A mother was today facing life in prison after admitting strangling two newborn babies and then keeping their tiny corpses in her kitchen freezer. In one of the most horrific infanticide cases ever to come before a French court, 41-year-old Veronique Courjault claims she was ‘overwhelmed’ at the prospect of having a third and fourth child.

She pleads diminished responsibility, even saying that she killed a fifth child in the late 1990s, disposing of his body in the family fireplace.

Prosecutors in turn said she was guilty of murder and have demanded a life sentence.

Courjault appeared alone in front of a court in Tours, central France, after spending the last two-and-a-half years on remand in a prison in nearby Orleans.

She claimed ‘I am no danger to society’, with psychologists saying she was ‘now speaking freely about what she did, making it clear that she wanted to change.’

The crimes took place in 2006 when Corjault was living with her engineer husband Jean-Louis Courjault in Seoul, South Korea, and their two sons, now aged 12 and 14.

Courjault is said to have kept her pregnancies a secret from her husband, and he was cleared of any involvement in a trial earlier this year.

While she was away on a solo trip to France he was stocking the freezer with fish when he came across the perfectly preserved corpses.

Horrified, he alerted the police and was later allowed to fly to France to be with his wife.

She initially denied having anything to do with the discovery, and both Courjaults appeared before a packed press conference saying they had no idea how the children got there.

But weeks later DNA tests proved they were the parents and they were arrested.

Courjault confessed to police to hiding two pregnancies from her husband in 2002 and 2003, giving birth alone in the bathroom before strangling the babies and putting the bodies in the freezer.

Mr Courjault was often away on business, making the deceit relatively easy.

She also confessed to the killing of the other newborn when the couple still lived in France in 1999.

A police official said Veronique Courjault made the confessions to a female investigator in October 2006.

The official, in the city of Tours, 145 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Paris, was speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Veronique Courjault described realising she was pregnant late in her term and hiding it from her husband because they had not wanted more children for financial reasons, the official said.

She sought no medical attention during the pregnancy.

Jean-Louis Courjault was present at the start of the trial.

‘I love my wife and have come to support her,’ he told reporters as he entered the courtroom.

He later said: ‘Society has to admit that not all pregnancies are happy. My wife certainly has psychological problems.’

Veronique Courjault, who has been incarcerated since October 2006, has told psychologists she felt connected with her first two pregnancies and spoke to the fetuses.

That was not the case with her third, fourth and fifth pregnancies, she has said, adding she did not feel those fetuses move inside her.

She said: ‘For me they were never children – it was a part of me, a prolongation of myself that I killed.’

Courjault’s two sons have frequently visited her in prison, where she works in the library and has regular therapy with a trained psychologist.

Her first two children are now aged 12 and 14.

More than a dozen experts and 23 witnesses are expected to testify in the trial. A verdict is expected on June 17.

From BallerStatus.com — Everybody goes through struggles, even your favorite celebrities. Actress Queen Latifah recently revealed a dark secret from her past, dating back to when she was a child.

In the July issue of Essense, the Queen talked about enduring sexual abuse as a child and surviving.

“He violated me,” the Oscar-nominated actress says of a teenage male babysitter.

“I never told anybody; I just buried it as deeply as I could and kept people at an arm’s distance … I never really let a person get too close to me,” Latifah continued.

According to Latifah, that abuse would cause her problems for years to come, which is one of the reasons she’s yet to marry.

“I could have been married years ago, but I had a commitment issue,” Latifah explained.

Latifah appears on the July cover of Essense, which is on newsstands now.

Two DJ games are coming out. Which one is really the best one for you? Well let’s break it down and see what each has to offer.

Make sure to watch the videos below for “visual aids”

Gameplay

DJ Hero is basically Guitar Hero meets the world of DJing. You have only 3 buttons to really focus on where guitar hero has 5. What makes the game more difficult is the scratching and crossfading. At particular times in the mix you will be flicking the crossfader left or right based on the on screen prompt. You also can scratch in the game, but you are not really scratching the song. Instead, you hear the scratch that the game wants you to hear. An interesting feature is that the game allows you to rewind to an earlier section of the song to either redo a part you messed up on, or to just play through your favorite part of the song.

Scratch however is completely different. It is trying to be a DJ simulator without taking away the fun. A developer said that if you give it to a grandmaster, he can literally tear up the game. Unlike DJ Hero, you get 5 buttons to hit. These buttons represents certain parts of the song (drums, cello, saxophone, etc.). You also get a full 360 degree vinyl, but in this game, you have free control over the scratching. You can scratch and you literally scratch the song. What I liked is that the game teaches you how to scratch. If you scratch with the song and do it so that it matches the song, you get more points. It really teaches you how to become a DJ.

