BILLBOARD PARENTS
Less than two hours after she was born, Alex Martin was swaddled in a pink blanket bearing the logo of a diaper-rash cream.
Her newborn photos and hospital videos show her, her parents, her 5-year-old brother and 4-year-old sister all advertising the company that paid $730 to sponsor her birth. The details were blasted on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, promoted on the family's blog and posted on YouTube.
This is how her parents hope to make a small fortune this year.
The Martins, who call themselves the Billboard Family, offer to have their family wear a company's T-shirt for an entire day, document the experience and share it with as many people as possible. They hope to net $240,000 from their family business venture this year.
-- Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-h
PARENTS BEWARE
One is marketed as "fake marijuana." The other is advertised as "fake cocaine" or "fake meth." Both were, initially, sold under the premise of being legal equivalents to illegal drugs. But both are causing side effects that are generating a slew of calls to poison centers and spurring concern among doctors and clinicians at U.S. poison centers.
The substances sold for between $30 and $40 per three-gram bag, in packages labeled as incense or potpourri, and were marketed under brand names including "Spice," "K2," "Genie," "Yucatan Fire," "Sence," "Smoke," "Skunk" and "Zohai."
In December, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, concerned about symptoms including vomiting, hallucinations, racing heartbeat and elevated blood pressure, moved to make the substances illegal. More than a dozen states had already taken this action.
-- American Association of Poison Control Centers