Toronto Star reporter Robyn Doolittle's new book about Rob Ford, "Crazy Town," has some interesting anecdotes about the embattled mayor who admitted to smoking crack cocaine in a "drunken stupor."

In one of the more revealing passages in the book, Doolittle writes about a recording of Ford's wife, Renata, discussing the mayor's drug habit.

Renata met up with an acquaintance and former drug addict in a Tim Horton's parking lot to get advice shortly after Rob was elected mayor of Toronto, according to the book. Unbeknownst to Renata, the acquaintance was secretly recording the conversation.

She reportedly said: "He still thinks he's going to party. He thinks that he, oh, you know, 'I'll get off the pills, but I'm not giving up the blow.'"

"Blow" typically refers to cocaine.

Renata says she told Rob he could "ruin [his] whole f---ing life." She also mentions their two kids and says she has to "get this s--- together."

The acquaintance reportedly then gave Renata advice about methadone treatment and rehab clinics.

Members of Rob Ford's staff have told police that Ford smoked marijuana, drank, and took Oxycontin pills while in office. And a waiter at a restaurant Ford visited told investigators that he saw Ford appearing to snort cocaine in a private room on St. Patrick's Day in 2012.

Ford's former chief of staff, Mark Towhey, said Ford is an alcoholic and that he's tried to convince the mayor to get treatment.

Ford is still mayor of Toronto. The city council has stripped him of his powers, but he refuses to give up his position and he plans to run for re-election.

SEE ALSO: Here's Another Crazy Drunken Rant From Toronto Mayor Rob Ford

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Last week, we brought you a series of maps showing which colleges across the country have the most on-campus drug and alcohol arrests.

Surprisingly, or not, all of the Ivy League schools were absent from this list. However, Rehabs.com— who put this information together — compiled a separate ranking for the elite eight universities.

"We wanted to find interesting data that's been under-explored," Drugs on Campus project head Jon Millward told Business Insider. Many of the previously existing reports on campus drug use were "more surface," Millward said.

The information comes from the Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education, which only tracks campus crime reports, not those from the surrounding area.

Dartmouth College leads the Ivy League in both on-campus drug arrests and alcohol arrests — the latter by a significant margin. The Rehabs.com report attributes this to Dartmouth's dominant Greek culture:

What's obvious is that there weren't very many of them. Dartmouth College sits comfortably in first position, with more than five times more alcohol arrests than Yale University. This result matches a known problem Dartmouth has with drinking on its campus, attributed mostly to the fact that fraternities dominate the social scene there. About two-thirds of undergraduates at Dartmouth join a fraternity or sorority, which is nearly double the rate of any other Ivy League school. And Greeks are known to be more likely to abuse alcohol.

SEE ALSO: The Colleges With The Most On-Campus Drug And Alcohol Arrests

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A report out Tuesday on America's record-high number of exonerations in 2013 includes a disturbing story of a bar owner who spent three years in prison for a "crime" that never happened.

Joseph Awe, owner of a bar called J.J.'s Pub in Wisconsin, was finally exonerated in 2013 after a local newspaper ran a series suggesting the fire that led to his arson conviction was actually an accident.

The conviction was particularly egregious because building's insurer, Mt. Morris Mutual Insurance Co., hired the fire experts who testified against Awe, according to the report by the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE). That insurer stood to lose $200,000 if the fire was ruled an accident. The case is also awful because Awe, who was 42 when he was freed in March, lost a good chunk of his life.

"I just want to be with my family, and I want a bath," Awe told the Wisconsin State Journal right after his exoneration."I just want to be home."

Awe was one of 87 people who were exonerated of a crime in 2013, according to the NRE report. In 22% of those cases, a crime never actually occurred.

That appears to be the case with Awe. He was named as a suspect in the September 2006 blaze the day after it happened, before investigators even determined its cause, according to the NRE report.

Mt. Morris also began probing the fire and hired experts whom the prosecution later called to the stand during Awe's trial. (The prosecution never told the defense it was using the insurer's experts, according to NRE.) While Awe's expert testified the fire was electrical, those hired by the insurer said somebody punched a hole in the bar and set it on fire.

Despite being at home 35 miles away from the bar during the fire, Awe was still convicted of being a "party" to the crime of arson. (Investigators never located the person who supposedly set the fire.)

On appeal, Awe's lawyer presented testimony from two nationally renowned fire experts (including John Lentini, a leading expert who has conducted 2,000 fires.) Lentini and the other expert, Mark Svare, testified the fire at J.J.'s originated in the electrical service panel of the building, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

We'll never know what caused the insurer's experts to reach a more damning conclusion, but there are obvious conflicts of interests when investigators who have been hired by an insurer then testify for the prosecution.

In the case of Awe, local investigators relied heavily on investigative work done by the insurer, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Mt. Morris paid the electrical engineer who made the crucial call early on that the fire was not electrical, which spurred Deputy State Fire Marshal James Siehelr to say the blaze was arson.

The deputy state fire marshall told the local paper it was standard for insurers in Wisconsin to hire experts who make these kinds of crucial calls.