Presentations

DJ: Hero looks like Guitar Hero with a DJ atmosphere. That is the basic gist. The flashing lights, dance floor, and environment in general are much better than that of Guitar Hero. It is not some DJ on stage dishing out music to cheering fans. Instead, you get a DJ in a night club filled with lights, fog, breakdancers, and more jamming to the mix you are playing. It was nice to see the game in action. There is so much happening in the background of the game that you want to take some time a look at it. That is something nice at the same time distracting.

Scratch has a similar feel to DJ Hero. The difference is the art style. Scratch uses a cell shaded art style that has a graffiti feeling to it, which matches the hip hop theme perfectly. Scratch does not have fleshly effects such as lighting, smoke, etc. Instead it puts you in normal situations (for a DJ). For example, playing in a backyard party or playing at a record store. I was told that there will be 7-9 different places to play in. That is not a lot, but you will not be focusing on the background as much as you would think.

Music

This is where there is a huge difference. DJ Hero has mixes done by numerous famous DJs such as DJ Shadow, DJ AM, and more. Instead of a song they mix two different songs together and add in a nice beat. The mix I heard was a combination of Jay-Z’s “Izzo” and Eminem’s “My name is.” It was amazing. The part that freaked me out was when the mix went “Hi my name is what? My name is who? My name is H to the Izzo!” That was down right amazing. Mixes like that was awesome. Another awesome feature that is unique to DJ hero is that there are mixes that incorporate a guitar. That means you can take a guitar hero guitar and rock out to a mix like Beastie Boys’ sabotage, to Foo Fighters’ “Monkey Wrench.” One person can do the DJ part while the other can do the guitar part. That was a nice twist and feature. Overall the game only provides mixes and you can only play those mixes really. There aren’t any normal hip-hop tracks, at least, from what I have seen

Scratch focuses on hip-hop tracks without any mixes. There are no two songs being put together. Instead, you play one single song, but you get to play each part that makes up the song. So if you mess up the cello part in Rakim’ “Don’t Sweat the Technique,” then you don’t hear the cellos. You can freely scratch the music as well, so you can remix your favorite songs. The way you play the game is much different than DJ Hero. Just look at the controls below.

Controls

DJ Hero’s control system is unique as you can tell. The buttons are directly on the vinyl and the vinyl spins a full 360 degrees. The crossfader is there as well, and the little knob is DJ Hero’s version of the whammy bar.

Scratch has a slightly more complicated button set. You have 5 button (like guitar hero), 360 degree spinning vinyl, and a crossfader.

Extras

DJ Hero. From what I got the extras are multiplayer and that is about it. Nothing worth mentioning really, so this part will be pretty short for DJ Hero, until I see more

Scratch however has a plethora of features. You can upload your own music and basically remix it. They allow you to scratch uploaded music and instead of “playing” your song, you get to add different samples (drums, bells, whistles, airhorns, etc.). Another great feature is that you can upload your own samples as well. That was amazing. Oh..you can also plug in a mic and sing over tracks. That means a karaoke feature. Man, there are so many extras for Scratch Ultimate DJ. After you upload your own music and remix it, you can save the remix. That is amazing. You basically have a studio built into the game. It is a versatile game, and definitely wants users to become better DJs and encourages them to let themselves go and try new things.

Final Thoughts

So who wins? Well to be fair, both games are different and do their own thing. They are not copies of each other one bit. The only thing they really have in common is the genre and overall theme each studio is striving for. DJ Hero is pretty much like rock band, but for those non rock fans. Scratch is a game that wants to teach you how to become a DJ while not sacrificing the fun factor. DJ Hero is the perfect party game, while Scratch is the perfect DJ game. It is all up to you. Do you like all types of music and want variety in the music? Go for DJ Hero. Do you want to remix your own tracks as well be on the right track to becoming a DJ? Go for Scratch: Ultimate DJ. There are so many reasons to get both games. Activision is the best company for licensing amazing music, and I do not think Genius Studios has the power of Activision, so expect even better music from Activision. Me personally, I will probably go for Scratch first and get DJ Hero next. That is my plan of action. I like Scratch’s extras, and I like the music selection they have so far. Again some of you readers may be able to get both when they come out……well congrads on being rich.

Pricing

DJ Hero is still unannounced

Scratch is looking to be 100 dollars for the game and controller. The controller will cost 40 dollars, but I assume it is the wired version. Still, that is a great deal and a new controller will not cost too much.

VIDEO

DJ: Hero footage (gameplay, question answering, and more)

Scratch: Ultimate DJ (gameplay)

My number one game that was missing at this year’s E3 will definitely be revealed in the July issue of Gameinformer. Gameinformer will have the first world exclusive on Rockstar’s insane cop, Max Payne. A 10 page cover story of Max Payne and what he has been doing in the past ten years will be revealed to us less than a week from now. After seeing this image, the first thing that popped into my head was Bruce Willis. Mr. Payne also looks like the recession is getting to him. 

So what do guys think? Are you excited or what?