A federal judge sentenced to jail on drug charges, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District in Shreveport announced on Tuesday.

A federal court judge sentenced Bartholemew Claiborne, 37, to one year and one day in prison and three years of supervised probation, U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley says.

Claiborne pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine and other controlled substances on 14 separate occasions between Oct. 11, 2011, and July 12, 2012. Authorities say they used surveillance methods to watch Claiborne selling cocaine.

Claiborne was among 15 people arrested back in February on federal charges of selling cocaine and methamphetamine in the Mansfield area. The arrests followed a year-long federal-led probe with law enforcement from more than 7 agencies participating.

Claiborne was the first to be indicted as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) "Operation Limpiar Casa," an operation targeting drug trafficking in the Mansfield area.

"As an elected official, Bartholomew Claiborne swore to uphold the law, and by his own admission, failed to do so," U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley said after the sentencing.

"He has failed the children and parents of the school board district where he served as a role model. We hope this case sends a message that public officials are not above the law.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DeSoto Parish Sheriff's Office, the Mansfield Police Department, and the Tri-Parish Task Force which includes DeSoto, Sabine and Red River parishes, participate in the OCDETF program and conducted the operation.

Even though Chelesa Fearce (pictured) was homeless for most of her high school years, the young dynamo will still manage to graduate high school with honors on Thursday as its star student and the class valedictorian, reports WSBTV.

During Fearce’s high school years, her and her family experienced multiple evictions because her mother, Reenita Shephard, had unsteady employment.

Consequently, Fearce would often find herself having to read books in the dark with just her cell phone light illuminating the pages at local shelters. Fearce told WSBTV, “I just told myself to keep working, because the future will not be like this anymore,” she said. “You’re worried about your home life and then worried at school.”

But sometimes the shelters became too much, so that’s when the Clayton County, Ga., youth, Shephard; and her three siblings lived in their car.

Yet the experience didn’t stop Fearce, who also nailed her SAT’s with an impressive score of 1900 out of 2400, from achieving a GPA of 4.466. Her academic success empowered her to enroll in college courses for her last two years of high school, meaning when Fearce enters the prestigious Atlanta-based Spelman College in the fall, she will begin as a college junior.

Fearce’s success is especially significant when one considers that she maintained her stellar grades while dealing with hunger, “[You] worry about being a little hungry sometimes, [so you] go hungry sometimes. You just have to deal with it. You eat what you can, when you can.”

And Fearce isn’t the only shining star in her family; her sister is also graduating as her high school’s salutatorian.

Meanwhile, the proud Mom’s formula for her girl’s academic success is quite simple: books. Shephard says, “I read to them a lot, took them to the library. Everything was a learning experience."

Army Brigadier General Bryan T. Roberts, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Training Center and Fort Jackson, located in Fort Jackson, S.C., is being investigated for adultery and for being involved in a physical altercation, the Army announced Tuesday. Roberts has been suspended from his duties.

The altercation allegedly involved Roberts and an unidentified woman he is now being investigated for having an affair with, a U.S. military official told NBC News. The two were apparently involved in a recent argument. While making up, Roberts allegedly bit the woman’s lip, causing her to seek medical help.

The Command and Staff page on Fort Jackson’s website showed a vacant spot under Commanding General on Tuesday evening.

While the investigation is ongoing, Brig. Gen. Peggy Combs, Commandant of the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, will serve as the interim commander.

Timothy McNair is a graduate student of opera at Northwestern University’s famed Bienen School of Music. McNair is at the school on a full scholarship, but the 25-year-old is standing up to his school after his professor, Donald Nally, gave him an assignment to perform a song created by a racist American poet named Walt Whitman. McNair asked his instructor if he could be assigned to perform the work of other artists but Nally denied him the opportunity and told him if he didn’t turn in all of his completed work by Friday, May 17th he’d receive a failing grade. McNair refused.

“Certainly I do not deserve to fail this class. I have a 3.7 GPA. I’m an officer on three committees of this university. So what is deserving for me? Is to be able to perform two pieces and have the third piece removed because of the insensitivity,” McNair told Chicago’s WGN news station. Although the piece McNair is instructed to perform does not contain any blatant racism, McNair believes it is still offensive that he was asked to complete the works of a devout racist. “We know (he) was historically racist. He’s called African Americans ‘baboons’ and was for oppressing voting rights,” McNair said of Whitman.

