A former porn star teacher who went by the name of "Tiffany Six" lost her appeal to get her job back, according to a Jan. 16 My Fox 8 report. When students discovered Stacie Halas, a middle school biology teacher, had a porn star past, she was removed from her classroom at Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard.

Even so, the former porn star turned teacher appealed to get her job back despite her adult film past. However, the three judge panel denied petition made by Stacie Halas and her lawyer. Her lawyer Richard Schwab said,

    "We were hoping we could show you could overcome your past. I think she’s representative of a lot of people who may have a past that may not involve anything illegal or anything that hurts anybody."
It does seem that people deserve a chance to overcome their past, but one of the problems is that Stacie Halas was not up front about her porn star past as "Tiffany Six" when she applied for her teaching position. It is possible that former porn stars will not be able to effectively teach in middle schools.

    "Although her pornography career has concluded, the ongoing availability of her pornographic materials on the Internet will continue to impede her from being an effective teacher and respected colleague."

It certainly does pose a problem when students can access explicit films featuring their teachers. What do you think? Should this porn star teacher formerly known as "Tiffany Six" be allowed to remain in the classroom? What about other former adult film stars? Is the avenue of teacher completely closed for them?

A land battle that has been raging for nearly two decades landed Tuesday at the Supreme Court, which will decide whether the government went too far in regulating a development in Florida.

Coy Koontz in the 1970s bought a parcel of land, the majority of which later was classified a wetland. When he sought a permit to develop a portion of it in the 1990s, the Florida agency in charge of the area said Koontz would need to take steps to remediate the damage he would cause.

Koontz offered to give the agency 11 of the 15 acres, in exchange for a permit to develop the remaining land. In addition, the state government said he would need to undertake other improvements. Options ranged from numerous changes to the original plot to paying for enhancement of 50 government-owned acres miles away from the Koontz plot.

Though Koontz continued to offer the 11 acres, he refused to go along with the government's other requirements and decided to sue.

On Tuesday, the justices at the Supreme Court considered whether the land dispute amounts to a "taking" -- whether by denying Koontz the opportunity to further develop his land unless he spent thousands to meet government demands, it deprived him of its potential value.

His attorneys called the offer a "government shakedown,” but the government’s lawyers say Koontz simply walked away and refused to negotiate. Koontz has since died, and his son -- Coy Koontz Jr. -- has continued the case.

Though Koontz Jr. and his legal team felt confident following the arguments Tuesday, they had to acknowledge the tough questions from Justice Antonin Scalia. Arguably one of the court's most conservative justices, he seemed unconvinced that the government's actions violated the Fifth Amendment.

"I can't see where there's a taking here," Scalia said, adding, "Nothing's been taken."

But his colleague, Justice Anthony Kennedy, seemed to think the Koontz case is the classic example of an unlawful, unconstitutional taking, asking why the government can "force you, as a condition to using your property to its highest and best use, to pay them money?"

Koontz Jr. says he never considered dropping the fight.

"It is important for anyone to understand that the government can at times be a creeping blob, absorbing your rights, and hopefully this will at least put a halt to that," Koontz Jr. said as he stood on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court.

For Zack Kopplin, it all started back in 2008 with the passing of the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill made it considerably easier for teachers to introduce creationist textbooks into the classroom. Outraged, he wrote a research paper about it for a high school English class. Nearly five years later, the 19-year-old Kopplin has become one of the fiercest — and most feared — advocates for education reform in Louisiana. We recently spoke to him to learn more about how he's making a difference.

Kopplin, who is studying history at Rice University, had good reason to be upset after the passing of the LSEA — an insidious piece of legislation that allows teachers to bring in their own supplemental materials when discussing politically controversial topics like evolution or climate change. Soon after the act was passed, some of his teachers began to not just supplement existing texts, but to rid the classroom of established science books altogether. It was during the process to adopt a new life science textbook in 2010 that creationists barraged Louisiana's State Board of Education with complaints about the evidence-based science texts. Suddenly, it appeared that they were going to be successful in throwing out science textbooks.
A pivotal moment

How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for Louisiana's creationists "This was a pivotal moment for me," Kopplin told io9. "I had always been a shy kid and had never spoken out before — I found myself speaking at a meeting of an advisory committee to the State Board of Education and urging them to adopt good science textbooks — and we won." The LSEA still stood, but at least the science books could stay.

No one was more surprised of his becoming a science advocate than Kopplin himself. In fact, after writing his English paper in 2008 — when he was just 14-years-old — he assumed that someone else would publicly take on the law. But no one did.

"I didn't expect it to be me," he said. "By my senior year though, I realized that no one was going to take on the law, so for my high school senior project I decided to get a repeal bill."