“We don’t have any resources to do that type of work,” Siehelr told the paper. “We’re very reliant on insurance companies providing us with that resource.”

In a deeply ironic twist, Awe was also hit with a civil suit from the insurance company, which wanted him to repay $67,000 it spent investigating and helping to prosecute the case. As of March, the insurance company had yet to drop that civil suit, according to the State Journal.

We reached out to Mt. Morris for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

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This past July, a nurse named Danielle Rigney left her house at 2 a.m. to drive several hours to visit her son, Solomon, in a Jamestown, Calif. prison, where visiting hours started at 6.

Danielle and her family made this drive most every weekend, but that morning Solomon wasn't there. He'd been transferred without notice to a private prison nearly 800 miles away in Arizona. "We went to visit him, and he was gone," Danielle told me over the phone. "It was really traumatic."

Solomon, 22, is doing his time for an alleged assault committed in California— one of the four states in America that ships its inmates to private prisons in other states. (The other states are Vermont, Idaho, and Hawaii.) The nonprofit Grassroots Leadership recently released a report criticizing the practice as inhumane because it often separates prisoners from their families.

California houses more than 8,000 of its state prisoners in private facilities in Arizona, Oklahoma, and even far-off Mississippi, according to that report.

"The practice of taking inmates out of state is horrendous. You're taking people who, whatever support network they may have, is gone," a former inmate told Grassroots Leadership. "The truth of the matter is that as an incarcerated person, you're alone. You're isolated."

While some people might argue these prisoners shouldn't get to say in their home states because they're being punished, warehousing state prisoners far from their homes punishes their family members, too. The practice may also drive up crime rates. A November 2011 study from the Minnesota Department of Corrections found family visits "significantly decreased" the risk of recidivism.

For Danielle Rigney, the family's weekly visits with her son gave her the chance to give him a "reality check," she told me. The four-hour drive from her home in Auburn, Calif. to the prison in Jamestown was tough but doable and relatively affordable. Visits got much more expensive after he was transferred to the La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz. Rigney had to fly to another state, rent a car, and stay in a hotel.

"I haven't made one house payment on time since he's been out there," Danielle told me.

Danielle still receives decent pay and sick time as a nurse, so she has been able to visit her son three times since his transfer. Others are not so lucky.

While the visitors' room was packed at the state prison in California, Rigney told me there were far fewer visitors at the facility in Arizona. That's probably because most of the Arizona inmates are from California. The Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company, owns the La Palma facility and lists California's Corrections Department as its entire "customer base" for that facility.

Once a California inmate gets shipped out of state, prisoners can submit "hardship transfer requests" to try to get closer to home again.

Danielle, her husband, and her three daughters each wrote letters supporting a transfer for Solomon. Danielle's letter in particular reveals the huge blow the separation was to her son, who was just 19 when he was arrested. From her letter:

While he was in California he was able to stay connected with us, watch his sisters grow, embrace hope for the future and continue to strengthen our family bond that will support his success, including never returning to prison. So much time passes between our visits now and I clearly and painfully see the change in him. Humans are social creatures and he is embracing his prison family more because of our distance.

Solomon was a "happy-go-lucky" guy who loved life before prison, his mother says. The crime that landed him in behind bars for six years is truly bizarre. Solomon and an 18-year-old friend were arrested in February 2011 after a 29-year-old acquaintance accused them of kidnapping him, according to a local news report.

Solomon and his friend were reportedly driving around with the 29-year-old acquaintance when the older man asked to get out of the car. The two teens allegedly told the acquaintance they'd shoot him if he left. The 29-year-old then asked them to drive him to a friend's house so he could get his cellphone charger. He reportedly jumped out of the car and called 911. Solomon ultimately pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon.

Danielle Rigney says the kidnapping victim was actually Solomon's gym teacher, who later died of a drug overdose after the then-19-year-old's arrest. Her son and some other boys at school had been introduced to "hard" drugs by their gym teacher, Danielle told me.

"So many things could have changed the course of this unfortunate situation, however, this is where we are now," Danielle Rigney told me in an email message.

While Solomon was clearly troubled before entering prison, it's not unreasonable to think that isolating him from his family could make him worse. Danielle was hopeful that her son would be transferred to a facility closer to her home when we spoke in late January.

A few days after we spoke, Danielle emailed to let me know that her son had been transferred back to California — to a facility in Shafter, Calif., 300 miles from her home. (It's not clear why he wasn't transferred to Folsom State Prison, which is just 18 miles from her the family in Auburn, Calif.) The Rigneys had already planned a trip to see him at the very end of the month in Arizona and lost the $200 they'd paid to the private prison so they could eat their meals there.

Solomon tells her the new facility has just five visiting tables, and she fears visits will be cut short so the prison can accommodate all of the inmates' families. Her frustration is apparent in this email:

Now we can drive 5 hours to visit for two hours? We can get a hotel on Friday, or we can leave at 2 am to be there by 6:30 am when visiting starts.

