We were in Harlem, looking for an apartment, when we ran headlong into evidence of the New York City drug game.

The broker met up with us outside an apartment complex. He had a trainee with him. The trainee was rather soft spoken, clean cut and nondescript, but the broker was this jumpy, excitable character, a Brooklyn-born Italian, and the type of guy who shakes your hand with two hands, and says stuff about Harlem like, "This area is really ... you know ... conducive," (emphasis on the 'D').

Inside the building the first available elevator was packed. Showing his lack of experience, the trainee squeezed in and then looked back at us. The three of us didn't even make a move.

"It's alright, we'll meet you up there," says the broker. Then as the doors shut completely, he continued, "Hey, and make sure the door is open! Call me if it's not open!"

We caught the next elevator and headed up.

Once inside the apartment it didn't take a detective to figure out someone left in a hurry. The whole place seemed as if it was left as is. Stereo equipment was not only left in place, it was still on. Hip-Hop music played at elevator levels through an obviously very expensive surround sound system.

On the far wall there was an HD-digital projector, mounted above two used and abused leather couches. There was a half-eaten meal sitting in styrofoam on the table; beside it sat an unused razor blade. 

"You turn on the music?" I asked the trainee.

"Nah, man."

Back near the bedrooms was the big reveal. The smell lingered right beyond the rust-colored sheet that hung from the hallway ceiling—the smell of a formerly gigantic pot operation.

Inside the biggest "bedroom" was about a dozen large plant pots, big stems cut, but soil left in place. The window was jerry-rigged with two-by-fours and duck tape so that no light would enter. The ceiling had multiple screws in it, for the lights and hydroponics equipment left lying piled on the floor. The guy even left five pairs of brand new shoes in the closet.

The light switch in other bedroom didn't work and the room also had a non-window. It did have some sort of ventilation system attached to the wall.

Back out in the living room we just sat, somewhat in disbelief. One sofa faced the projector screen while the other faced a Godfather poster that hung over the kitchen table.

"I can't take pictures of this," the broker said. "We'd need the landlord to get all the stuff out of here."

We concluded the former occupant probably left in a hurry. That's when we really started to look around. Most of what was in the black plastic garbage bags in the closet was electronic hydroponic equipment.

"Efficient watering system for extra huge harvests!" Exclaimed one unopened box.

We didn't rent the place. We didn't take any photos either.

We're kicking ourselves now (about the photos), but at the time it all just seemed too bizarre. Even the fast-talking broker, born and raised in Queens, was at a loss for words.

SEE ALSO: 16 Maps Of Drug Flow Into The United States > 

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A year ago, Tonya Cooley filed a lawsuit against MTV claiming she was sexually abused by her cast mates during the Thailand season of "The Real World/Road World Challenge: The Ruins."

Cooley, who originally appeared on "Real World: Chicago" in 2002, alleged that two other contestants raped her with a toothbrush, and says she was a victim of repeated acts of sexual abuse throughout production.

But MTV didn't buy Cooley's claims, and the network countered that Cooley failed to take advantage of its "open-door policy with complaint procedures."

MTV, along with parent company Viacom and production company Bunim-Murray, drove home their point by stating, according to Viacom's papers:

"In addition to failing to avail herself of VMN's policies and complaint procedures, Plaintiff failed to avoid the injuries of which she complains. For example, while she was a contestant on The Ruins, Plaintiff was frequently intoxicated (to an extent far greater than other contestants), rowdy, combative, flirtatious and on multiple occasions intentionally exposed her bare breasts and genitalia to other contestants."

Cooley, who went on to pose for Playboy and appeared in an episode of the Cinemax adult series "The Erotic Traveler," insisted that her antics were the result of producers supplying contestants with unlimited alcoholic beverages, further encouraging scandalous behavior.

And now, a year after Cooley initially filed the complaint, the reality TV contestent and Viacom/Bunim Murray Productions "have informed the judge that the dispute has been resolved and have asked for a stay for time to effectuate the resolution," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Details of the settlement have not been made public.

