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The Supreme Court Is Going To Decide If Cops Can Collect DNA Without A Warrant

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swab

The Supreme Court has decided to review a case involving when the police can take a DNA sample from a suspect, SCOTUS Blog reports.

The case, King v. Marylandinvolves whether it violates the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure for police take a DNA sample after an arrest when the individual has not yet been convicted of a crime.

At least 21 states and the federal government have regulations requiring suspects to give a DNA sample upon arrest. The saliva samples are then cataloged in crime databases.

Chief Justice John Roberts has blocked a ruling by Maryland’s highest court that barred the collection of genetic material from criminal suspects without a warrant on the basis that arrestees have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

David Kravets of Wired notes that while Maryland prosecutors had argued that the mouth swab was no more intrusive than fingerprinting, the court countered that DNA samples are a “vast genetic treasure map” that provide much more information than basic identification.

In the case at hand, Alonzo King was linked to an unsolved 2003 rape conviction by a DNA sample he gave when arrested in 2009 on assault charges. He was convicted of the sex crime, but the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed on the basis that his Fourth Amendment rights were breached.

SEE ALSO: Two Supreme Court Cases About Drug Dogs May Profoundly Impact Americans' Privacy >

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Woman Alleges Waffle House CEO Demanded Sex Acts

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waffle houseWoman claims Waffle House CEO required her to perform sex acts. Lawyer: CEO's story differs

A former female employee has filed a police complaint alleging the CEO of Waffle House demanded she perform sexual acts on him in exchange for keeping her job.

The woman told Atlanta police the alleged harassment by Joseph Rogers Jr. lasted for nearly 10 years, from 2003 through June of this year. The Associated Press does not identify alleged victims of sexual harassment.

David Cohen, who identified himself as a lawyer representing the woman, told the AP that the man cited in the police report is the CEO of Waffle House, a company based in metro Atlanta. And the home address given for Rogers in the police report matches that listed on the Federal Election Commission's website alongside donations the CEO made to unsuccessful presidential candidate Mitt Romney in June 2011 and May of this year.

Police would not confirm that the Joseph Rogers Jr. cited in their report is the CEO. They said Thursday that they are investigating the allegations, but no charges have been filed. A lawyer for Rogers did not return a telephone call and email from the AP on Thursday.

The police report quotes the woman as saying that Rogers tried to force her to have sex with him despite her repeated protests. She said that he also touched her breasts, tried to remove her clothes, made lewd comments, and insisted she perform sex acts on him at least once or twice a month. The woman, who identified herself as a single mother, told police she stayed in the job and endured the alleged harassment because she couldn't find other employment with comparable pay. She said she gave Rogers a letter of resignation in June after her son secured a full college scholarship.

The woman filed her complaint after walking into an Atlanta police precinct about midnight on Sept. 28, according to the police report. Cohen said he couldn't comment further on the case because of a judge's order.

The Marietta Daily Journal reported that Rogers sued the woman in Cobb County Superior Court on Sept. 14, but that the documents had been sealed and both sides agreed not to speak to the news media. The newspaper added that the woman filed a lawsuit against Rogers in Fulton County State Court on Sept. 19, but documents in that case were also sealed.

Robert Ingram, whom the newspaper identified as a lawyer for Rogers, did not return a telephone call and email from the AP on Thursday evening. The newspaper quoted Ingram as saying that Rogers' "version of events is much different" than the woman's.

No one answered a cellphone listed to Rogers and a phone number listed for Waffle House's headquarters rang unanswered.

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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum contributed to this report.

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The BBC's Premier Nightly News Program Is Imploding

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bbc newsnight

In a shocking move, the BBC tonight announced that its flagship news TV show, Newsnight, will be suspended from investigations. It  also issued an on-air apology after mistakenly suggesting a senior politician was a pedophile.

It's a huge deal, and truly shows how the state-funded media company has been devastatingly hit by its own sex scandal.

Pretty much everyone now admits that the BBCcompletely failed to handle the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal properly.

Savile, a beloved yet quirky TV host who died last year, had long been suspected of inappropriate sexual behavior, even outright child abuse. However, when Newsnight, well known for its in-depth investigation, tried to tackle the allegations after his death, the segment was mysteriously cancelled.