After speaking to Danielle Rigney for a short time, it's clear that much of her life revolves around making and planning the trips to visit her son. That hardship is still a reality even though he's back in California. It is a hardship that many families endure but rarely talk about. Danielle Rigney is just starting to "come out" as a mom who has an incarcerated son, in part because of the injustice she sees in out-of-state transfers.

"Nobody would ever think that I would have a son in prison," Danielle, whose warmth is apparent even over the phone, told me. She added, referring to family members of inmates, "We are this secret little society."

SEE ALSO: The Gut-Wrenching Story Of An Addict Who Got Clean, Got A Job, And Then Got 15 Years In Prison

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Editor's note: This answer originally appeared on Quora, in answer to the question, "What happens to heroin addicts when they quit cold turkey, and why is it so unbearable?" We have republished it with the author's permission.

While withdrawal from opiates like heroin is rarely fatal, the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicates that quitting cold turkey is not the best way to get off the drug. Rather, the most effective treatment uses both behavioral therapy and medications like methadone.

I was a heroin addict for 14 years. From the age of 18 to the age of 32. I tried to get off of the drug via the methadone clinic to no avail. I would go to the clinic for a while and do well, but would always end up with a needle in my vein within a few months. I don't think the clinics are set up to help people quit using drugs. I believe they are there to get people addicted to methadone. That way the government gets their cut, or tax if you will. But I digress...

After going to the clinic a few times and failing at varying degrees, I decided to try cold turkey. There is more to it than that, but it's a long story.

I bought one last dose of heroin, obtained some Valium, and vodka, then moved into a little one room apartment my uncle had in the mountains of North Carolina. Making sure, I had no way to contact anyone, or get to anyone. The closest phone was about 13 miles away. I did my shot, and counted down the minutes till the inevitable sickness would begin.

About 4 or 5 hours after my last dose I started to feel antsy.  I don't know how else to describe it. I started to bounce my legs up and down on my toes while sitting there. I couldn't focus my attention on anything, except the fact that I had no more dope. My arm muscles felt as if they fly out of my skin, and my skin was crawling. About 8 to 10 hours after my last dose I started to feel nauseated, and started to sweat heavily. These feelings would persist for the next week or so.

Heroin, and opiates in general make you constipated. This side effect started wearing off about 48 hours after my last dose. Unfortunately it was replaced by severe diarrhea. My stomach also started to convulse with accompanying vomit and pain. So I spent most of day 3,4 and 5, on the toilet, or with my head in a bucket, or sometimes both at once. My legs, arms, and back started to get painful cramps around day 5 as well.

Listing the symptoms or even describing them cannot even begin to convey the pain and fear one experiences while going through this. The poison seems to make a horrid effort to convince you that you will in fact die if you do not get one more fix.

The whole physical withdrawal lasted about two weeks in all. The last 5 days or so it was very minor compared to the first week. The mental aspect of it I was not prepared for. I would find myself trying to contact old dope friends, and dealers just to "see what was up". I would crave the rush of the drug. I would dream about it every single night. I would close my eyes and see balloons full of heroin, and needles in my arms. This went on for about 8 months or so. They say 95% of IV heroin addicts never get clean, and I can see why.

It has been right at two years since that last dose, and only now do I feel like I'm not a junkie.

SEE ALSO: Why Heroin Use Is Skyrocketing Across The US

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Darryl Robinson, a celebrity mixologist and host of "Drink Up" on the Cooking Channel, has been found dead in his New York City apartment, the New York Daily News reports.

Robinson was found in the second-floor bedroom of his apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn after a friend called police because he couldn't reach him.

There were no signs of trauma on Robinson's body. He was 50 years old.

His death is under investigation. Police didn't find any drugs in his apartment.

Robinson's show on the Cooking Channel got canceled, but re-runs still air on the network.

The Cooking Channel has posted this on its website:

SEE ALSO: Hollywood Reacts To Philip Seymour Hoffman's Shocking Death

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Editor's Note: Erin Marie Daly started reporting on the links between painkiller addiction and heroin use after her 20-year-old brother, Pat, died of a heroin overdose.

She allowed us to excerpt this post from her blog, Oxy Watchdog, which she started in her brother's memory.

Drug overdose death rates worldwide are skyrocketing: of the estimated 78,000 deaths in 2010 because of illegal drug use, more than half were due to painkillers, according to a recent study published in the medical journal The Lancet.

And in the U.S., drug overdose is now the number one cause of accidental death of Americans between the ages of 35 and 54, killing over 38,000 people in 2010; many of these deaths were caused by prescription opiates.

The painkiller addiction epidemic has also led to a rise in heroin abuse. A new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration also found that found that four out of five recent heroin initiates — about 79% — previously used prescription pain relievers non-medically. According to SAMHSA, the number of people reporting that they have used heroin in the past 12 months rose from 373,000 people in 2007 to 620,000 people in 2011. Similarly, the number of people dependent on heroin in the past 12 months climbed from 179,000 people in 2007 to 369,000 people in 2011.

As this editorial notes, despite the widespread nature of painkiller and heroin abuse, those who are addicted continue to be stigmatized. So, what can be done? Several things:

Share your personal story. All too often, fear and shame keep people from talking about how addiction has affected their lives. Start talking. End the silence.

