Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker was frisked by an employee at a Manhattan deli Saturday after being accused of shoplifting, according to published reports.

Whitaker, who is in New York filming a movie, was leaving the Milano Market in Morningside Heights when a worker said he saw him steal an item from the store, TMZ first reported.

The worker stopped Whitaker and publicly searched him inside the store, TMZ said. But the employee's pat down revealed Whitaker hadn't taken anything.

The actor apparently then left the store baffled and angry.

Whitaker's representative said he did not call the authorities at the request of the worker who was in fear of losing his job, though he did ask that the store change how it treats its customers.

An employee at the Deli Saturday evening said no one was available to to comment. 

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/Forest-Whitaker-Falsely-Accused-of-Shoplifting-at-NYC-Deli-Report-191591461.html

(CNN) -- Hours after her younger sister stood behind President Barack Obama during his gun violence speech last week, an Illinois teen died when a bullet found her in a North Chicago alley.

Two people were being questioned Monday as police worked to piece together the final moments of 18-year-old Janay McFarlane, who left behind a 3-month-old son.

McFarlane's younger sister, 14-year-old Destini Warren, was among a group of high school students standing behind Obama when he spoke in Chicago on Friday. Obama cited gun violence that killed 443 people in the city last year as one reason why children need community wide support to help them believe they can improve their lives through education and hard work.

Before the night had passed, McFarlane was dead and her family was plunged into mourning.

Ex-gang members try to prevent violence Hadiya Pendleton's parents speak out Obama: Laws alone won't stop gun deaths

"I felt like someone took a knife and stabbed me in my heart and took a piece of my heart that I will never, ever in my life get back," Angela Blakely, McFarlane's mother, said Monday in an interview with CNN affiliate WLS.

"This just echoes what the president had said Friday... we have to get handguns off the street," North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. told CNN on Monday.

"We have more shootings than other communities, and it's too much," he said. "Any time you have gunfire, it's too much."

The North Chicago Police Department and investigators with the Lake County State's Attorney's office said community members led them to the two people being questioned Monday. The two might have knowledge about the homicide, authorities said.

Janay McFarlane's father said that despite gun violence in the community, his daughter's death by gunfire came as a shock.

"You never think that it will be your child," Herbert McFarlane told WLS Monday. "This is the hardest day for me in my life."

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/19/us/illinois-teen-death-gun-violence/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

NBC NEWS – Cleopatra Cowley, mother of the Chicago teen shot and killed just a week after performing at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, is featured in a new public service announcement calling on Congress to reform the nation’s gun laws.

In the ad, paid for by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Cowley advocates for universal background checks on all gun sales. “Tell Congress to support commonsense reforms so no more innocent children are killed. And no parent has to go through this heartbreak.”

Cowley’s daughter, Hadiya, has become the one of the most recognizable faces in President Barack Obama’s efforts to curb the country’s gun laws. First Lady Michelle Obama attended the 16-year-old’s funeral earlier this month.

Cowley herself has also become a leading figure in the fight to pass stricter gun control laws. She and her husband sat next to the first lady during last week’s State of the Union address, where the president told her story as part of his attempt to call on Congress to act.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/17/16997011-hadiya-pendleton-mother-featured-in-new-gun-control-ad?lite

Pro tip: If you act like lap dogs, your lover will treat you like lap dogs.

Sorry, ladies and gents, but you won't win the president's respect being his personal pool of of sycophant stenographers who can always be counted on to roll over. Fox News' Ed Henry, one of the good guys in the press corps who actually asks tough questions, speaks for the rest who don't:

I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency.

Obama doesn't respect the White House press corps; he uses and discards them at will.

If the press corps want his respect, they might want to do something that actually instills a little fear … like their jobs.