SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released several iPhone apps late Tuesday, with the most notable including a misspelling of "America." The app, which promised "A Better Amercia" through the auspices of Romney's leadership, instantly became an Internet joke. After the hapless typographical error went viral across social media networks, those opposed to Romney's election began capitalizing on the gaffe, with some providing "Amercia the Beautiful" song parodies to mock Romney's frequent singing of "America the Beautiful" along the campaign trail. Another unfortunate irony was that the app appeared on the same day Romney spent fundraising in Las Vegas, Nev., with Donald Trump, who has made American citizenship a fundamental issue in considering the nation's executives. But in a startling statement released Thursday, Romney defended the alternate spelling as intentional and correct.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A Tennessee judge ruled Tuesday that the Rutherford County planning commission failed to provide lucid and adequate notice to the public in 2010 of a meeting to approve plans for the development of what turned out to be a mosque. As a result, the building permit for the 52,000-square-foot complex in Murfreesboro, Tenn., was invalidated -- even though construction of the Islamic worship center was nearly complete. Attempting to defuse a powder keg of religious and political tension, the judge indicated that much of the issue stemmed from confusion over the nature of the facility: "A good number of folks in the community were under the impression that a muslin community center -- not a Muslim community center -- was being put up. Sort of a museum to honor the early textile industry of the nation. Cotton's a big part of our cultural heritage in the South. It gave us gauze, cheesecloth, airy calico fabrics, and work for the African immigrants we took in."

CALABASAS, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department are investigating a complaint from a celebrity photographer that 18-year-old pop sensation Justin Bieber "physically battered" him at an outdoor shopping area Sunday near the exclusive Calabasas community where the Canadian-born singer now resides. Entertainment news source TMZ, citing eyewitness accounts, reported that the confrontation arose when the paparazzo attempted to block Bieber from entering his car with his girlfriend, actress Selena Gomez, 19. Police are withholding the identity of Bieber's victim, as well as the extent of his injuries. Many who observed the altercation described the beating administered by Bieber as "degrading," "thuggish," and emotionally traumatic.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Voters in Missouri will decide on August 7 whether to approve a constitutional amendment that guarantees citizens the right to pray in public places. Although the amendment would have appeared on the November ballot because of a vote to include the measure the previous year, Governor Jay Nixon expedited the process by executing a proclamation Wednesday. The U.S. Constitution already protects the right to pray publicly, but Missourians want to further clarify those rights, citing what they call general ignorance about religious expression. If passed, the amendment would accord students the right to pray in school, but would stop short of compelling them to participate. It would also allow for acts of open prayer so long as those rites cause no disturbance to the peace or disruption to public assemblies.

"I know better than Barack Obama what a third-world education looks like; I've outsourced thousands of jobs to third-world countries." -- Mitt Romney

BOSTON, Mass. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Bain Capital, a private equity and assets management firm co-founded by Mitt Romney, outsourced a staggering number of American jobs to economically depressed countries under Romney's watch. "If you just look at some of the Bain startups, like Sports Authority, Staples, Bright Horizons, the job number you come up with is in excess of 100,000," the Romney campaign boasted during the January 2012 debates. And most of those jobs went to cheap labor in foreign markets. But that's also the tremendous benefit of Romney's overseas experience -- he has proven more instrumental than President Obama in creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, embracing globalization, and keeping overhead low for business owners. Now, that same experience in third-world countries is giving Mitt Romney an edge over Obama in, of all things, education reform.