My brother Pat was addicted to prescription painkillers and later heroin, but he kept much of his addiction hidden from his family because he felt ashamed.

After Pat died of a heroin overdose in 2009, I wanted to understand how these pills had transformed him from a fun-loving ball of energy to a heroin addict hell-bent on getting his next fix. I set out on a painful personal journey, turning a journalistic eye on Pat’s addiction; in the process, I was startled to discover the rising number of young heroin addicts whose addiction began with pills.

I also found some of Pat’s journals and learned how deeply he struggled with feelings that he had let us down — a sense of shame that has been echoed by many of those I’ve interviewed. I wish I had known this before he died. I wish he weren't the reason behind this website.

To read more of Erin Marie Daly's reporting, visit her website Oxy Watchdog. The video below also tells more of her story:

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FBI investigates death of 1 child, hospitalization of another after both pulled from ship pool

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The FBI is investigating the death of one child and the hospitalization of another after they were pulled from a swimming pool aboard a cruise ship off the North Carolina coast.

Bureau spokesman David Couvertier said Wednesday that officials from the Tampa division met the Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship when it docked in Port Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday. Couvertier said the FBI became involved because the Norwegian Cruise Line ship was in international waters about 40 miles off Cape Lookout, N.C., when the two boys were found Monday. He also said it was because the 4-year-old boy who died was a U.S. citizen.

A 6-year-old boy was hospitalized at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville. Hospital spokeswoman Chris Mackey said his family didn't want his condition made public.

Copyright (2014) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Online dating site AYI.com did a study of their users' profiles, and they found an interesting link between users' openness about drug use and drug laws.

From AYI's blog post about the study, their biggest finding was that "the states where people were the most likely to admit doing drugs were also the states who were most strongly considering legalizing weed."

The top five states in the study include Colorado and Washington, where recreational marijuana has just been legalized. In both states, 8.9% of AYI's users indicated that they use drugs sometimes or often on their profiles.

The only three states with more users admitting to drug use — Alaska (10.7%), Maine (9.9%), and Vermont (9.4%) — all already allow medical marijuana use and are moving in the direction of full legalization.

Unsurprisingly, the states with the fewest drug users are among the more culturally conservative states — Utah and Virginia with 3.3%, Louisiana, West Virginia and Mississippi with 3.1%, and South Carolina with 3.0%.

Here is AYI's map of users who admitted to using drugs:

And here is a map of current marijuana laws in each state:

The overlap is noteworthy — of the top ten states, marijuana is fully illegal only in Idaho and North Dakota.

If AYI's users are any indication, don't be surprised if Alaska's marijuana legalization referendum does well this summer.

Check out AYI's blog post on the study for more info.

SEE ALSO: The President Was Right — Alcohol Is More Dangerous Than Marijuana

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The elder brother of South Korea's richest man, Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-Hee, lost his court appeal on Thursday for an $850 million share of his sibling's inherited wealth.

The Seoul High Court upheld a lower court ruling allowing Lee to retain all his shareholdings in the giant conglomerate that members of his family had accused him of hiding from them following the death in 1987 of his father and Samsung founder Lee Byung-Chul.

The collective family claim had amounted to 4.1 trillion won, and Lee's elder brother Lee Maeng-Hee had appealed to the High Court over his 940 billion won ($850 million) share.

While the court found that some shares claimed by Lee Maeng-Hee had indeed been bequeathed to him, it noted that the 10-year statute of limitations on inheritance claims had expired.

Lee Maeng-Hee's lawyer said his client had yet to decide whether to appeal to the supreme court.

In their initial suit, Lee Maeng-Hee and other relatives had claimed that, after the death of their father, Lee Kun-Hee had hidden shares and assets that had been held in other people's names.

Only Lee Maeng-Hee appealed the lower court ruling handed down in February last year.

Lee Byung-Chul, who founded what is now the world's largest technology firm by revenue, had three sons and five daughters.

Under the stewardship of Lee Kun-Hee, the conglomerate has flourished, becoming the world's top chipmaker and mobile phone maker.

He is South Korea's richest man, with a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at around $10.8 billion.

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's Karachi Stock Exchange is investigating whether staff profited from years of unauthorized access to real time trading data in a market that has rocketed more than 450 percent since 2009.

The potential breach came to light after two whistleblowers accused senior staff of accessing sensitive trading data through a secure network and accessing emails without authority, according to confidential documents seen by Reuters.

Some board members expressed concern the access could have allowed the staff to benefit because they knew of individual buy and sell orders, the documents show.

Any suggestion that staff may have illegally profited from having access to real-time market data stands to deal a blow to the KSE, where about a third of shares freely available to investors are held by foreigners.

In the first public acknowledgment of the potential breach, KSE Managing Director Nadeem Naqvi told Reuters an investigation was underway into whether any individuals profited.

"My primary focus from day one has been data security," he said. "The integrity of the exchange depends on this."

With a market capitalization of $54 billion, the KSE is Asia's third-smallest stock exchange in U.S. dollars among those monitored daily by Thomson Reuters. Only Vietnam and Sri Lanka are smaller.

