"Precious" gets props in the Academy Award nominations; DeKalb County's fire chief resigns days after a deadly house fire; an accused child molester kills himself before his trial wraps up; BET's 10-part documentary on Michael Vick debuts tonight.  See a preview of "The Michael Vick Project" on today's KISS News Now!

• DeKalb County's Fire & Rescue Chief, David Foster, stepped down this week, leaving Deputy Chief Eddie O'Brien as the department's acting head.  There's no official reason released for Foster's departure, but it comes barely a week after four high-ranking officers lost their jobs over their response to a Dunwoody house fire.  An internal probe found the men arrived on Houghton Court in response to a woman's 911 call, but left when they didn't see smoke or fire from the street.  A 74-year-old woman was found dead in her burning home hours later.
  
  
• From trouble to triumph: Michael Vick hopes that's the trail his new 10-part documentary series on BET showcases.   Cameras roll as the ex-Atlanta Falcons quarterback  returns to the once-bloody site of the Bad Newz Kennels; he says walking over the dogs' burial sites really hit him hard, and that he still asks himself why he did what he did.   Vick describes his double life; his fiancee describes how she begged him  to stop fighting dogs.  "The Michael Vick Project" debuts tonight at 10:00.
  
  

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• Hollywood announced the Oscar nominees today, and it's a big day for "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire."  The film received six Academy Award nods, including Gabourey Sidibe for best actress as the title character in Precious, a Harlem teen overcoming horrible abuse and neglect.
  
  "As soon as I heard, I jumped up and down and for some reason I kept screaming, 'I'm gonna get a car, I'm gonna get a car.' I don't know why,'' said the 26-year-old Sidibe.
  
  Other nominations for "Precious" include Mo'Nique for supporting actress; Lee Daniels for director; Geoffrey Fletcher for adapted screenplay; and best picture in a newly-expanded 10-film category.
  
  "The Princess and the Frog" was nominated in the animated film category, and Morgan Freeman was nominated for his role as South African leader Nelson Mandela in "Invictus."
  
  "This is my fifth nomination and I'm more proud of that than all the rest of it, I think," Freeman said.  "Getting nominated, to me, that's the plateau.  After you're nominated, it's like a crap shoot, it's like throwing dice.''
  
  The two pictures with the most nominations are "Avatar'' and "The Hurt Locker,'' with nine each.  The 82nd Oscars will be presented March 7 in a ceremony airing on ABC from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.
  
  
  
• Civil rights icon Dr. Joseph Lowery remains hospitalized in stable condition at Emory Midtown.  He's undergoing more tests after going in Saturday for shortness of breath.  While not accepting visitors, the Lowerys are thanking everyone for their concern and prayers.
  
  
• Don't say no to those "Just Say No" sex ed classes just yet.  The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine has a study showing that abstinence-only programs can work in middle schools; a third of those students engaged in sexual activity within two years of the class, compared with half of the students who only learned about contraception.  The abstinence program skipped the moralizing about sex, instead focusing on the drawbacks of STDs and unwanted pregnancies.
  
  
• Twenty-five years after the original, and in the same studio, more than 75 stars got together Monday to remix the charity anthem We Are The World to benefit Haiti quake victims.  None of the original performers took part in recording. On the all-new roster this time, Kanye, Jennifer Hudson, Natalie Cole, Akon, Pink, Celine Dion, and Li'l Wayne--who says he was honored to be asked to do Bob Dylan's lines, even though he says he doesn't even know how to sing.  As before, Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones are producing the music. Hear a snippet of the rehearsal here. It will premiere during the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics on NBC.
  
  
  
  
• A Walton County man on trial for child molestation in Gwinnett County committed suicide on Monday, rather than go back to court for closing arguments.  His laywer says 50-year-old Jeffrey Ford Clarke shot himself twice around 9am, when he was due in court.  Clarke was accused of molesting seven alleged victims who were between eight and 10 years old at the time, all of them sons of his friends.  The boys testified that Clarke had wooed them with video games and sleepovers before molesting them at his house.  Upon learning of the suicide, District Attorney Danny Porter said, "I guess he gave himself the death penalty."
  
  
• Dozens of victims of last year's nationwide salmonella outbreak will split about $12 million in insurance money in a settlement with Peanut Corporation of America.  The outbreak was traced to peanut processing plants in Georgia and Texas.  Some 700 people got sick, and nine died.   PCA has since declared bankruptcy.
  
  
• Atlanta Police uncover a motive in that rolling gun battle which shook up Little Five Points Sunday: drugs.  Police say the Penske truck which appeared to be in a shootout with a Mercedes Benz was packed with a half-ton of marijuana.  But cops say the two vehicles were apparently working together, both of them dodging bullets from a lone shooter who witnesses said was standing in the street, firing, before calmly walking away.  Cops are looking for the gunman.
  
  
• One of the most prolific bank robbers in Georgia will be spending the rest of his life behind bars.  The so-called "Crown Royal Bandit," Bruce Hughes, was sentenced Monday to 127 years; he got his nickname because he stuffed his cash into a Crown Royal liquor bag.   The feds say the 48-year-old conspired to rob 29 banks over 11 years.  Hughes asked the judge to go easy on his accused accomplice, a woman he said he'd abused for years.  Karen Tutherow got six months' house arrest and five years probation.
  
  
• A Lassiter High School counselor may be able to keep his job, despite accusations of groping a 17-year-old student.  A Cobb County school tribunal has recommended that Frank Robinson remain at Lassiter, saying the district failed to prove the allegations.  The full school board votes next week.
  
  
• It's chilly news in Pennsylvania:  Punxsutawney  Phil has emerged to see his shadow before chilly revelers, meaning winter will last another six weeks.  Georgia's groundhog, General Beauregard Lee, predicted the opposite today--an early spring.
  
  
• The KISS 104.1 weather forecast:  mostly cloudy skies, high of 49, low of 31.