SEE ALSO: 17 actors in tiny background roles before they were famous >

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This is simply an unspeakable tragedy.

From New York Post:

A mother returned home to her luxury Upper West Side apartment on Thursday evening to find two of her children, a 2-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl, fatally stabbed in a bathtub by the family’s nanny, the authorities said. The nanny herself lay on the floor, near a bloody knife, with an apparently self-inflicted slash to her own throat.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the mother, Marina Krim, had left her apartment a block from Central Park at 57 West 75th Street to take one of her children, a 3-year-old girl, to a swimming lesson. The two other children were left with the nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, 50.

According to the report, the screams could be heard throughout the building when the mother came in to find the children.

The father of the children, Kevin Krim, is the head of digital for CNBC.

The New York Post has more.

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The New York Police Department officer arrested yesterday on charges he planned to kidnap and cook at least 100 women, bragged about his manners and charm in an online dating profile.

Gilberto Valle, 28, claimed he was a "true gentleman" and bragged that "chivalry is huge with me" on his online dating profiles, DNAinfo.com reported Thursday.

In addition to writing about his love of Italian and Mexican foods and Dr. Seuss' popular book "Green Eggs and Ham," Valle said he often thinks about "the past day at work and how screwed up people are."

While Valle's neighbors told DNAinfo.com they were surprised at his arrest, a former classmate at the University of Maryland told Metro New York she wasn't shocked.

"I'm floored, but somewhat unsurprised. He just came off kind of hostile, but in a joking way. In retrospect, I can see how it was a mask for deeper issues," Janel Quarless said, adding that Valle often made misogynistic jokes and played up "the stereotype about the angry New Yorker."

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Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent "a clear and present threat". Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states.

"The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans."

Sources said the US had yet to make a formal request to the British government, and that they did not believe an acceleration towards conflict was imminent or more likely. The discussions so far had been to scope out the British position, they said.

"But I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise."

The situation reflects the lack of appetite within Whitehall for the UK to be drawn into any conflict, though the Royal Navy has a large presence in the Gulf in case the ongoing diplomatic efforts fail.

The navy has up to 10 ships in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine. Its counter-mine vessels are on permanent rotation to help ensure that the strategically important shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz remain open.

The Guardian has been told that a British military delegation with a strong navy contingent flew to US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, earlier this summer to run through a range of contingency plans with US planners.

The UK, however, has assumed that it would only become involved once a conflict had already begun, and has been reluctant to commit overt support to Washington in the buildup to any military action.

"It is quite likely that if the Israelis decided to attack Iran, or the Americans felt they had to do it for the Israelis or in support of them, the UK would not be told beforehand," said the source. "In some respects, the UK government would prefer it that way."

British and US diplomats insisted that the two countries regarded a diplomatic solution as the priority. But this depends on the White House being able to restrain Israel, which is nervous that Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant will soon make its nuclear programme immune to any outside attempts to stop it.

Israel has a less developed strike capability and its window for action against Iran will close much more quickly than that of the US, explained another official. "The key to holding back Israel is Israeli confidence that the US will deal with Iran when the moment is right."

With diplomatic efforts stalled by the US presidential election campaign, a new push to resolve the crisis will begin in late November or December.

Six global powers will spearhead a drive which is likely to involve an offer to lift some of the sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy in return for Tehran limiting its stockpile of enriched uranium.

The countries involved are the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. Iran will be represented by its chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "As we continue to make clear, the government does not believe military action against Iran is the right course of action at this time, although no option is off the table. We believe that the twin-track approach of pressure through sanctions, which are having an impact, and engagement with Iran is the best way to resolve the nuclear issue. We are not going to speculate about scenarios in which military action would be legal. That would depend on the circumstances at the time."

The Foreign Office said it would not disclose whether the attorney general's advice has been sought on any specific issue.

A US state department official said: "The US and the UK co-ordinate on all kinds of subjects all the time, on a huge range of issues. We never speak on the record about these types of conversations."