Last year, the Karachi 100 stock index rose 38 percent in U.S. dollar terms, making it the 10th best performing stock market in the world.

The index soared to a record of more than 27,200 points in January from less than 5,000 points in early 2009.

INVESTIGATION

Pakistani consultancy Sidat Hyder Morshed Associates, which was asked to investigate by the KSE, said in a report in December that senior IT staff were able to read staff emails and monitor trades conducted through secure systems in real time.

It said "some IT staff" had this access, without giving a precise number. These members of staff could monitor individual unique identification numbers that track trading activity.

The report also noted that former manager director, Adnan Afridi, had access to such trading data. He said this was because market surveillance teams reported to him.

"There was no impropriety," he told Reuters. "A feed was available to my computer so I could see if there was anything we needed to take action on."

Afridi noted that since reforms enacted last year, the managing director of the KSE is no longer responsible for market surveillance.

Reuters has seen the consultancy's report and KSE minutes of board meetings where the issue was discussed. The documents are confidential.

The consultancy did not investigate whether the staff had manipulated the market. Instead, it was asked to identify the whistleblowers and authenticate their claims.

Naqvi said he was now investigating whether the staff had profited from the data. His team is expected to issue a report on its findings to the KSE board in two weeks, he said.

The consultancy will also issue another report before March with recommendations for security upgrades of KSE systems, he said.

The KSE did not retain deleted emails and did not log who was accessing emails or trading data, the consultancy's report said, making it hard to find evidence of manipulation.

The report found that staff had apparently been tipped off to the investigation and may have deleted files.

Sidat Hyder Morshed Associates declined to comment.

CONCERN

Minutes of KSE board meetings show that members were concerned by the potential breach.

"Persons privy to such information might be involved in front-running," said Mohammad Sohail, the minutes of a December 12 meeting show.

Front-running is when insiders with privileged knowledge make a trade based on the information ahead of time or simultaneously. It is illegal in Pakistan.

Another board member, Kamal Afsar, expressed concern that the security breach could have contributed to a 2008 stock market crash, which wiped two thirds off the value of the stock market.

"Live market data was visible to selected persons which could have led to market manipulation," he said in a December 9 meeting, according to the minutes. "If the investigation is broadened, it may provide more disclosures."

Afsar and Sohail did not respond to several requests for comment.

The minutes show that many staff had their access to secure systems revoked, outside consultants were brought in to strengthen the security of the KSE systems and the whistleblowers were thanked, not disciplined.

"I do not believe in letting bygones be bygones," said Naqvi. "If people exploited the system, we will find them."

But the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is hobbled by a slow legal system in pursuing harsh penalties for offenders. If the accused contest their fines, cases can drag on for years, it says.

However, critics say the SECP has other powers, including barring fraudsters from trading, which it rarely uses.

(Reporting by Katharine Houreld: Editing by Neil Fullick)

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has launched an investigation after a media report alleged that Chinese telecoms company Huawei had hacked into state-run telecoms carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam, a senior government official said.

"An incident about the alleged hacking of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) network by M/S Huawei ... has come to notice," Killi Kruparani, junior minister for communications and information technology, said in a written reply to a question from a member of parliament.

"The government has constituted an inter-ministerial committee to investigate the matter," the minister said on Wednesday, without giving details.

A senior government official said the decision to investigate came after a media report said Huawei had hacked a BSNL mobile base station controller. The official declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

BSNL declined to comment beyond the minister's statement. A spokesman for the communications and information technology ministry said he did not have details of the allegation.

A spokesman for Huawei India denied any hacking.

"Huawei India denies such alleged hacking and continues to work closely with customers and governments in India to address any network security issue that may arise in technical and business operations," the spokesman, Suresh Vaidyanathan, said in a statement.

Vaidyanathan said Huawei, founded by a former officer of China's People's Liberation Army, fully complied with network security norms and regulations.

The Indian government has launched investigations in the past based on media reports.

Neighbors India and China fought a war more than 50 years ago and have a disagreement over their border. This is not the first time Huawei is facing scrutiny in India.

In 2010, India blocked for several months domestic carriers' imports of Chinese telecoms equipment over suspicions that it might have spying technology embedded to intercept sensitive conversations and government communications.

The unofficial ban was lifted after the Chinese makers, who had said their equipment was safe, agreed to new equipment rules with tougher checks.

The United States has also flagged Chinese telecoms equipment as a potential security risk.

In 2012, a U.S. panel urged American companies to stop doing business with Huawei and ZTE warning that China could use firms' equipment to spy on certain communications and threaten vital systems through computerized links.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy)

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Former police officer Justin Freeman answers the question originally posted on Quora: "What Should You Do If Someone Puts A Gun To Your Head?" We have summarized some of his best tips on how to react if getting robbed at gunpoint. 

Produced by Justin Gmoser. Keep up with BI Video on Facebook >

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Human Rights Watch has a disturbing report on America's little-known offender-funded probation industry. That report claims a destitute Georgia man was hounded relentlessly by a for-profit company after his arrest for stealing a $2 can of beer.