There are far too many instances when African-Americans at predominantly White institutions are expected to compromise their integrity to fit into the mold of the institution. Just last month students, community leaders, and alumni of Temple University challenged Dean Teresa Soufas for decisions she made regarding the school’s prestigious African-American studies program. Protestors believed she was attempting to diminish its profound reputation. Black Blue Dog readers called and emailed Soufas and voiced their concerns. Less than a week later, she finally made the decision to listen to the concerns of the protestors and complied. This week we must contact Richard Ashley, the chair of Bienen School of Music, and let him know about Nally’s insensitivity towards Black history. McNair should not be forced to lose his scholarship for respecting Black history.

Let Ashley know that Nally may not see the value in Black history, but we stand in solidarity with McNair in asking that he receives a replacement assignment that does not insult his integrity as an African-American man.

Some of the Oklahoma tornado’s youngest victims died doing exactly what they were told to do — take shelter in the basement.

Tragically, that’s where at least seven Plaza Towers Elementary School died during yesterday’s killer storm that leveled much of Moore, Okla., officials said.

"My understanding, this school ... Plaza Towers, they had a basement,” Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb told CNN today.

“Quite frankly, don't mean to be graphic, but that's why some of the children drowned, because they were in the basement area.”

“Our hearts are broken for the parents that are wondering about the state of their children that had been in the schools that have been hit today,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said.

“I know that there are families wondering where their loved ones are.”

Emergency crews searched the broken remnants for survivors after at least 24 people were killed, including at least nine children, and those numbers were expected to climb.

As the sun rose over the shattered community of Moore, the state medical examiner's office cut the estimated death toll by more than half but warned that the number was likely to climb again. Gov. Mary Fallin said an untold number of people were still missing.

"We will rebuild and we will regain our strength," said Fallin, who went on a flyover of the area and described it as "hard to look at."

Many houses, she said, have "just been taken away, they're just sticks and bricks."

Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner, said she believes some victims were counted twice in the early chaos of the storm that struck Monday afternoon. Downed communication lines and problems sharing information with officers exacerbated the problem, she said.

"It was a very eventful night," Elliott said. "I truly expect that they'll find more today."

Authorities initially said as many as 51 people were dead, including 20 children.

New search-and-rescue teams moved at dawn Tuesday, taking over from the 200 or so emergency responders who worked all night. A helicopter shined a spotlight from above to aid in the search.

Fire Chief Gary Bird said fresh teams would search the whole community at least two more times to ensure that no survivors — or any of the dead — were overlooked. Crews painted an 'X' on each structure to note it had been checked.

"That is to confirm we have done our due diligence for this city, for our citizens," Bird said.

The community of 56,000 people, 10 miles south of Oklahoma City, braced for another long, harrowing day.

"As long as we are here ... we are going to hold out hope that we will find survivors," said Trooper Betsy Randolph, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

More than 200 people had been treated at area hospitals.

Other search-and-rescue teams focused their efforts at Plaza Towers Elementary, where the storm ripped off the roof, knocked down walls and turned the playground into a mass of twisted plastic and metal as students and teachers huddled in hallways and bathrooms.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said she watched up close late Monday as rescuers tried to find people in the wreckage of the school.

"It was an incredible sight to see how big the debris field was and how much destruction there was," Fallin said. "It would be remarkable for anyone to survive."

Seven of the nine dead children were killed at the school, but several students were pulled alive from under a collapsed wall and other heaps of mangled debris. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot. Some students looked dazed, others terrified.

Officials were still trying to account for a handful of children not found at the school who may have gone home early with their parents, Bird said Tuesday.

Many parents of missing schoolchildren initially came to St. Andrews United Methodist Church, which had been set up as a meeting site. But only high school students were brought to the church, causing confusion and frustration among parents of students enrolled at Plaza Towers. They were redirected to a Baptist church several miles away.

"It was very emotional — some people just holding on to each other, crying because they couldn't find a child; some people being angry and expressing it verbally" by shouting at one another, said D.A. Bennett, senior pastor at St. Andrews.

After hearing that the tornado was headed toward another school called Briarwood Elementary, David Wheeler left work and drove 100 mph through blinding rain and gusting wind to find his 8-year-old son, Gabriel. When he got to the school site, "it was like the earth was wiped clean, like the grass was just sheared off," Wheeler said.

Eventually, he found Gabriel, sitting with the teacher who had protected him. His back was cut and bruised and gravel was embedded in his head — but he was alive. As the tornado approached, students at Briarwood were initially sent to the halls, but a third-grade teacher — whom Wheeler identified as Julie Simon — thought it didn't look safe and so ushered the children into a closet, he said.

