A woman punched a 70-year-old Walmart greeter in the face after she asked to see a receipt for merchandise the woman was carrying out of the store. Jacquetta Simmons, 26, was charged with two counts of assault for the attack that knocked 70-year-old Grace Suozzi to the ground causing the elderly woman to fracture the side of her face. Simmons and her male companion ran out of the store in Batavia, New York after the confrontation at 11:30am on Christmas Eve. Ms Suozzi had asked Simmons to show her a receipt for some electronics purchases she had made at the back of the store, a witness told ABC 13, when the young woman attacked.  

A woman was jailed after calling police to tell them: ‘I ate too much.’ Mary Ellen Lisee made the bizarre call from her motel room to emergency dispatchers before abruptly hanging up. Officers sent to the Traveler’s Inn motel in Fort Pierce, Florida, found the 45-year-old woman in one of the rooms.  She told officers she had dialed 911 because she ‘ate too much food’. The woman’s boyfriend told police he was leaving to get some peace and quiet because she was ‘talking too much.’ Officers said they smelled alcohol on her Lisee’s breath and wrote in their arrest report that she appeared to be drunk.

Here’s hoping you’ve been good, because Santa is on his way. And now families across the world can see just how far Saint Nick and his reindeer are from their homes, thanks to a ‘Santa Tracker’ that follows his route around the globe.The tracker – a collaboration between Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) – shows live footage of the sleigh passing landmarks including Big Ben, the Empire State Building and, of course, his grotto in the North Pole. It uses radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets to follow his sleigh, and can be seen online on Google Earth. Santa can also been seen on the Google Maps app on smart phones by typing in ‘Santa’ or on the NORAD Santa Site.

Michael Jordan’s newest sneaker release caused long lines in South Florida stores selling the new product on Friday. The $180 pair of Air Jordan XI Retro Concords was released at midnight. Police were called to shopping centers in Indiana, Florida, Texas and Virginia among other states to control crowds of hundreds lining up for the shoes.

Sports fans are a notoriously fickle bunch, and apparently all it takes to make them forget about how much they hate the Miami Heat’s LeBron James is a high-profile divorce involving Kim Kardashian. Kardashian’s ex-husband is now the most hated player in the NBA, according to Forbes Magazine. A survey conducted by Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research showed that 50 percent of respondents dislike the New Jersey Nets forward, compared to 48 percent who dislike James. NBC

Home alone at the White House, Barack Obama headed on an impromptu Christmas shopping trip with first dog Bo today – making the most of his free time as Congress remained in stalemate over payroll tax cuts for next year. The President’s wife and daughters are already on the family’s annual vacation in Hawaii – a trip which has attracted scathing criticism for its estimated cost of $4million, funded by the American taxpayer.  Obama is expected to fly to Hawaii in the next few days for his luxury vacation in a private beachfront villa. The alone time gave him the chance to pick up some cost-saving items in front of the cameras at PetSmart and Best Buy in Alexandria, Virginia – before indulging in pizza for lunch.

A contestant on the ‘Next Great Baker’ reality show committed suicide after being eliminated from the show.  But viewers were only told months after his death, on Monday, after his elimination had aired. Sergeant Wesley Durden, 28, an army paratrooper who had completed two tours in Iraq, died from a single self-influicted gunshot wound on October 24, according to the Jacksonville Daily News.  Durden of Jacksonville, North Carolina was the fourth contestant of 13 to be eliminated on the second season of the show hosted by Buddy Valastro of ‘Cake Boss’.  Durden’s elimination aired Monday evening. But in a shocking postscript to the show viewers were told that the army veteran had since committed suicide.

Miami’s new police chief was officially sworn in during a Tuesday morning ceremony. Manuel Orosa, who has served as interim chief since September, became the city’s permanent chief during the swearing in at the Miami Police College. “I grew up in the police department, we have made changes to bring stability to the department,” Orosa said at the ceremony, attended by Mayor Tomas Regalado, most of the city commission and community members. “Now we can get the politics out of the police chief’s office and get down to the work of protecting the citizens,” Regalado said. Orosa, a 31-year veteran of the department, held numerous command positions before he was selected the city’s top cop earlier this month. He is Miami’s 35th police chief. NBC Miami

A former co-star of Sean Penn has told how she had a stand up row with the activist actor and ended up calling him a ‘communist a**hole’. Maria Conchita Alonso said she confronted Penn during a chance meeting at LAX airport to talk to him about his support for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. While she branded him a communist she claimed he humiliated her in front of other passengers by calling her a ‘pig’. The actress, who represented her native Venezuela in the Miss World Pageant and finished runner up, said she walked up to Penn to say she was ‘appalled’ by his support for Chavez. The pair had starred together in the 1988 film ‘Colors’ about gang violence in Los Angeles and Alonso said she had written an open letter to the actor to express her anger at his support for the Chavez regime. Alonso said:’I said, ‘I would like to talk to you.’ ‘He said, “I have nothing to say to you . . . You have been saying a lot of things about me in the press.” I said, “How can you defend Chavez?”‘ Penn, who was travelling from Haiti where he is heavily involved in charity work, admitted her had a row with Alonso while in the lost luggage area. He told the New York Post: ‘I only knew that a hostile woman was nonsensically berating me. I didn’t realize it was that actress.