Thomas Barrett pleaded guilty to his April 2012 beer theft in an Augusta, Ga. court, and he was given 12 months probation and ordered to pay a $200 fine. Barrett was also ordered to wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet, a service provided by Sentinel Offender Services LLC.

That Augusta court, like more than 1,000 other courts throughout the United States, uses an offender-funded model of privatized probation. This privatized model provides little government oversight over probation and can burden low-level offenders — many of whom don't have a lot of money in the first place, according to Human Rights Watch.

The supervision fees paid to private companies range from $35 to $100 a month and can be even higher if offenders have to pay court fines on top of them. Barrett's total payment to Sentinel was $360 a month, according to Human Rights Watch.

In Barrett's case, he was also ordered to pay a $80 startup fee to Sentinel, according to Human Rights Watch. Barrett was already poor and living mostly off food stamps when he was arrested for stealing the beer, so he couldn't even afford that initial payment. He spent a month in jail just for not paying that fee. After he got out of jail, Barrett started giving his blood plasma to try to make money pay the fees for his alcohol monitoring bracelet.

“You can donate plasma twice a week as long as you’re physically able to,” he told Human Rights Watch, saying he made about $300 a month this way. “Basically what I did was, I’d donate as much plasma as I could and I took that money and I threw it on the leg monitor.”

Barrett still had trouble paying his bills to Sentinel and ended up going to jail for failure to pay $1,000 in fees, according to Human Rights Watch. The judge told him he could have avoided jail if he paid several hundred dollars to Sentinel then and there, which would have been impossible for him to do.

When a judge offered Barrett that untenable option, he told Human Rights Watch that he thought to himself, "‘But the whole problem is, I don’t have money.’"

This Catch-22 might sound like an absurd anomaly, but poor people around the U.S. are becoming indebted to for-profit companies after getting arrested for misdemeanors. In July 2012, The New York Times reported on this trend and noted that three dozen for-profit companies that levy probation fines operate in Georgia alone. One for-profit company called Judicial Correction Services acknowledged to The Times that a lot of the offenders whose probation it oversees say they simply can't afford to pay its fees.

“We hear a lot of ‘I can’t pay the fee,’ ” the company's chief marketing officer, Kevin Egan, told The Times. “It is not our job to figure that out. Only the judge can make that determination.”

We reached out to Sentinel, which oversaw Barrett's probation, and will update this post if we hear back.

SEE ALSO: California Mom Shocked After Her Prisoner Son Was Secretly Transferred 800 Miles Away To Another State

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A jury in Manhattan federal court has found former SAC portfolio manager Mathew Martoma guilty of insider trading.

Martoma was found guilty on all three counts (two securities fraud, one conspiracy).

He faces up to 45 years in prison for all of those counts combined.

Today's verdict also gives U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara a track record of 79-0 for insider trading convictions.

"As the jury unanimously found, Mathew Martoma cultivated and purchased the confidence of doctors with secret knowledge of an experimental Alzheimer's drug, and used it to engage in illegal insider trading. Martoma bought the answer sheet before the exam — more than once — netting a quarter billion dollars in profits and losses avoided for SAC, as well as a $9 million bonus for him. In the short run, cheating may have been profitable for Martoma, but in the end, it made him a convicted felon, and likely will result in the forfeiture of his illegal windfall and the loss of his liberty. Mathew Martoma becomes the 79th person convicted of insider trading after trial or by guilty plea in this District in the last four years," Bharara said in a statement.

In the meantime, the judge said Martoma can remain free on bail before his sentencing.

In November 2012, Martoma — who worked at SAC subsidiary CR Intrinsic Investors — was charged in what the DOJ says is "the most lucrative" insider trading scheme in history.

Prosecutors said that Martoma used negative confidential drug trial info in pharmaceutical companies Elan Corporation and Wyeth between summer 2006 and mid-July 2008. The fund was then able to exit those positions and short those stocks avoiding losses of $276 million. 

SAC Capital, Stamford, Conn.-based hedge fund run by Steve Cohen, was criminally indicted last summer on insider trading charges. Federal prosecutors charged the fund "with criminal responsibility for insider trading offenses committed by numerous employees and made possible by institutional practices that encouraged the widespread solicitation and use of illegal inside information."

In November, SAC pleaded guilty to criminal insider trading charges and agreed to pay a $1.8 billion fine. 

The fund is currently in the process of finalizing its new corporate structure and picking a new name. SAC Capital will no longer manage outside capital and will operate as a family office fund.

SEE ALSO: Did Martoma Defraud Stanford And Will Stanford Revoke His MBA?

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As of Feb. 3, 2014, both state governments and the U.S. government have exonerated 1,304 innocent prisoners since 1989, according to a new report from the National Registry for Exonerations. And 87 of them were freed in 2013 alone — the highest number ever recorded. 

Contrary to what people may think, DNA testing isn't behind most of these exonerations. Instead, judges and prosecutors have become increasingly willing to reconsider old convictions even without new DNA evidence, potentially because of  growing awareness about wrongful convictions.