The teacher shielded Gabriel with her arms and held him down as the tornado collapsed the roof and starting lifting students upward with a pull so strong that it sucked the glasses off their faces, Wheeler said.

"She saved their lives by putting them in a closet and holding their heads down," Wheeler said.

The tornado also grazed a theater, and leveled countless homes. Authorities were still trying to determine the full scope of the damage.

Roofs were torn off houses, exposing metal rods left twisted like pretzels. Cars sat in heaps, crumpled and sprayed with caked-on mud. Insulation and siding was smashed up against the sides of any walls that remained standing. Yards were littered with pieces of wood, nails and pieces of electric poles.

President Barack Obama declared a major disaster and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

"Among the victims were young children trying to take shelter in the safest place they knew — their school," he said Tuesday.

The town of Moore "needs to get everything it needs right away," he added.

A still-stunned friend of D’aja (Asia) Robinson, the sweet 14-year-old Queens girl killed when a bullet pierced the window of a Q6 bus, said she was just “arm distance away from her” when the gunfire erupted.

“My friend Cene had blood all over her,” Cantress Grant, 16, told the Daily News on Monday. “I saw Asia. She was covered in blood.”

Cantress’ account of the tragic shooting came as police continued to search for the cold-blooded gunman who fired at least nine .40-caliber bullets into the side of the bus Saturday night.

D’aja, a high school freshman, had just been at a ”sweet 16” party at a Jamaica club and had boarded the bus with her pals, bound for another birthday bash off Woodhaven Blvd. She took a window seat just behind the rear exit door.

“He let all of us on free,” Cantress said of the bus driver. “The bus didn’t even pull off yet. Three of four shots went off. Then everyone got down.”

Then the screaming started.

“We were screaming at the bus driver,” Cantress said. “Once he opened the door, everyone ran out.”

Everyone but D’aja, who had been struck in the head and who was bleeding on her party clothes.

Cantress said she called 911 the minute she got off the bus.

“There’s nothing I can say to bring her back,” the teenager said, choking back tears. “She was always laughing and talking. She was just mad jolly.”

Another of the doomed girl’s friends, 16-year-old Larae Lucas, said D’aja had texted the birthday girl at the second “sweet 16” party at about about 9 p.m. to say she was on her way.

"She texted the birthday girl and said that she loved her," Larae said. “But then she wasn't replying. They were getting worried. Later on we heard it in the news. Sad. It was very depressing.”

D’aja attended Campus Magnet High School in Cambria Heights, where classmates expressed frustration that cops still hadn’t caught the culprit, described as 18 to 25 and wearing a black sweater with a beige or cream shirt underneath.

“They need go hurry up,” said 16-year-old Nyeema Zepeda, who was in D’aja’s geometry class. “With the Boston thing, they got the guy in three days. It's not fair that her family has to go to sleep not knowing where their daughter's killer is.”

“Y’all wouldn't be here if this didn't happen to my sister,” he said. “You don't care about us.”

But an older man, who said he was the slain girl’s grandfather, shook his head sadly.

“That was my granddaughter,” he said. “She was just sitting on the bus and they shot her.”

Justice will come, he added.

“They'll catch him sooner or later,” he said. “Just a stupid kid doing stupid s---.”

At City Hall, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said he met with staffers at the school and spoke for D’aja’s mother.

“They appreciate all of New York City's condolences and support for them, and they're trying to navigate a very difficult situation,” he said. “Eight to nine shots were fired, .40-caliber shots, casings throughout the area, with no particular target in mind and a 14-year-old who was coming home from a party at a responsible hour was cut short. That is unacceptable in our society.”

He thought she was pregnant - so he killed her, cops say.

The 20-year-old man accused of smothering 14-year-old Shaniesha Forbes to death, shoving her body in a suitcase and setting it aflame on a Brooklyn beach, told detectives he murdered the teen because she said she was pregnant with his child and refused to get an abortion, police sources said Thursday.

Shaniesha Forbes had run away from home at least once before she disappeared.

But the teen wasn't pregnant, the city's medical examiner confirmed, leaving her shattered family members railing against the "senseless" crime.

"You had the courage and the balls to kill her but you couldn't go to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test to find out if it was true?" asked Forbes' stunned cousin Kerri Ann Thomas, 25 Thursday. "That makes no sense."

The scorched remains of Shaniesha Forbes, 14, were found in Gerritsen Beach.

Christian Ferdinand was arrested in Maine Wednesday and charged with killing Shaniesha and dumping her remains near an extinguished bonfire at Gerritsen Beach, roughly three miles from the girl's Flatlands home. He then tried to set Forbes' body on fire, but the blaze went out, sources said.