Indeed, it was the ensuing coverage of the science textbook adoption issue that launched Kopplin as an activist. It also gave him the confidence to start the campaign to repeal the LSEA.

Encouraged by Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University — and a staunch critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute — Kopplin decided to write a letter that could be signed by Nobel laureate scientists in support of the repeal. To that end, he contacted Sir Harry Kroto, a British chemist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley. Kroto helped him to draft the letter — one that has now been signed by 78 Nobel laureates.

In addition, Kopplin has introduced two bills to repeal the LSEA, both of which have been sponsored by State Senator Karen Carter Peterson. He plans on producing a third bill later this spring. And along with the Nobel laureates, he has the support of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), New Orleans City Council, and many others.

But as the early results of his efforts have shown, it's not going to be an easy battle.

"We've had gains over the last few years," he says, "But our first attempt to repeal the LSEA was defeated 5-1 in committee, and in our second attempt we lost 2-1." Kopplin is hoping to get out of committee this year.

He also has his eyes set on vouchers. After an Alternet story came out about a school in the Louisiana voucher program teaching that the Loch Ness Monster was real and disproved evolution, Kopplin looked deeper into the program and found that this wasn't just one school, but at least 19 other schools, too.

School vouchers, he argues, unconstitutionally fund the teaching of creationism because many of the schools in these programs are private fundamentalist religious schools who are teaching creationism.

The newly single singer continued to show Justin Bieber what he's missing -- not that she wants him back -- with another super-sexy dress.


Dressed in a gold Atelier Versace dress, the 20-year-old hit up both the Weinstein Company party and the InStyle/Warner Bros. soiree following the 2013 Golden Globes on Sunday night.

Gomez is enjoying the single life, and showed up to the party with pal and "Spring Breakers" co-star Vanessa Hudgens, who wowed in a sequined Jenny Packham dress with a plunging neckline.

selena gomez golden globes

Since announcing that she and beau Kanye West are expecting a child, Kim Kardashian has been hiding her curves more than usual. Just last week, she was spotted at the airport in a flowy ensemble that looked way more comfortable than the tight-fitting leather pieces that are de rigueur for the reality star.

But when Kim headed to brunch with her sister Kourtney's boyfriend, Scott Disick, in Calabasas, Calif., Sunday, she sported a formfitting white dress that revealed the beginnings of a baby bump.

The expectant couple recently celebrated the big news with a "babymoon" in Paris.

We often forget that "Modern Family" actress Sarah Hyland only plays a teen on TV.

The 22-year-old actress looked stunning in a cleavage-baring dress on the red carpet at the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. Hyland looked nothing but glam, calm and in control when she chatted with Ryan Secreast, but she spent the morning dealing with a bit of drama.

"Don't you love it when you wake up with hives all over your face? #morningoftheglobes," Hyland tweeted earlier today.

The actress is nominated along with the rest of her TV family for Best TV Series, Musical or Comedy -- the same award they picked up at last year's show.

Jodie Foster gave an impassioned, rambling speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night after her receiving her Cecil B. Demille award for lifetime achievement. Whether it was a coming-out speech or she was hinting at retirement from Hollywood was hard to tell, but Twitter lit up with speculation that she had just announced the end of her career.

The actress fueled retirement rumors when she bemoaned the lack of privacy in Hollywood today.

"Privacy — maybe someday in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was," Foster said. "I have given everything out there, from the time I was three years old. That is reality enough."

"I am not Honey Boo Boo Child," she added.

Minutes later, Foster's Wikipedia page was updated to reflect her recent retirement, but when the LA Times' Amy Kaufman asked the actress about it, she laughed it off.

Wow, it seems like just yesterday (or 2012) that Brazilian virgin Catarina Migliorini was selling her ne'er touched lady plum to the highest bidder who apparently paid $750K+ to go where no man has gone before.

It all seems kind of nonsensical, that is until you see Catarina and her teddy bear in Playboy Brazil, where the supposedly no longer pure young hottie does all sorts of preening, prancing, and downright romancing her stuffed buddy in a series of sights we can only describe as unforgettable. Just epic, downright epic. Enjoy.

A 23-year-old blonde from Brooklyn, N.Y., won the Miss America crown Saturday night after deftly dealing with a question about armed guards in schools and raising the issue of child sexual abuse in her contestant platform.

En route to her victory in the Las Vegas pageant, Mallory Hagan also tap danced to James Brown's "Get Up Off of That Thing," strutted down the runway in an asymmetrical white gown, and donned a revealing black string bikini.

She defeated Miss South Carolina Ali Rogers, who took second, and Miss Oklahoma Alicia Clifton, who finished third.

Hagan wins a $50,000 college scholarship and a year as an instant celebrity and role model to many girls. Her platform, the issue she will promote during her reign, is fighting child sexual abuse.

