Ex-stripper Mechele Linehan, who was on trial for the murder-for-hire of her fiance in 1996, was found guilty and sentenced to 99 years in prison Wednesday. Since the murder, Linehan married another man and became a mother.

Linehan sat expressionless as Superior Court Judge Philip Volland gave her the maximum sentence allowed.

Judge Volland called her a cold-hearted killer who committed a “heinous crime.”

“In my mind I can find no principled distinction between the puppet who pulls the trigger and the puppeteer who pulls the strings,” Volland said of Linehan’s role in the murder. “And in my judgment, Ms. Linehan was the puppeteer who pulled the strings.”

A little know-it-all from Allegan, Michigan went to the Smithsonian Museum for vacation and noticed a mistake in an exhibit that had been there for 27 years. Bet those curators are a bit embarrassed at the moment.

On a winter break trip with his family to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, the 11-year-old southwestern Michigan boy noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, mistakenly identified the Precambrian as an era.

Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum’s Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Kenton was the first to point out the error.

Kenton Stufflebeam, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, said his fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake about the Precambrian in a classroom earth-science lesson before catching himself.

Uh, anyone else remember learning this kind of stuff in 5th grade? We had barely learned the 50 state capitals by then.

Child Protective Services have been called in to investigate a 14-year-old Houston girl’s welfare, after she gave birth and allegedly tried to flush the baby down the toilet.

Police said the baby, who was born alive, drowned in the toilet.

The middle school’s principal, Gary Allen, sent a letter to parents to notify them of the incident.

“The staff closed off the restroom and kept students in class until the situation was contained, and students were then escorted to lunch,” Allen said in the statement. “I announced to students that a student had a medical issue and was receiving treatment. I assured them that everything was under control and asked them to try and remain focused on their classes.”

Yesterday we had a teacher failing a kid for using religious imagery in his artwork, and now we have a teacher making openly “anti-Christian” remarks in the middle of a European history class. These people just don’t get it, do they? Maybe Mr. Corbett needs to brush up on his American history as well, and figure out the real purpose of the Establishment Clause.

Chad Farnan, a 16-year-old sophomore, says the teacher, James Corbett, told his students that “Jesus glasses” obscure the truth and suggested that Christians are more likely than other people to commit rape and murder.

Farnan recorded his teacher telling students in class: “What country has the highest murder rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rate of church attendance? The South!” Farnan said he took the tape recorder to class to supplement his class notes.

“It was very hard for me because it’s like basically telling me all this stuff that I’ve believed my whole entire life — it’s just basically trying to throw it out the window,” Farnan told FOX News.

Farnan’s family has filed a federal lawsuit against the Capistrano Unified School District, claiming Corbett’s remarks violated the First Amendment, which prohibits laws “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” They are demanding that Corbett be fired.

The real shocking part of this story is that police are deciding if they should press charges. Forget that, this kid deserves a medal! Most of us probably would have wet our pants at that age instead of taking decisive action.

The 12-year-old boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George’s County boarding house, the man’s hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said yesterday.

“I kept saying, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’ ” the boy said, describing the events of Monday night. “But he just ignored me. He didn’t stop. He just kept hurting her.”

The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded.

The mother, Cheryl Stamp, said she did not immediately understand what had happened. “What did you do?” she said she asked her son.

“He didn’t say anything,” she said. “But I knew when I looked in his eyes. I said, ‘Oh, Lord.’ “