At least 20 states have laws against lying on the campaign trail.
So why do so many candidates get away with it?
In Ohio, which is one of those 20 states, a prosecutor can't bring charges against a candidate unless a complaint is filed with the state's election commission, The Plain Dealer reported last week.
And that commission hasn't referred one false statement case to a county prosecutor in a decade.
"We don't just want to do it willy-nilly," Ohio Elections Commission Executive Director Philip Richter said. "Prosecutors have a very difficult job and should be prosecuting criminals, not chasing after false statements in campaign materials in our opinion, unless it's particularly egregious."
Voters in Washington, Colorado, and Oregon will decide Tuesday whether to legalize recreational pot use.
Just in time for that vote, a respected Mexican think tank found that legalizing pot in those states would cut Mexican drug lords' profits by as much as 30 percent.
That's a huge blow considering that cartels makes nearly $6 billion a year from drug trafficking, according to the RAND Corporation, the Associated Press reports.
But opponents to legalizing pot say that drug cartels could just set up business fronts in the U.S. states that have legalized marijuana and make up for their lost profits that way — this time, legally.
Tory Burch's legal battle with her ex-husband, Christopher, is the talk of the fashion world.
The beef between the Burches is over him trying to sell his stake in her $2 billion fashion brand and her saying that his company, C. Wonder, copied her eponymous brand.
But Tory just landed herself a powerful public ally: Vogue editor Anna Wintour.
"The person who has been at every single appointment over the years is Tory," said Wintour. "Tory is the one who has always talked to us about her aspirations, and her ideas for growth, how she saw the brand, asked advice on people she might want to bring in—it’s always been, as far as we’re concerned, 100 percent Tory’s business, and we’ve never had anything to do with Chris."
Vanity Fair paints a picture in which Christopher haunts Tory, and she and her staff "cringe" whenever he shows up.
Christopher invested $2 million into Tory's company eight years ago. Since then, she's built a $2 billion empire.
"He is said to pop into their orbit, even showing up at corporate gatherings and saying crazy stuff, like calling himself CEO of the company, but CEO is Tory's title," a business associate told Vanity Fair.
At the bottom of the dispute is jealousy, according to Grigoriadis:
“Chris wants to stay involved in Tory’s life, because that’s who he is,” says an industry veteran. “He sees this as [having] power over her. He’s mad as hell that she’s as successful and powerful as she is.”
The back of a skull, mouth open, and attached spine and rib cage were found inside a tree upended by Hurricane Sandy earlier this week.
Investigators have now revealed the bones came from two people. They also found a hand-wrought iron coffin nail from the 18th century, the New Haven Independent reported Wednesday.
The newest find backs up theories the area the tree was once a mass burial site for smallpox victims.
"Sometimes, at dead of night, apart from others, the victims of small-pox were fearfully laid here,” a 1897 collection of city history claimed, according to CT Health Central.
Officials told the Independent even more remains might still be waiting to be discovered.
Obama doesn't talk about the court because he wants the president and Congress to have more power than the justices.
And Romney has basically nothing to gain from talking about the Supreme Court, Epps said.
Romney can't extol the virtues of John Roberts -- whose Obamacare ruling infuriated conservatives -- nor can he alienate women by mentioning future nominees who would destroy Roe v. Wade.
Still, the Supreme Court played a pretty big role in the Republican primary.
But Greenhouse says the Supreme Court became more politicized in the minds of most Americans when it issued its June health care ruling, which came after most of the Republican primaries.
After the court upheld most of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats viewed the justices much more favorably than they had before the ruling. The Obamacare ruling had the opposite effect on Republicans, Greenhouse reported, citing a study to be published next year.
"In the face of such polarization, political strategists might well question whether talking about the Supreme Court, with all its inherent risks, is worth the candidates' time," Greenhouse wrote.
Why would New Yorkers want to cancel Sunday's revenue-generating, city-unifying New York City Marathon? Oh yeah, there are still people homeless in Queens and Staten Island. For now, the New York Marathon is a go, and it seems to be the only thing running uninterrupted in a city which Sandy has strangled.
There's an awful lot of small businesses that depend on these people. We have to have an economy. There's lots of people that have come here. It's a great event for New York, and I think for those who were lost, you've got to believe they would want us to have an economy and have a city go on for those that they left behind.
We're not going to pretend that we know the beliefs of those 30 New Yorkers who we lost. But what we can show you are why some New Yorkers think that going ahead and running this marathon is a very, very bad idea.