She told The Associated Press in an interview after her win that it was her mother who encouraged her to tackle the issue. She said that sexual abuse had "rippled through" her family, touching her mother, aunt, grandmother and cousins. Her mother had trouble at first convincing others of the trauma she had faced.

"That kind of sent her into a whirlwind of anxiety and depression. So as a teen I lost my mom kind of for a couple years," she said. "She was dealing with her own issues, and that's something that now as an adult I understand, but then I certainly did not."

During an interview backstage, Hagan's mother Mandy Moore wiped tears away as she spoke.

"It's very overwhelming," she said. "It's all hitting me so fast."

Hagan said she will work to make child abuse education mandatory in all 50 states.

"It's something I can hopefully change for the next generation," she said.

Hagan left her native Alabama for New York at 18 with less than $1,000 in her pocket. She began competing in pageants when she was 13 and tried for Miss New York in 2010 and 2011 before winning last year.

She studied communications at the Fashion Institute of Technology and has been living in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Hagan, who aspires to be a global cosmetic company executive, ends a long dry spell for New York in the competition. The previous winner from that state was actress Vanessa Williams, who became the first black winner when she took the crown in 1984. Hagan is the first Brooklyn-dweller to claim the title.

She was good enough during preliminary contests for the 92nd annual Miss America pageant to be chosen as one of 16 semifinalists who moved on to compete in the main show. Her bid lasted through swimsuit, evening wear, and talent competitions that saw cuts after each round.

In the final moments of the show, "Good Morning America" weatherman Sam Champion asked her if schools should hire armed guards in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. shooting.

"I don't think the proper was to fight violence is with violence," she replied. "I think the proper way is to educate people on guns and the ways we can use them properly. We can lock them up, we can have gun safety classes, we can have a longer waiting period."

Hagan defeated titleholders from all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Several of her competitors had grabbed headlines this year because of their backstories.

British singer-songwriter Delilah is hotly tipped to make waves at this year's Brit Awards, after the release of her debut album and a support slot with Prince in Australia in 2012.

Ahead of the 2013 nominations announcement on Thursday, we asked for her Brits predictions and found out what's in store for the rising star this year...

Who do you hope will be nominated for a Brit Award?

Emeli Sande will be up for Best Female and maybe Florence Welch as well. Best Album maybe Lianne La Havas, for Best Single I think Calvin Harris will be in there somewhere and One Direction as well.

What do you think of your own chances? What would it mean to you?

I haven't really thought about it. I would like to be nominated so we'll see. I'm not nervous, I'll be disappointed but there is always next year.

How important are the Brits these days? Does being nominated make a real difference?

I think they are the most important British music awards. They are much more commercial and have the power to really elevate an artist. The Mercurys are more critically acclaimed... but I think the Brits really highlight your accomplishments to the public.

Delilah Talks Brit Awards 2013

What's your favourite Brits performance?

I loved Adele's performance of 'Someone Like You'. I really liked Rihanna's performance with all the paint. Every year there are amazing artists.

Do you think we'll see anything controversial this year?

I'm not sure, I think there will always be a great production. I'd like to see an artist do a stripped back performance this year as well as all the lights.

How would you describe your music to those that haven't heard it?

I would say its dark, melodic, soulful pop.

Have you got a favourite music video of all time? And what video would you like to remake?

'Bad' by Michael Jackson would be funny with my friends, if we did a comedic version.

Do you ever crack up when you are doing your emotional and serious videos?

You always have some laughing. I've done some quite risque videos, which have been edited really well so they are never too provocative. But I rolled around for 12 hours with a very good looking man. I met him the day before and I had to pretend he was my lover, it required a lot of acting even though he was gorgeous. It was a lot of fun. I'm proud of a lot of my videos. We kept in touch for a bit, we're good friends he's an amazing dancer, he does Stomp.

You supported Prince on his tour - what advice, if any, has he given you about the music industry?

He didn't give me any advice. We just hang out and became good friends. There was no "this is how you do it" he was just a fan. He was really normal, obviously he has his eccentricities but he was really hospitable and kind.

What do you hope to achieve in 2013?

My new album is released this year, lots of singles and some more great videos. I want to do some really challenging videos and a top five or three, or even number one, would be amazing. Just keep pushing to be bigger and better I think.

The music is definitely still very me, it's dark which is my real signature but I've grown a lot in the last four years and most of my old songs were written between 14 and 17 so since then a lot has changed in my life.

Delilah has teamed up with Mastercard to offer one fan the chance to remake of one of her videos. Fans will get to shoot it, sing it and be their favourite artist for the day, as well as meeting their idols at The BRIT Awards on the 20th of February. Competition details can be found here.