"The trend I've seen the most obviously is more prosecutors and judges are less freaked out about a prisoner's potential innocence and more willing to look into the matter now," University of Michigan law professor and editor of the National Registry of Exonerations Samuel Gross told Business Insider.

When DNA evidence became admissible in court in 1985, it shocked the system, especially in cases of sexual assault, according to Gross. Because DNA evidence has freed some inmates with lengthy sentences, people might assume testing leads to most exonerations today.

But there have always been more non-DNA exonerations than DNA exonerations. The gap has actually increased over time, as this graph shows:

Although we see a rapid increase in the number of total exonerations since 2011, the number of DNA exonerations (blue line) has dropped steadily for the last three years, while the number of non-DNA exonerations (red line) spiked during the same period. 

One major factor, according to the National Registry for Exonerations, is driving the increase in non-DNA convictions: greater cooperation from law enforcement, especially under often ignored circumstances like those without biological evidence, cases with light sentences, and judgements based on plea bargains. 

Not everyone agrees that greater cooperation from law enforcement is a recent development though.

"We always reviewed big cases, multiple murders or high-profile cases," Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association told NPR. "What you're seeing now is that it's institutionalized — it's given a name, probably a line item on a budget in a large office — and that's good as well."

Regardless of reasons for the increase in exonerations, the type of crime also plays an interesting role. Consider the chart below:

Of the 87 exonerations in 2013, 17%, a record number, occurred in cases in which the defendants pleaded guilty, according to the report. These circumstances most likely arise during plea bargains, when defendants plead guilty in exchange for reduced sentences. For some time now, the vast majority of defendants across the U.S. end up pleading out, Gross pointed out.

Naturally, legal resources first go to prisoners facing execution (8% of exonerations, according to the report) or life in prison. As a result, the great majority of known exonerations apply to murder and rape, "the most serious common crimes of violence with the harshest sentences," according to the report.

Gross also noted exonerations in murder and rape cases decreased for the first time in 2013. 

Researchers also considered timing when interpreting the stats. The charts below shows the average time an exonerated prisoner will spend behind bars based on his or her crime.

As you'll see from the data, inmates exonerated in 2013 spent an average of about 12 years in prison. That means in recent years prosecutors and judges became more willing to look into cases more than a decade old.

"This is really a journey into the past — around the turn of the century," Gross explained.

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U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has a perfect track record in insider trading convictions since the government's massive crackdown began in the fall of 2009. 

Today, Bharara, also known as "The Sheriff Of Wall Street", convicted former SAC Capital portfolio manager Mathew Martoma in what the DOJ says is the "most lucrative" insider trading scheme of all time. 

So far, he's 79-0 for convictions.  Of those convicted, 58 have been sentenced, while others are waiting.  What's more is there's still a handful of cases still pending.

Here's a rundown of all the folks he's convicted to date: 

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Here’s a grown-up way to settle a long-standing border dispute

FOR more than a century, Peru’s collective psyche has been scarred by its defeat in the War of the Pacific of 1879-83 and Chile’s subsequent stalling in implementing the terms of a peace treaty. So when Peru’s government asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to redraw the maritime boundary between the two countries, many Peruvians saw a chance to heal wounded national pride.

In its long-awaited ruling on January 27th the court duly awarded Peru control of some 50,000 sq km of ocean but confirmed Chile’s hold over inshore waters rich in fish. The decision was arbitrary but broadly fair--less than Peru had hoped for, but less bad than Chile had feared. It offers both countries a chance to move on from the past, but only after what is likely to be months of wrangling over how to implement the ruling.

The status quo in the Pacific clearly favoured Chile. Although the coast swings northwestward at the border with Peru, forming an elbow, the previous maritime boundary ran due west (see map). Peru claimed that the 1952 treaty from which this boundary derived was merely a fishing agreement. In 2008 it asked the ICJ to rule on a threefold claim: that the boundary should run southwestward, equidistantly between each country’s coast; that it should start at Punta Concordia, where the land border meets the sea, rather than at the first boundary marker (known as Hito 1) located 200 metres inland and slightly farther north; and that Peru should be awarded an "external triangle" of international waters south of the parallel and over 200 miles from the Chilean coast.

The ICJ decided by ten votes to six that in practice Peru had accepted that the parallel (running due west from Hito 1, not Punta Concordia) formed the maritime boundary for the first 80 nautical miles from the coast. Beyond that point, it stipulated a new, equidistant boundary running south-west, as Peru wanted. The two countries must agree exact co-ordinates.

The upshot is to extend Peruvian waters, but only in the high seas. Most of the fish in the disputed waters--mainly Pacific pilchard and mackerel, worth more than $100m a year--will stay in Chilean waters. That was greeted with relief in Chile, whose government feared having to compensate the fishermen of Arica and Iquique for lost catches. Further out to sea, Peru will gain access to some extra swordfish, tuna and giant squid.