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned at the UN general assembly last month that Iran's nuclear programme would reach Israel's "red line" by "next spring, at most by next summer", implying that Israel might then take military action in an attempt to destroy nuclear sites and set back the programme.

That red line, which Netanyahu illustrated at the UN with a marker pen on a picture of a bomb, is defined by Iranian progress in making uranium enriched to 20%, which would be much easier than uranium enriched to 5% to turn into weapons-grade material, should Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, take the strategic decision to abandon Iran's observance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and try to make a weapon. Tehran insists it has no such intention.

In August, the most senior US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, distanced himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran. He said such an attack would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme".

He added: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."

SEE ALSO: Lobbyist Says Israel Should Create A 'False Flag' To Start A War With Iran >

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The Justice Department is taking a stand against an educational policy in Mississippi that incarcerates kids for just being kids.

The department says in its lawsuit that officials in the city of Meridian and Lauderdale County "routinely arrest students without determining whether there is probable cause when a school wants to press charges, and the students are routinely jailed," The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Students get in trouble for such minor offenses as wearing the wrong color socks, flatulence in class, and swearing.

But this startling program, dubbed the "school-to-prison pipeline," doesn't seem confined to the deep south.

The American Civil Liberties Union has long been fighting what it calls the "national trend of criminalizing, rather than educating, our nation’s children."

Here's what the ACLU says about the issue:

•  Zero-tolerance policies impose severe discipline on students without regard to individual circumstances.  Under these policies, children have been expelled for giving Midol to a classmate, bringing household goods (including a kitchen knife) to school to donate to Goodwill, and bring¬ing scissors to class for an art project.

• Children as young as five years old are being led out of classrooms in handcuffs for acting out or throwing temper tantrums.

•  In a growing number of jurisdictions, struggling students are sent involuntarily to disciplinary alternative schools.  These alternative schools—sometimes run by private, for-profit companies—are not subject to traditional school accountability standards (such as minimum hours and curriculum requirements), and frequently fail to provide meaningful educational services to the students who need them the most.  Some lack even the basics, such as teachers and textbooks, and many do not offer high school diplomas upon graduation. 

And the students most affected by these programs are often the ones that needed the most help to begin with.  Special education students account for 8.6 percent of public school enrollment but 32 percent of juvenile detention inmates, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

DON'T MISS: This Man Had To Learn To Survive In Prison When He Was 11 Years Old >

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Paddling across the border is one way to escape prosecution — at least for a few weeks.

Police finally caught up with 37-year-old Steven Pieczynski on Tuesday in Toronto after he broke out of a Pennsylvania jail about a month ago, The Associated Press reported Friday.

Apparently after escaping from the Bucks, Pa. lockup, Pieczynski reportedly stole an SUV, drove to the border and kayaked across to reach the Canadian shore just north of Niagara Falls.

He was nabbed by Canadian authorities in Toronto after his kayak trip was caught on video.

Pieczynski had been charged with burglary and theft, according to the AP.

He is still being held in Canada, waiting on his immigration hearing and deportation back to the U.S.

SEE ALSO: Airline Forces Stanford Grad To Shut Down His Website Because It Saved People Money >

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CNBC is reporting Paul Ceglia has been arrested by federal agents. 

Ceglia claims he signed a contract with Mark Zuckerberg in 2003 entitling him to large stake in the company.

In its complaint against Ceglia, the Feds accuse him of using the U.S. Postal Service as part of his fraudulent scheme against Facebook. 

The Feds also allege Ceglia's supposed contract with Zuckerberg only dealt with programming work Zuckerberg agreed to do for Ceglia.

From the complaint:

"That contract had nothing to do with Facebook and did not make any reference to Facebook, let alone give Ceglia an interest in it. To support his lawsuit, Ceglia replaced page one of the actual contract with a new page one doctored to make it appear as though Zuckerberg agreed to provide Ceglia with an interest in Facebook; Ceglia manufactured evidence, including purported emails with Zuckerberg, to support his false claim to an interest in Facebook."

