“…after an incident at a nightclub where he had expected to open for the headlining act. “I felt that that was my chance to prove that I was talented and I was really excited,” Brown said. “When I was told that I couldn’t perform… that really hurt. … It got a bit overwhelming and I needed to be alone.”

SMH

Can you say “spoiled brat?!” He better be glad I’M NOT HIS MAMA.

Who does he THINK he is?? Because HE COULDN’T SHOW OFF HIS TALENT (which is subjective), he felt he had the right to act like the child HE DIDN’T THINK HE WAS?? I mean I’m glad the boy is ok, but to know this brat had a tantrum at 20…whatever.

Yep…he’s a diva in the making.

Question-This kid is working in conjunction works with Raven Symone, and Disney, right?

Doesn’t he make enough money to be able to showcase HIMSELF??

*I guess that’s two questions*

I know folks out here in Detroit, who put their little nickels together, and put together shows all the time…and they’re common folks.

Is it really that serious?

Get over yourself, YOU SPOILED BRAT!

The only reason your story hit mainstream (CNN), is because of the ridiculous reason behind your disappearance! Now, when a black person disappears for real, mainstream media will CONTINUE to discount us ant not take us serious…your episode sure didn’t help us.

GROW UP, KID! 

Stocks hit lowest levels in over a year

Wall Street tumbles to 2006 levels as investors eye the biggest job losses in 5 years and more financial sector problems source

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks tanked Friday, falling to the worst levels in nearly 18 months after a weak February employment report and more financial sector woes exacerbated recession fears.

Oil spiked to a record $106 a barrel before retreating a bit, the dollar continued its plunge and traders continued to pour money into government bonds.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 1.2%, falling to its lowest point since Oct. 11, 2006.

The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index fell 0.8%, closing at its lowest level since August 23, 2006. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost almost 0.4% and ended at its lowest point since Sept. 11, 2006.

All three major gauges had posted gains through the late morning, before turning lower and tumbling through the afternoon.

“You can see as a general rule that there’s a revulsion to any risk and a lack of confidence in the market,” said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management.

He said that the economy has probably been in a recession since the start of the year. However, at some point, probably in the next few months, investors will begin anticipating a recovery a few quarters out and start pushing stocks higher.

Job losses are the worst in five years. Employers cut 63,000 jobs in February, the biggest monthly cut in five years. That fell far short of expectations, which had called for employers to add 25,000 to their payrolls, according to a Briefing.com survey of economists. January’s job loss was revised to 22,000.

The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, fell to 4.8% from 4.9%, versus forecasts for a rise to 5%. But the drop was a result of less people being in the workforce. Average hourly earnings, the report’s inflation component, rose 0.3%, as expected, after rising a revised 0.3% in the previous month. (Full story).

The report is the latest indication that the economy is headed for a recession, if it isn’t in one already.

“The report was horrible,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc.

“Even the one bit that seemed like good news was bad news,” he said. “The unemployment rate went down, but it was because the labor force shrank, which is not good news.”

The stock reaction was initially muted as investors bet that the weak labor market would spur the Fed to aggressively cut interest rates at its next meeting on March 18. Investors also initially focused on news that the Fed was boosting the size of its upcoming bank auctions.

However, by late morning, stocks had turned negative, and the selloff accelerated in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, President Bush’s top economic advisor said Friday afternoon that the nation’s economic growth could fall into negative territory this quarter, in line with outside experts, but more dour than the White House has been.

President Bush, also speaking in the afternoon, said “it’s clear our economy has slowed.”

JP Morgan Chase said in a note Friday that the U.S. economy is two months into a recession.

More woes for financials. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) said late Thursday that it was shaking up its residential mortgage business, cutting assets by $45 billion over the next 12 months and halving the number of loans to be held in its portfolio. (Full story).

Ambac Financial (ABK), the troubled bond insurer, said it had successfully raised $1.5 billion in capital by selling stock and convertible bonds, in a move meant to preserve its financial strength rating. The plan got a lukewarm response when first announced Wednesday, disappointing investors who were expecting a bigger bailout plan.

Meanwhile, lenders to Dutch bond fund Carlyle Capital have begun to liquidate securities in its $21.7 billion portfolio, the Associated Press reported. The company said it received substantial additional margin calls and default notices from its lenders. (Full story).

Margin calls require borrowers to pay back loans or offer more collateral.

Thornburg Mortgage (TMA) continued to plunge after the company revealed it can’t cover current margin calls and that it will restate past earnings to account for a decline in the value of its mortgage securities held in a portfolio at the end of 2007.

Blue-chip declines were broad based, with 23 out of 30 Dow issues falling, led by Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500), DuPont (DD, Fortune 500), Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500) and Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500).

Select technology gainers protected the Nasdaq composite index from the same kind of losses as the Dow and S&P 500.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers beat winners 3 to 2 on volume of 1.7 billion. On the Nasdaq, decliners also topped advancers by 3 to 2 on volume of 2.38 billion shares.

Fed to lend banks more cash. The central bank said it was taking more steps to try and ease the liquidity crunch by increasing the amount of money it would make available to banks in its auctions on March 10 and 24. The Fed will increase the size of the auctions to $50 billion each from the original $30 billion.

The Fed, which has undertaken a series of auctions to get banks the cash they need to make loans, also said that, starting Friday, it will begin a series of repurchase transactions that should eventually reach $100 billion.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, a hearing was underway to discuss the February jobs report. A separate hearing was underway on executive compensation, focusing on the link between pay packages and the mortgage crisis.

And consumer confidence continued to slump, according to the RBC Cash index, which fell to a nearly 6-year low in early March.