When another TV channel broke the story this year, the BBC was unable to explain not only how one of its best-known stars could have committed sexual abuse for decades without any reprimand — but also how the attempts of some of its best journalists to investigate led nowhere.

The BBC's attempts to justify the decision to cancel the segment were extremely unconvincing, and even senior management now admit it looked awful. "There are no short cuts," BBC Director General George Entwistle told reporters today. "We have to acknowledge responsibility, apologize to victims, commit ourselves to finding out what happened, and cooperate as closely as possible with the police."

Worse still, just as this scandal began to die down, Newsnight embroiled itself in a sexual abuse scandal. Last week Newsnight ran a segment that featured allegations that a well-known Conservative British politician had been a part of notorious pedophile network that operated in Wales in the 1970s. The segment didn't name the politician — apparently out of legal fears — but the name of the suspect soon spread online.

On the surface of it, it looked like Newsnight's attempt to remind the British public that they were the most important TV news show in the UK — and unafraid to ask serious questions about the British establishment. However, the show set off a storm of speculation that even British Prime Minister David Cameron had to admit verged on a "witch hunt".

The scandal gained another dimension today when The Guardian announced that the man many had assumed was at the heart of the scandal — former Margaret Thatcher aide Lord (Alistair) McAlpine — was innocent of these and had been the victim of mistaken identity.

Lord McAlpine, who now lives in Italy, has apparently had throngs of reporters outside his villa for weeks, and has been forced to leave his home because of the media frenzy. He has now issued a lengthy statement that goes into some detail in its denial of the accusations, and his lawyer has told the BBC that they are considering legal action against the BBC as well as a number of Twitter users who had named him. The man who accused McAlpine has now apologized for inferring the Lord was involved, and conceded it was a case of mistaken identity.

For the BBC, and Newsnight in particular, this was a big chance at redemption. And, rightly or wrongly, it looks like the show was rushed.

Many on Twitter are wondering if Newsnight — on air since 1980 — can survive. Tonight, after a show that discussed the failures, host Eddie Mair acknowledged the tension with his last line: "Newsnight will be back on Monday. Probably."

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'Modern Family' Star's Mom Files Charges Against Daughter's Boyfriend Amid Parental Abuse Allegations

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Ariel Winter Modern Family

Ariel Winter, the 14-year-old actress who plays Alex Dunphy on "Modern Family," is having some major family drama of her own.

First, Winter was removed from her mother's custody after alleged physical and verbal abuse, including slapping, hitting, pushing, name-calling and personal insults.

But now, Winter's mother, Chrystal Workman, is firing back by not only telling press the allegations are untrue, but also by filing charges against her 14-year-old daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend, actor Cameron Palatas.

"My fourteen-year-old daughter has been dating an eighteen-and-a-half-year-old man, and when I caught them engaging in behavior that I feel my daughter is too young mentally and physically to understand and fully grasp I put a stop to it immediately," Workman said Friday in a statement to TMZ.

ariel winterWorkman tells TMZ she filed a report with the LA County Sheriff's Department "because legally he is an adult and if he wants to engage in adult behavior with a minor than [sic] he should also be ready to suffer adult consequences for his actions."

The police filing, obtained by Celebuzz, details “suspicious circumstances and possible unlawful sex with a minor.”

But many see Workman's allegations as a way to deflect attention away from the abuse allegations, considering she filed the report two weeks after the alleged sexual incident and five days after she lost custody of Ariel.

Workman added in her statement to press, “I love my daughter very much. I would never abuse her in anyway and I have always tried my best to always protect her and do what is right for her."

In the meantime, Winter is still shooting "Modern Family" and is currently in the care of her 34-year-old sister, Shanelle Workman--who was also removed from her mother's care 20 years ago for similar abuse allegations.

Winter's guardianship attorney assures People magazine, "Ariel is doing well and she has a lot of people who are loving her and supporting her at this time, and I'm pretty confident that she'll fare well through all of this. She is obviously a very smart and articulate young lady and an accomplished actress."

SEE ALSO: 14-Year-Old 'Modern Family' Star Removed From Home After Alleged Parental Abuse > 

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Why Obama's Plans To Overhaul Immigration Could Fail Miserably

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arizona immigration law protester

Barack Obama doesn't have to worry about getting reelected, so conceivably he's poised to take on one of the most divisive issues of our time – immigration reform.