As late as this year Ceglia was continuing his fight for that stake by requesting a boatload of documents from Facebook.

However, a New York federal judge shot down his search and issued a protective order to Facebook, claiming Ceglia's requests were "beyond the scope of authorized discovery," Law360 reported at the time.

But October's ruling was just the latest update in Ceglia's seemingly never-ending fight against the social networking giant.

In April of this year he was hit with some pretty heavy sanctions and was ordered to pay an additional $16,851 to Facebook, ZDNet reported at the time. In total, he owed the company $97,617.70 to the company.

He was also arrested in 2009 on four charges of grand larceny after authorities claimed he and his wife failed to deliver wood pellets on time.

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The U.S. Supreme Court is greying. Four justices are older than 70, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is pushing 80.

There's an excellent chance one of these elders will step down in the next four years, and that Mitt Romney or Barack Obama will pick the next justice.

Given this golden opportunity, Romney would pick a Conservative with a strict interpretation of the Constitution in the model of Antonin Scalia, experts say.

"Romney has a real problem with hard-core conservatives," Duke Law professor Neil Siegel told Business Insider, referring to Romney's difficulty getting right-wingers' approval.

Siegel added, "Giving them the justices/judges they want would be an obvious way for him to satisfy them."

1. Brett Kavanaugh

Position: Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit

Age: 47

Conservative credentials: He's a George W. Bush appointee who issued an arguably pro-business, anti-environmentalist opinion recently.

Kavanaugh was criticized this month for issuing an opinion that threw out an EPA rule requiring states to police air pollution drifting in from bordering states.

6. Janice Rogers Brown

Position: Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit

Age: 63

Conservative credentials: Brown, a daughter of Alabama sharecroppers, has argued that liberal values take away citizens' autonomy and create a slave-like state, according to this 2005 New York Times profile.

She also opposes affirmative action and abortion rights.

2. Paul Clement

Position: Partner at the law firm of Bancroft LLP

Age: 46

Conservative credentials: Under George W. Bush, Clement served as solicitor general, a position known as the "10th justice" because the SG argues so many cases before the high court.

Clement resigned from his firm King & Spalding after it withdrew its decision to represent Republicans who were fighting to keep the Defense of Marriage Act in place. He joined Bancroft, which took up the pro-DOMA crusade.

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After two toddlers were allegedly killed by their nanny during her own suicide attempt, Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts extended his condolences publicly on Friday.

The children's father, Kevin Krim, is the head of digital for CNBC. He was on a business trip in San Francisco when the tragedy occurred.

Roberts expressed his condolences at the end of Comcast's earnings call Friday, saying:

"I just want to say on behalf of all of us at CNBC and Comcast and NBCUniversal and many others around the nation how touched and sad we are by this unspeakable act, and that we'll do everything we can to support the family in their awful time. We'll go back to our jobs but have them in our thoughts and prayers."

Comcast and NBCU also released a statement Friday:

"A member of the CNBC family has suffered an unimaginable loss. The sadness that we all feel for Kevin, Marina and their family is without measure. Our thoughts, prayers and unwavering support are with them all."

Krim's wife, Marina Krim, discovered the children covered in blood in the bathtub in their luxury Upper West Side apartment Thursday night after she returned home from their surviving three-year-old's swimming lesson.

Marina had chronicled her children's lives in a live journal titled "LittleMissLucia," the name of her six-year-old daughter who was killed Thursday.

Marina last posted on the site after 2:30 Thursday, just hours before the tragedy.

“Leo speaks in the most adorable way possible,” she wrote. “Firstly, he speaks super clearly, so you can understand every word is he is saying. And he does things like, "(I) want a fresh bagel" and "Dito (what he calls himself) wants cold milk" and most adorable of all, "No thank you" - he never uses "No" alone, it's always paired with "thank you.”

The blog has since been disabled, but some photos of the young family are available on The New York Post.