1. The NYPD and FDNY Should Be in Disaster Zones, Not Watching People Run Around the City
"Just reached out to contact in Mayor's Office to state here and now on Wednesday that not one first responder and no resources should be diverted from our community to staff the NYC Marathon," wrote James Oddo, the New York City Council Minority Leader from Staten Island, on his Facebook. And just for reference, Oddo's Facebook is peppered with messages like this:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
2. The NYPD and FDNY Shouldn't Be Observing the Marathon, When There Are Near-Riots in Queens Over the Slow FEMA Response
"Tonight, in Broad Channel, a sliver of land on Jamaica Bay which was hammered by the hurricane, there was a near riot when 280 people arrived for a much anticipated meeting with FEMA representatives, but the reps didn't show up," wrote The Village Voice's Graham Rayman late last night.
3. Resources
"It’s a huge draw on our other resources. None of the boroughs is near up and running," state Senator Liz Kreuger told the New York Times, adding that the race was a "a glaring misstep in the context of so much effective, successful emergency response." Kreuger represents parts of Midtown which is part of the marathon's final leg.
4. Breezy Point
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Photo via: AP
5. There Are Cold and Homeless New Yorkers Who Probably Will Not Be Watching the Marathon
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
6. All These Marathon Runners (around 47,000 showed up last year) Could Be Doing Something Else
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
7. And Remember, You're Only Hearing from the New Yorkers Who Have Electricity and a Cellular Signal
Former Penn State President Graham Spanier has become the latest university official to face charges in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse saga.
Pennsylvania's Attorney General has officially slammed Spanier with one count of perjury, two counts of endangering the welfare of children, two counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of obstructing the administration of law or other governmental function, and one count of criminal conspiracy.
"This is not a mistake, an oversight or a misjudgment," Pennsylvania's State Attorney General Linda Kelly said of the charges. "This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials at Penn State, working to actively conceal the truth, with total disregard to the suffering of children."
When former federal judge and FBI director Louis Freeh independently reviewed whether Penn State officials knew about the abuse claims, Freeh concluded a whole host of Penn State leaders, including Spanier, knew about the abuse but were more concerned with the school's legacy than protecting the victims.
But Spanier, who resigned in the wake of the scandal, quickly fired back saying he "never, ever heard anything about child abuse or sexual abuse or my antennae raised up enough to even suspect that.
Kelly has long suspected Spanier and has said since the Sandusky trial began that the former president hasn't been cleared of any wrongdoing, York Daily Record reported.
Former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley are also facing perjury charges.
And the attorney general's office announced today the two are now facing additional charges, including two counts of endangering the welfare of children, two counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of obstructing the administration of law or other governmental function and one count of criminal conspiracy.
Check out the full Grand Jury presentment, which is full of some pretty damning accusations:
Undercover cops who were investigating corruption allegations against Chicago police are now suing the department for harassment.
FOX Chicago News exclusively reports two unnamed undercover officers are planning to sue the department, alleging "widespread abuse of power inside the city's police force."
From FOX:
The lawsuit claims other officers harassed them for doing their job. Sources told FOX Chicago that the allegations are "explosive."
CPD has a long history of corruption allegations. In September 2009, four former cops were charged with an array of misdeeds including making false arrests, the Chicago Tribune reported at the time.
And earlier this year two officers were arrested for allegedly stealing $5,200 from a someone suspected of transporting drug money, NBC 5 Chicago reported at the time.
Hapless immigrants who tried a novel way of entering the United States -- by driving a car over the US-Mexico border fence on makeshift ramps -- failed when the vehicle got stuck on top.
Two people fled back into Mexico after US border guards spotted the bold attempt to scale the 14-foot (4.3-meter) high fence in the early hours of Tuesday, said the US Custom and Border Patrol agency.
"Agents patrolling in the Imperial Sand Dunes area encountered a silver Jeep Cherokee attempting to drive over the International Boundary fence using a makeshift ramp that was not quite up to the task," said a CBP statement.
"When the vehicle made it to the top of the ramp, it became high-centered.... As agents arrived on scene, two subjects fled into Mexico. After removing the Jeep from the fence, agents seized both the vehicle and the ramps," it added.
US authorities have long battled to contain illegal immigration and smuggling across the southern border with Mexico, and the region is plagued by violence linked to traffickers of drugs and humans.
In 2007 a border patrol agent was killed near the area where the car got stuck on ramps, when he was deliberately struck by a vehicle as he tried to deflate its tires.
Tunnels underneath the border are regularly unearthed, some of them with highly sophisticated equipment and ventilation systems, and entrances typically concealed in warehouses or other structures near the frontier.
Under the guise of improving security, Canadian firm McCague Borlack LLP is requiring employees, except for lawyers who spend most of their time out with clients, to swipe their finger every time they leave or enter the office, The Star reported Thursday.