Other markets. U.S. light crude oil for April delivery fell 32 cents to settle at $105.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after touching an all-time trading high of $106.54 earlier. Oil prices ended the previous session at a record high of $105.47.

In currency trading, the dollar touched a fresh record low against the euro on the weak jobs report. The greenback fell to its lowest level versus the yen in three years.

COMEX gold for April delivery fell $2.60 to $974.50 an ounce. Gold prices, along with other dollar-traded commodities, have surged in response to the weak greenback. But after a big rally, prices have retreated for the last two sessions.

Treasury prices rallied, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.54% from 3.58% late Thursday as investors sought the relatively safer-haven of government debt. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

NEW ORLEANS — Six-week-old Diana Nelson succumbed to her wounds Thursday at 2:22 p.m., according to a hospital spokesman. Nelson had been on life support for days, having been beaten, burned and drugged, according to police.Bogalusa police said they arrested a baby sitter, Amy Leighann Thomas, 22, Wednesday.

Annie Brewer, right, hugs son Kennedy Brewer moments after a circuit court judge exonerated him.

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Such testimony had become commonplace for West. The dentist considered himself an authority on forensic odontology and had taken the stand at numerous trials as a paid expert for the prosecution.

On the strength of West’s testimony and little else, a jury in 1995 convicted Kennedy Brewer of raping and murdering the 3-year-old girl and sentenced him to death.

Three years earlier, West gave similar testimony in a nearly identical rape-and-murder case involving another 3-year-old girl from the same town. West testified there were bite marks on the victim’s wrist and they were made by Levon Brooks. Brooks, too, was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

Today, more than a decade later, both Brewer and Brooks are out of prison, and prosecutors have all but pronounced them innocent. The reason: A third man confessed to both killings after DNA connected him to one of the rapes, investigators say.

As for West, his analysis of bite marks in the two murders — and in hundreds of other Mississippi criminal cases over the years — is under attack.

A panel of forensic experts that examined the Brewer case says the wounds on the victim were not human bites at all, but were probably caused by crawfish and insects nibbling on the corpse, decomposition, and rough handling when the body was pulled from the pond where it was found. Brooks’ lawyers say West got it wrong in their case, too, by identifying scrapes as bites.

The turn of events has shocked the community, especially the victims’ families, and led to accusations that West deliberately falsified evidence.

“You have people who engaged in misconduct and manufactured evidence and we’ve proved it,” said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, which has won the exoneration of more than 200 inmates nationwide and assembled the expert panel that examined the Brewer case.

“These two cases are going to be an eye-opener for the people of Mississippi about some of the problems they have in criminal justice and how easy it will be to make it right,” Neufeld added.

West, a 55-year-old in private practice, did not return numerous calls to his Hattiesburg office.

Brewer, now 36, and Brooks, 48, were found guilty in the slayings, respectively, of Christine Jackson and Courtney Smith, who were killed 18 months apart. Both girls were daughters of the men’s girlfriends, and both lived in Brooksville, a poor community of about 1,100 people. Both defendants were poor; Brewer is said to be mildly disabled mentally.

Forensic experts had testified for the defense at the trials of Brooks and Brewer that the marks on the victims were not made by human teeth. But the testimony seemed to make little difference.

Earlier this month, Justin Albert Johnson, a 51-year-old Brooksville man who had been a suspect early on, was arrested and charged in one of the murders. Investigators said he confessed to both killings after DNA analysis proved that his semen was in the victim in the Brewer case.

Brewer, who was released on bail last year, a few years after DNA tests excluded him as the rapist, was finally exonerated by a judge on February 15.

“I ain’t worried about the past. I’m thinking about the future,” Brewer said. But he offered some advice to prosecutors: “They need to get the truth before they lock up the wrong somebody. It doesn’t feel good to be called a rapist and murderer.”

As for Brooks, he has a court date on March 10, when prosecutors are expected to drop the case against him. He is already back home, living with his 83-year-old mother.

In its February 2007 report, the Innocence Project panel of top forensic odontologists from England, Canada and the U.S. concluded that West had misinterpreted the purported bite-mark evidence in the Brewer case.

Panel member Dr. David Senn, a forensic odontologist for the county medical examiner in San Antonio, told the AP that the experts were “scratching their heads to figure out how he could come to the conclusions he came to.”

“Forensic odontology is a very sound science when it’s applied properly. In our opinion, it was not applied properly,” Senn said. Of West’s theory that the purported bite marks were made by two front teeth, Senn said: “To bite someone, you have to bite with both jaws. The story doesn’t make sense.”

According to Senn, West resigned from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1994 and the American Board of Forensic Odontology in 2006 after ethics complaints were brought against him. Senn would not disclose details of the complaints.

The panel’s report contained no suggestion that West acted deliberately. But the Innocence Project has called for a criminal investigation of West and state pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, who had also concluded the marks on the bodies were bites. The organization is asking for a review of the hundreds of cases in which Hayne and West were involved.

“The truth is, if they’ll do it in one, they’ll do it in a dozen,” Neufeld said.

Hayne said he has done nothing wrong, and he remains on the job. “All I did was present the facts that I saw,” Hayne said. “I did the post-mortem examinations. I didn’t link them or exclude them.”

The district attorney who prosecuted both defendants, Forrest Allgood, disputed any suggestion that his office knowingly sent the wrong men to prison.

“It torments the innocent individual, undermines the public confidence in the justice system, and the bad guy is still running loose,” he said. “Why people would believe that’s something we would want to do is beyond me.”

Allgood said he has not used West as a forensic expert since the mid-1990s. He said West was once considered one of the world’s foremost authorities in his field, lecturing in China and England.