No charges have been filed yet against the nanny, 50-year-old Yoselyn Ortega.

SEE ALSO: Two Toddlers Allegedly Killed By Nanny In Upper West Side Tragedy >

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An intellectual property lawyer who took the stand last month in his own criminal case and won is accusing the justice system of doing everything it can to find people guilty.

Bryan Brooks was charged with first-degree assault after a 2011 barroom brawl in New York City, which left another man with cuts to his face requiring stitches and staples, according to Above the Law.

In an insightful interview with Above the Law's David Lat, Brooks revealed all that's wrong with the American criminal justice system:

• Many people, especially minorities, cannot afford the "robust defense" his fellow Columbia Law-educated attorney provided Brooks with — he says he ran up a six-figure bill.

• The system is hugely one-sided when it comes to criminal cases. "All the rules favor the prosecution. ... Take the court personnel. Most of them, although certainly not all, treat you like a criminal," he said.

• "The presumption seems to be that you are guilty until proven innocent. That's how it is in the press too," Brooks told Above the Law.

• To this day he says he cannot understand why the prosecution pushed so vehemently for a first-degree assault charge. In a similar case where another lawyer was involved in a fight — where he actually attacked a cab driver — the prosecutors let him plead guilty to a third-degree misdemeanor. 

“At the end of the day, if you can get effective counsel, a fair judge, and a well-educated and open-minded jury, I would venture to say that the system will get it right,” Brooks said. “But not everyone can get those things. I view myself as being very lucky in that regard."

SEE ALSO: Guy Who Claimed He Owned Half Of Facebook Arrested By The FBI >

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The SEC has charged a Silicon Valley executive with tipping off Raj Rajaratnam about a stock short opportunity.

The agency alleges Kris Chellam tipped Rajaratnam in December 2006 with confidential details indicating Xilinx Inc., a programmable device company, would fall short of revenue projections it had previously made publicly. 

The complaint describes Chellam as a "close friend" of Rajaratnam's, adding that at the time of the tip-off he had significant investments in Rajaratnam's Galleon funds and was looking to get hired there.

That eventually happened, in May 2007.

Chellam, who lives in Saratoga, Calif., has agreed to pay more than $1.75 million to settle the SEC’s charges. The settlement is subject to court approval.

Rajaratnam was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

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"Midnight in Paris" won Woody Allen the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay this year, but not everyone was happy with the film.

The estate of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning writer William Faulkner is suing Sony, the film's studio, for copyright infringement after the critically acclaimed film used a quote without permission.

The quote, spoken by Gil Pender, played by Owen Wilson, is from a passage in Faulkner’s "Requiem for a Nun," which reads: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

In the film, Wilson's character says, “The past is not dead! Actually, it's not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner. And he was right. And I met him, too. I ran into him at a dinner party.”

But according to the six-page complaint filed by Faulkner Literary Rights LLC:

“The use of the infringing quote and of William Faulkner’s name in the infringing film is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, and/or to deceive the infringing film's viewers as to a perceived affiliation, connection or association between William Faulkner and his works, on the one hand, and Sony, on the other hand.”

Faulkner Literary Rights LLC. is suing Sony Classics for “damages, disgorgement of profits, costs and attorney fees.”

"Midnight In Paris" was Woody Allen’s highest-grossing film ever, bringing in over $151 million worldwide, though he was not personally named as a defendant.

SEE ALSO: MTV 'Real World' star settles with MTV over rape claims >

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Does an attorney have the right to discuss material facts of a case in the media?

During a nearly three-hour hearing, Forida prosecutors argued they don't, while George Zimmerman's lead attorney Mark O'Mara defended his constant social and traditional media presence.

Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda all-but called Mark O'Mara a media narcissist Friday afternoon in a hearing live streamed on myFOXOrlando when he asked the court to ban O'Mara from continuing to argue the case in the court of public opinion. 

O'Mara not only operates a press website for the case but tweets, updates Facebook often, and regularly meets with reporters to give them news on the case.