Peruvians had come to believe they would win much more. Some were disappointed by what is a largely symbolic victory. But Ollanta Humala, Peru’s president, spoke for many when he said the ruling gave Peru "grounds for satisfaction". Chile’s reaction was more negative. Michelle Bachelet, who takes over as president in March, described the ruling as a "painful loss", although an aide stressed that Chile had lost none of its territorial waters (which extend for 12 nautical miles from the coast). Chilean politicians suggested that as a condition for implementing the agreement Peru should sign the International Convention on the Law of the Sea and accept the line through Hito 1 as its land border as well (losing 350 metres of beach). Peru wants swift implementation.

Many political and business leaders on both sides see the ruling as a chance to set aside the past and to intensify rapidly growing ties. Bilateral trade has grown to over $3 billion a year. Chilean companies, mainly retailers and LAN, the national airline, have invested over $13 billion in Peru. The stock of Peruvian investment in Chile is around $1 billion; more than 200 Peruvian restaurants have opened there, some of them owned by the 158,000 Peruvians who live in Chile. There is scope for more flows of capital: Peru has natural gas that Chile needs, and both countries are members of the Pacific Alliance, a free-trade block formed in 2012.

Others are watching closely. Inspired by Peru’s claim, Bolivia filed a demand at the ICJ in 2013 that Chile negotiate on its claim for sovereign access to the sea, also lost in the War of the Pacific. That claim is unlikely to prosper. But if Peru and Chile co-operate in implementing the judgment, Colombia may come under pressure to soften its refusal to apply an ICJ ruling last year that granted a swathe of Caribbean waters to Nicaragua. How one boundary is redrawn could end up affecting other maps, too.

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Debtors' prisons sound like ancient history, right? Unfortunately, they're all too common across the United States.

In spite of the Constitution, case law, and common sense, low-income people are routinely jailed in places as far-flung as Georgia and Washington State simply because they cannot afford to pay their court fines.

Let's define court fines, because it's kind of shocking. "Court fines" could be as little as a couple hundred bucks because someone was pulled over while driving with an expired license. If you've just been laid off and have kids to feed, it might be hard to find a couple hundred extra bucks in your budget. Well, that can send you to lock up.

Not only does it cost the community quite a bit to jail someone (usually way in excess of the fine), but locking people up can trap them in the vicious cycle of poverty, debt, and incarceration that typifies the modern day debtors' prison. Individuals incarcerated because they can't pay minor court fines have lost their jobs, been evicted from their housing, suffered serious declines in their health, and faced family crises.

Not only are debtors' prisons wildly bad public policy, they are unconstitutional. And yet thousands of people are still beaten down by the justice system simply because they cannot pay their fines.

Today, as a result of ACLU of Ohio advocacy following the release of Outskirts of Hope, our report exposing debtor's prisons in Ohio, the practice has been dealt a major blow in our state. The Ohio Supreme Court released a "bench card" to every state and municipal court judge in Ohio explaining how they must avoid sending people to jail who are too poor to pay their court fines. This bench card is the first of its kind in the nation. It marks an unprecedented move by the Ohio Supreme Court to educate and hold accountable judges who ignore the law. The card provides judges with the legal alternatives to collect payments, and the procedure they must follow to determine a person's ability to pay their court fines.

Ending the debtors' prison cycle can turn lives around. Take the story of Jack Dawley, who had convictions from the early 1990's due to his addiction to drugs and alcohol. In the mid-1990's Jack became sober and tried to get his life back on track. Despite being sober for 14 years and paying what he could on his fines, Jack could not escape debtors' prison. For years, Jack faced the threat of jail every time he fell behind on his payments, or had to miss work at his construction site due to a chronic back injury. Even after Jack had lost his job and his home, his judge still threatened to send him to jail if he did not pay his fines.

Jack had reached his lowest point when he decided to contact the ACLU of Ohio.

As a result of our report and intervention, Jack's life has taken a dramatic turn. Since we released Outskirts of Hope, some Ohio courts even started changing their practices prior to release of the Ohio Supreme Court's bench card. The Supreme Court made it pretty clear that the Judge in Jack's case needed to follow the law and not send Jack to jail because of an inability to pay court fines. I spoke to Jack by phone last night to tell him about the release of the bench card and he was a different man. Jack informed me that he has a job at a fruit packing plant and was recently promoted to a floor supervisor. He saved money and was able to get an apartment, reinstate his drivers' license, and get his car working again. In 10 months, he has gone from no hope and no opportunity to professing, "the sky is the limit."

By taking action today, the Ohio Supreme Court has struck a deep blow against unconstitutional debtors' prisons and restores hope to those trapped by poverty and injustice. It's time the rest of the country did the same.

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SEE ALSO: Exorbitant Probation Fees Put Georgia Man In An Impossible Catch-22

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Rehabs.com has published a series of world clouds that show how people commonly describe their experiences on drugs.

The data comes from trip reports on Erowid.org, a site that collects information about drugs. The number of trip reports for each drug ranged from 900 to more than 3,000.

The size of the word represents how frequently it was used to describe the experience of that drug. Check out the word clouds below:

Cocaine

Heroin

MDMA (Also known as "ecstasy" or "Molly")

Meth

Mushrooms

LSD

SEE ALSO: 15 Maps That Show How Americans Use Drugs

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