He told police he met Shaniesha on Facebook and began a sexual relationship with her, sources said.

When she told him she was pregnant but wouldn't get an abortion, Ferdinand smothered her with a pillow in his cousin's Nostrand Avenue apartment near Avenue M, law enforcement sources said.

"They even showed me his picture... I had never seen him," Price said, before breaking down in sobs Thursday.

Thomas said if family members had known Shaniesha was involved with a 20-year-old, they would have put the kibosh on the relationship.

"We would have ended it right there," Thomas said. "There's no reason he should be in a relationship with a 14-year-old. You have nothing in common. There's nothing you should even be talking about."

Police sources say Ferdinand kept Shaniesha's body in a suitcase on his cousin’s rooftop for two days before dumping it at Gerritsen Beach.

"The victim in this case was found naked and burned on the beach," Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Wilfredo Cotto told a judge before the diminutive Ferdinand, dressed in a dark blue hoodie, was remanded to custody on murder charges Thursday.

Shaniesha vanished in January after leaving her Flatlands home, saying she was going to school.

The Academy for Young Writers freshman was found dead on the beach on Jan. 6.

Her death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation in April after the city medical examiner's office found that the girl's lungs did not contain soot, proving that she was killed before being burned on her legs, arms and hands.

Shaniesha had run away from home at least once before her disappearance, sources said.

A sketchy California doctor who duped patients out of $1.3million by selling them herbal remedies she said cured cancer has been convicted.

Christine Daniel, 58, will spend the next 14 years in prison - and has been ordered to pay back all of the cash — for the disgusting scam.

The L.A. medic told sufferers to avoid chemotherapy and pain killers — and instead charged them up to $100,000 for six months of her unique treatment.
She claimed her concoction had a 60% to 80% chance of success in overcoming advance stages of cancer and could also cure diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

But her remedies — which she claimed had been tailored individually for each patient — were completely bogus.

Experts testified that the potion — made up of sunscreen preservative, beef extract flavoring and various other ingredients — would have no effect on cancer or any other diseases.

Prosecutors said Daniel's 'treatments' had no effect on cancer or any other diseases.

It meant patients were deprived of proper treatment and had to endure the final months of their lives in "absolute agony."

"Daniel robbed victims of more than money, she also stole their hopes and dreams for a cure," U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said after Daniel was sentenced.

U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin charged Daniel with four counts of mail and wire fraud, six counts of tax evasion and one count of witness tampering.

The court heard from 28 former patients and family members of cancer sufferers who had died as a result of the ruse, reports the Washington Post.

Daniel told Paula Middlebrooks, who she charged nearly $60,000, that she was free from the disease after five months of treatment.

But, in reality, her breast cancer had spread and she died soon after.

And a 22-year-old woman, suffering from neck lymphoma, was told by Daniel not to bother with radiation or chemo. She might have been cured, but instead she died.

The sultry singer has been hit with a $3.4 million federal tax lien by the IRS, court records show.

That’s on top of separate liens from authorities in New Jersey, where she has a luxury home in Saddle River.

The 43-year-old who made her fortune on soulful songs like “Be Without You” and “No More Drama” got notice of the lien in February in Bergen County Court, records show.

The IRS filed the same lien again in March in Westchester, where Blige also owns a home, according to court documents.

The IRS said in its lien that Blige failed to pay all her income taxes for the past several years.

Uncle Sam says Blige owes $574,907 from 2009, $2.2 million from 2010 and $647,604 from 2011, the court documents show.

It seems that Blige hasn’t been paying her state taxes either. New Jersey officials are reportedly dunning the award-winning songstress for $901,769 in back taxes.

Blige is in trouble with the banks, too. She was sued recently by the Bank of America in New York State Supreme Court.

The bank claimed Blige took out a $500,000 loan and only partially paid it back. They’re suing her for the unpaid principal plus interest owed — approximately $514,000.

Blige and her husband Martin Isaacs were also sued this past November by Signature Bank for defaulting on a $2.2 million loan.

The nine-time Grammy winner came under fire last year for allowing her Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now to fall into financial disarray. The charity, which helps send girls to college, was slapped with a lawsuit for failing to pay back a bank loan in 2011. The foundation has since been reorganized, with priority given to catching up on arrears, Blige has said.

“Mary has been and is continuing to work with her new team to resolve all these issues as quickly as possible,” a member of her public relations staff said in a statement.

The Bronx-born Blige, who grew up in Yonkers, has been plagued by money problems despite phenomenal commercial success.