Zimmerman, who sat completely still and showed absolutely no emotion during the lengthy hearing, is facing second-degree murder charges in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin

"We feel that there needs to be some way the court should fashion some kind of order to deal with this problem," de la Rionda argued, saying that O'Mara's behavior is essentially bypassing the objectivity of the media — which the state says it feels is completely entitled to report on the case — and plant his own story in the minds of a potential jury pool.

"It's not just the defendant's right to get a fair trial, it's the state's right to get a fair trial," de la Rionda said. Where do we stop? Where do we have the ability for both sides to get a fair trial without commentary by counsel?"

Unsurprisingly, O'Mara took a decidedly different view of the situation.

He encountered such an unprecedented media storm as well as tidal wave of anti-Zimmerman public opinion he said he had to take the revolutionary step of creating a website to battle the misinformation that existed about the case.

About 200,000 people have visited the case's website in the six months it's been in existence and of those, less than one half of one percent are people who live in the area — meaning next to no potential jurors are reading the site, and the case hasn't been compromised, according to O'Mara.

Attorneys for various media outlets, including The Orlando Sentinel, also opposed the state's request for a gag order.

Judge Debra Nelson is expected to issue a decision about the gag order on Monday.

O'Mara also continued his argument the state hasn't been transparent with its evidence and isn't sharing everything it has.

The state claims it has followed the rules of discovery to a T, but the court said if O'Mara is still unsatisfied he can draft a court order compelling the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to turn over whatever he thinks is missing.

DON'T MISS: Guy Who Claimed He Owned Half Of Facebook Arrested By The FBI >

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In its Week in Review, the TSA blog ran down the list of all the weapons it confiscated from passengers during security screenings in the past seven days.

Of 42 guns found, 38 were loaded.

Someone tried to bring a throwing star onto a plane; another passenger had a "wheel of pain" (pictured below).

The TSA review included a few choice quotes, likely born of frustration or unwise jokes:

• After his request to have his checked bags removed from the aircraft was denied, a passenger became upset and stated that “the airline did not know if he had a bomb in his bag.”
• A passenger at Las Vegas (LAS) became upset while his son’s bag was being searched and stated: “There is a bomb in there.”

TSA officers also discovered nine stun guns, several replica grenades, and a novelty grenade filled with "a green leafy substance." The author noted: "We're not looking for drugs, but you can guarantee the odds are in our favor of finding them if they're stuffed in a grenade."

SEE MORE: 10 Ways To Get Through Airport Security Faster Than Ever

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BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts' top securities regulator said on Friday that his office is looking into whether top Wall Street investment banks in addition to Citigroup have leaked research in violation of state law on how to share this kind of information.

"We are looking at all of them, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan," regulator William Galvin said in a telephone interview about the probe. "It is a very active investigation," Galvin said, declining to give more information about what kind of charges may be made.

Earlier on Friday, Galvin's office said it has won a $2 million settlement with Citigroup after two of its analysts doled out information about top technology companies to a small number of journalists. Citi fired Mark Mahaney, the senior analyst in the case, and an unnamed junior analyst in the wake of the Massachusetts probe.

Galvin's office said Citi's junior analyst passed on some of the bank's confidential financial forecasts about Facebook while the senior analyst passed on confidential information about Google unit YouTube. Galvin said the Citi case was concluded first because his investigators were able to find emails to prove the information was discussed improperly.

"This is a recurring theme. The banks promise there is a firewall between research and marketing, that they will observe the quiet period, but that is clearly not the case," Galvin said.

He said he is pursuing the investigation nearly a decade after big banks reached a global settlement on research to make sure that investors are protected. "This is about not having two sets of rules one for preferred clients and one for everyone else," Galvin said.

Galvin has a reputation for acting quickly on issues where federal regulators may be slower to move in. "Mr. Galvin is very aggressive, and, in fairness, does a great job in upholding the law in Massachusetts," said Anthony Sabino, a business professor at St. John's University.

