 94-player field that included some of the top regional and national tour professional players from the organization's South region.

He was already the youngest bowler to roll a United States Bowling Congress-certified 800 series. He became interested in the sport when he attended a friend's bowling birthday party at the age of 7.

"After that he was hooked," his mother, Cathy, said, according to PBA.com. "Before we knew it he was bowling three days a week and at this point I think he's got about 60 bowling balls."

Doyle said he's already thinking about his future in the sport, according to the PBA.com. "When I'm ready for college I'd like to go to Wichita State or Weber State because they are two of the top bowling schools," he said, according to the report. "After that I'd like to bowl on the PBA Tour."