But the real reason for the CIA-esque techniques is because firm hierarchy is trying to dissuade people from taking long lunches.
“Some people were abusing the system,” founding partner Howard Borlack told The Star. “We had people taking two to three hours for lunch and we had no way of knowing. . . . Some people were complaining."
But, Borlack added, the scanners, which are expected to hit around mid-November, will also improve firm security.
But support staff isn't happy and won't submit to the scan without a fight.
Secretarial and copyroom staff, who are mad the new policy exempts attorneys, have launched the Finger Campaign, claiming lawyers at the firm "deserve the finger," Above The Law reported Thursday.
Over the 2011-12 period, Oxy's 71-year-old counsel gave a total of $40,800 in political contributions, spreading his largess across the board, according to Corporate Counsel magazine.
While almost 75 percent went to the Republican National Committee, de Brier still gave $5,000 each to Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, both Democrats from California.
The RNC received $30,800, but for undisclosed reasons, de Brier's $2,500 donation to Mitt Romney was refunded, according to Corporate Counsel.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Two truckloads of walnuts, worth around $300,000 in total, have gone missing out of Northern California, and local deputies are after a man with a Russian accent who they say is the prime suspect.
Sheriff's deputies in Tehama County, an area noted for its walnut orchards, got a call from a freight brokerage firm on Oct. 26, reporting that a shipment of 42,000 pounds (19,050 kilograms) of unprocessed walnuts was still unaccounted for two days after it was scheduled to arrive in Miami, according to the Record Searchlight of Redding, Calif.
While deputies searched for the missing cargo, they found out that another shipment of 40,000 pounds (18,144 kg) of processed walnuts, also originating from Tehama County and supposedly headed for San Antonio, had gone missing after being picked up on Oct. 23.
In both cases, the man who showed up with a semi truck and a legitimate-looking purchase order was described as a 6-foot-2, 198-pound (90 kg) white male with a "very distinct Russian accent," said Lt. Dave Greer of the Tehama County Sheriff's Office.
The 40,000-pound load of processed walnuts is valued at $225,000 and the 42,000-pound load of unprocessed walnuts is worth about $73,000, Greer told Life's Little Mysteries.
The trucking company contracted to ship the walnuts to San Antonio confirmed that the man with the Russian accent was not the man who was hired to do the job, despite the fact that he reportedly had convincing purchase orders.
The man is believed to have used a white semi truck with a decal on the passenger door that reads "InTech Transportation" in both alleged walnut thefts, Greer said.
Though the recent heists may seem bizarre, cargo theft is a common and costly problem in the United States.
According to the website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the crime costs the United States around $30 billion annually. And a recent report from CargoNet, a cargo theft-monitoring network connected with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, found that the crime happens in California nearly twice as often as in any other part of the country. The most frequently stolen item, says the report, is food.
Why the alleged thief targeted walnuts is yet unknown, but the tree nuts seem to be a versatile food. They have nearly twice as many antioxidants as other commonly consumed nuts, according to researchers at the University of Scranton, and a recent study, partially funded by the California Walnut Commission, found they may improve sperm quality.
In America, the Supreme Court is known for its lengthy oral arguments.
Lawyers for both sides can spend hours arguing the merits of their case, which becomes a costly time suck for all involved.
But, not in the European Union.
Things are about to get a whole lot quieter in courts across the pond.
The European Court of Justice began enforcing new rules Wednesday that require lawyers to show why oral arguments are actually necessary before they're allowed to speak in court, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Thursday.
The court is facing an unprecedented backlog of cases. It took on 688 new cases last year, about 100 more than it was hearing five years ago. The EU's top court hopes the new rule will speed things up, according to Bloomberg.
But some lawyers worry these new rules will curb the justice actually being done in court.
“It’s better to hear the concerns of your judge during a hearing and have an opportunity to explain things than discovering in the judgment that there was a misunderstanding,” Brussels-based lawyer Denis Waelbroeck told Bloomberg.
Another lawyer said the top court is ditching the most important part of the case.
“Speaking as a common lawyer, a hearing is the most crucial part of the process,” London-based lawyer Robert O’Donoghue said. “Looking at the papers cold only gets one so far.”
Judicial primary elections are the only ones that matter in Indiana's largest county and voters basically get no say in the general elections.
Or at least, that's what Common Cause, an open government group, and the American Civil Liberties Union claim in a lawsuit filed Thursday against the Indiana Secretary of State.
In Marion County, Ind., 20 of the 36 superior-court judges are up for re-election but all 20 of them will run unopposed, which is required by Indiana state law, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported.