He also said there may be more to come on how the banks treated clients.

"Keep in mind this is but a preview of the ongoing shareholder litigation, regulatory investigations, and so on trying to find out what went wrong with the Facebook IPO."

(Reporting By Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Steve Orlofsky)

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Richard Herman, 53, was so upset with firms phoning him up and trying to sell him goods and services he decided to charge them for the time they took out of his day.

He recorded the calls and then sent an invoice charging £10 for every minute he spent on the phone.

When they refused to pay up he sued them at the small claims court and won.

The marketing company AAC agreed to pay the full £195 for 19-and-a-half minutes of calls, plus a £25 court fee.

Mr Herman told the Daily Mail: "I was feeling oppressed that I was getting called by these companies.

"Once I sent the company the invoice, I felt as though the boot was on the other foot. I wasn’t the victim any more."

The victory could open the floodgates to further claims from the millions of home owners plagued by similar unwanted calls.

Mr Herman is urging others targeted by cold-callers to follow his example.

The nuisance calls tried to convince Mr Herman that they can secure thousands of pounds in refunds of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), insurance supposed to cover debts if you fall ill or cannot work.

They tried to get hold of his personal details then pass them companies desperate to grab a share of a £9 billion compensation pot made available after Britain’s banks were found to have routinely mis-sold PPI.

The claims firms typically take a third of the compensation paid out.

This means they stand to make £80 million this year from a record 165,000 complaints about PPI.

Mr Herman, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, described the disruption caused to him and wife Ruth, 67, as they rushed to answer the phone so as not to miss a chat with friends or their three grown-up children.

Mr Herman said: "Once I was out in the garden eating and picking raspberries and had the telephone with me in case the children called.

"I was sat in the sun enjoying myself but one of these blasted companies called me – it was infuriating.

"We’re all busy rushing around all day long, so when we snatch four minutes by ourselves for a bit of peace and quiet, the last thing you want is to be intruded upon by these irrelevant companies."

The marketing firm AAC, which made the call on PPI’s behalf, settled Mr Herman’s claim on September 14 before the case appeared before a judge.

Mr Herman has now set up a website – www.saynotocoldcalls.com – to help other victims.

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Inspectors found "greenish-black foreign matter" in vials of supposedly sterile steroids meant for back pain injections at the Massachusetts company under investigation in connection with the nation's meningitis outbreak, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

"We call this 'overgrowth,' when they are very visible to the naked eye," said Steven Lynn, director of FDA's office of compliance at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

The vials were observed at the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass. The center is at the forefront of the FDA investigation into the meningitis outbreak, which has so far killed 25 people and sickened 338. An estimated 14,000 people are believed to have gotten tainted shots.

Investigators reviewed materials at the compounding center and saw 83 vials out of a bin of 331 containing the steroid implicated in the outbreak. These 83 vials contained "what appeared to be a greenish-black foreign matter," an FDA report said. Seventeen of those vials "were observed to contain what appeared to be white filamentous material."

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The firm's own environmental monitoring program showed bacteria and mold in two clean rooms at the production facility, the FDA reported. Clean rooms are specially designed to have low levels of contamination and keep out dust, airborne microbes and other particles. One way this is done is to filter air through air conditioning and filtering.

Staff reported to FDA that the firm shut off the air conditioning in the clean room every night from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.

Although a sample taken by the firm to confirm that its product was sterile gave a sterile result, FDA analysis of the vials "confirmed the presence of viable microbial growth in 50" out of 50 vials tested.

NECC workshops stated that the raw materials they used were sterile. However, the NECC director of pharmacy told FDA inspectors that the firm used non-sterile active pharmaceutical ingredients to make injectable drugs, such as those linked to the outbreak.

The firm also had no documentation or evidence to support that its steam autoclave cycle, a machine used to sterilize drugs, was effective.

The inspection report released Friday is "a snapshot in time" and does not necessarily indicate ongoing conditions at the NECC production facility, Lynn said.

However, Paul Teitell, with FDA's Office of Regulatory Affairs, said that drug manufacturers have the responsibility to put out safe drugs and to have processes in place to ensure that breakdowns are caught.

"It's shocking" but not surprising given the level of regulation over this type of compounding pharmacy, said Victoria Richards, a professor of pharmacology at the school of medicine at Quinnipiac University in North Haven, Conn.

The company's own environmental monitoring program found bacteria and mold in two of its clean rooms at least 79 times between January and September, the FDA said. This included areas where sterile gowns, booties and other clothing were kept and a bin that held tamper-evidence caps.

The results were not investigated, and the firm did not identify the bacteria or molds found growing in its clean rooms, the FDA report said. No product-impact assessments were done for any of the sterile products made on the days the samples were taken.

"In addition, the firm has no evidence that any corrective actions were taken to prevent contamination of the sterile drug products," the FDA report said.

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There's no denying it – Chicago became one of America's deadliest cities this year.

The city is on track to record more than 433 homicides — the total for all of 2011, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Currently, the Windy City has recorded about 100 more homicides than New York City and 200 more than L.A.

This interactive map by The Chicago Sun-Times is a pretty graphic, and shocking, display of all the shootings that have ravaged Chicago this year.

For the following slideshow, we focused on the shootings that happened this summer.

We've compiled accounts of some of the most horrifying crimes that have gripped the city so far this year.

All intersections and locations are approximate.

JUNE 17: A man shot three people sitting on a porch in the 2300 block of North Laramie Avenue.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times and CBS Chicago

JUNE 24: Hansen Jackson was shot in the chest in the 3700 block of West Chicago Avenue.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Sun-Times

JULY 1: A 19-year-old man was shot to death in a vacant lot in the 4100 block of West Van Buren Street.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times and ABC 7 News

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OJ Simpson

The beneficiary of one of history’s most famous not-guilty verdicts saw his legal luck run out after a 2007 armed robbery in Las Vegas.

Simpson was convicted on 10 charges related to an attempt to regain some of his sports memorabilia, and he’s currently serving a 33-year sentence in Nevada’s Lovelock Correctional Center.

Here’s how life shook out for a few other acquitted defendants in high-profile trials.

Lizzie Borden

Although 32-year-old Lizzie Borden was never convicted of the 1892 ax murder of her father and stepmother, her highly publicized trial followed her for the remaining 34 years of her life.

Borden became close friends with actress Nance O’Neill, but she lived out the rest of her life as a recluse.

Although Borden remained largely out of public sight, mourners at her 1927 funeral remembered her as a quiet source of charitable donations. Her will certainly demonstrated her charitable streak; the largest earmark from her substantial estate was a $30,000 donation to the local Animal Rescue League.

Fatty Arbuckle

Silent film actor and comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was one of the biggest stars in the medium’s early days, but his career flew off the rails in 1921. Actress Virginia Rappe fell ill at a party thrown by Arbuckle and died several days later, and the rotund funnyman found himself facing accusations of raping and killing the young woman. Arbuckle weathered two mistrials for manslaughter before being found not guilty in a third trial.

The trial may have legally cleared Arbuckle’s name, but the scandal all but destroyed his Hollywood career. Hollywood briefly blacklisted Arbuckle entirely, but even after the ban was ostensibly lifted he couldn’t find work. Meanwhile, his existing films were rarely shown. (Many prints of Arbuckle’s films have been lost.)

Arbuckle eventually found work directing comedy shorts under a pseudonym before making an acting comeback with Warner Brothers in 1932. In 1933 he signed a contract to make a new feature film, but he died in his sleep the very same night.

Sam Sheppard

Sheppard, a Cleveland-area physician, was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife in their suburban home. Sheppard spent nearly a decade behind bars before a 1966 retrial acquitted him.

After a brief attempt to return to medicine following his release from prison, Sheppard found an unlikely second career as a professional wrestler who went by the name The Killer before his death in 1970.

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