The ACLU explains the state's unusual voting process and why the organization has such a problem with it:
Under Indiana law, each of the major political parties conducts a primary election at which it selects exactly half of the seats to be filled, which renders the general election a mere formality. Voters in Marion County who do not cast a ballot in the primary election, therefore, have absolutely no say in electing judges to the Marion Superior Court. This process means that even people who do vote in the primary election have a say in only half of the judgeships to be filled.
Basically, "in Marion County, you’re given half a vote at the time of the primary election, and essentially nothing at the time of the general election," ACLU of Indiana Director Ken Falk told Law Blog.
It also said Apple had to post the statement on its website. Well, Apple posted the statement on its website, but it was not clarifying at all. In fact, if you read it, you'd still think Samsung ripped off Apple.
So, Apple was told to take down the statement, which it has.
It modified the statement, and is now running it in some UK newspapers, which you can see here, via The Next Web.
The statement from Apple is just a bunch of legal gobbledygook. There's no way anyone would see this and think, "A ha, Samsung didn't rip off Apple!"
Montreal's embattled mayor abruptly canceled his public appearances, packed his bags and went on leave Thursday after a witness at a corruption inquiry linked him to illegal party finance activity.
Mayor Gerald Tremblay "has decided to take a few days off to rest. He'll be back at city hall on Monday," his spokeswoman Martine Painchaud said on Twitter.
Meanwhile broadcaster TVA showed Tremblay and his wife loading luggage from their home into his car.
Witnesses told the commission headed by Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau that the mayor's political party received kickbacks from construction in Canada's second largest city. The commission also heard that the mayor was aware of illegal party spending.
The mayor has acknowledged "corruption" and "collusion" at city hall in the awarding of public contracts, but steadfastly denied any involvement or knowing about any specifics.
On Tuesday he angrily rejected renewed calls for his resignation, telling reporters: "I'm not going to hide, I'm here, I'm not sick, I will continue to manage the city."
The Charbonneau commission is investigating alleged graft, bid-rigging and kickbacks in the awarding of government construction contracts across Quebec.
The probe was launched after a leaked report by an anti-graft police unit pointed to evidence that construction companies were banding together to keep prices high -- and possibly had links to organized crime.
Tremblay was first elected in 2001 and his current mandate ends next year.
The Chinese government will embark upon a new program early next year in order to create, implement and streamline a new national organ donation system. Currently, China heavily relies on the harvested organs of executed criminals to supply transplant patients.
"While we cannot deny the executed prisoner’s right to donate organs, an organ transplantation system relying on death-row prisoners’ organs is not ethical or sustainable," Wang Haibo, the director of the China Organ Transplant Response System Research Center of the Ministry of Health, told the WHO in an interview.
According to ministry statistics, 1.5 millionpeople on the Chinese mainland needorgantransplantseachyear, butonly 10,000 receive them due to short supply. Wang was appointed last year by China's health ministry to design a system which allocates organs to patients in need, according to Al Jazeera.
"Now there is consensus among China’s transplant community that the new system will relinquish the reliance on organs from executed convicts," Wang added. "The implementation of the new national system will start early next year at the latest. This will also mark the start of phasing out the old practice."
The Red Cross Society of China has been commissioned by the Chinese Ministry of Health to both run the organ donation system and act as a legal watchdog.
ProPublica recently took a look at how frequently President Barack Obama grants pardons to the nation's six million inmates, and the findings are pretty shocking.
During his nearly four years in the White House, Obama pardoned just 22 people and denied 1,019 applications.
From ProPublica:
He has given pardons to roughly 1 of every 50 individuals whose applications were processed by the Justice Department. At this point in his presidency, Ronald Reagan had pardoned 1 of every 3 such applicants. George H.W. Bush had pardoned 1 in 16. Bill Clinton had pardoned 1 in 8. George W. Bush had pardoned 1 in 33.
The same can be said of applications for early release from federal prison.
Felons asking Obama for early release stand a less than 1 in 5,000 chance of receiving a commutation. By contrast, applicants who applied to Reagan or President Bill Clinton stood a 1 in 100 chance of success.
"This idea of 'tough on crime' took root around the time of Ronald Reagan and it is striking that President Obama is showing so much less mercy than Reagan," American University political science professor Jeffrey Crouch told ProPublica.
Glamour magazine's "Women of The Year" has come out and there's a familiar to us face on the list — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The woman who fought against sexually discriminatory laws in Oklahoma among other things is admired by other justices for her ability to be persuasive.
"She does it quietly, but she's very effective," Ginsburg's closest friend on the court, Justice Antonin Scalia, says of her.
America has been shaped by her actions in everything from health care reform to women's Social Security benefits, Glamour writes.
“I’m struck by how much she transcends her diminutive physical stature. She’s a giant up there," Rachel Maddow told Glamour.