A whopping 71 percent of Hispanic voters said they voted for Obama, according to a Fox exit poll. Republicans might think twice about opposing immigration reform given their low standing with this group.

Indeed, Republicans have shown some signs they might be willing to compromise, Lucy Madison pointed out in CBS News. House Speaker John Boehner just called immigration "an important issue that ought to be dealt with."

But advocates for immigration reform shouldn't get too excited.

While Obama has pledged to reform immigration, we've all heard this song before, Ted Hesson notes on ABC News.

The president vowed he'd reform immigration his first year. Even with Democrats supporting both chambers of Congress, the president couldn't push for that particular type of change.

During his next term, Obama will be working with Senate Democrats in red states who are up for re-election in 2014 and might not want to anger their right-leaning constituents, an analysis in The Week pointed out.

But the power to reform immigration really rests with the House, Hesson notes.

"Will Republicans, smarting from the presidential loss, be willing to address what many Latinos consider a core issue?" he wrote. "Or will it be an encore presentation of the so-called 'do nothing' Congress from the past two years?"

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In A Rare Move, A State Supreme Court Rebuked Tory Burch's Judge

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tory burch

Earlier this week, Tory Burch's trial judge made some pretty out-of-line comments about the designer's ongoing legal battle with her ex-husband Christopher. 

"We’ll be all geared up and in the mood for this sort of drunken WASP fest," Leo Strine of Delaware Chancery Court said in a hearing last week

“I didn’t see any reason to burden anyone’s Hanukkah, New Year’s, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus with this preppy clothing dispute," Strine said. 

Burch's dispute is over her ex-husband's clothing line, C. Wonder, being allegedly too similar to her own brand.  

The Delaware Supreme has now rebuked Strine for his comments, reports Dealbook.

"The Supreme Court advised Judge Strine that if he wished to “ruminate on what the proper direction of Delaware law should be, there are appropriate platforms, such as law review articles, the classroom, continuing legal education presentations and keynote speeches,”' writes Peter Lattman. 

The admonishment is almost unheard-of, Lattman reported: 

"Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal and judicial ethics at New York University School of Law, said that the court’s admonition was highly unusual.

“You rarely see this type of ruling because judges understand that a judicial opinion has a distinct and narrow function and is not supposed to be a platform for your public agenda or your broader views on the law,” he said."

For now, Strine is still on the case. 

DON'T MISS: How Tory Burch Created A $2 Billion Empire In Less Than A Decade >

 

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Jared Loughner Asked Me About Lucid Dreaming Before He Was A Mass Killer

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Jared Lee Loughner

I got the weirdest phone call last week. The editor of Gawker, A.J. Daulerio, contacted me, requesting information on lucid dreaming. (Editor's note: Lucid dreaming is the experience of being aware that you're having a dream while you're having it.)

He said he’s doing a new piece on lucid dreaming and Jared Loughner, who was sentenced last week with life in prison without parole for his deadly rampage in Tuscon, AZ in January 2011.

Turns out, Gawker has got hold of some emails from Jared Loughner, and Daulerio has been going through them looking for new insights in the horrendous mass shooting that left six dead and wounder 14, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. It got weird when Daulerio asked, “So, you talked to Jared, right?”

“Nope, never spoke with him,” I replied.

“But you emailed with him, right?”

“No, never did. Uh…why?”

“Because we have an email from him to you.”

That’s when my nervous laughter began. Good to know that I laugh when I’m freaking out, it must be my Irish heritage.  “Um, do you have a reply from me?” I asked, cringing.

No reply, he says… but maybe I have it?

I have no recollection so I tell him I’ll get back to him. I got home and did a search for Loughner in my email database. Ping. With an increasingly icky feeling, I saw that not only had he emailed me, but I had responded.

Time stamp: February 2009. A full 23 months before the shooting.

I reread Loughner’s email to me and instantly understood why I didn’t remember it: it was very, very forgettable. By any reasonable standard, it was a polite inquiry about dreams, like the kind I get each and every day. No weirdness. No nonsensical queries. Even with the typo, it was a totally normal request, and I sent him a reply back a few days later and forgot about it.

Below you can read Loughner’s email to me and my reply. I’m attaching the emails as screenshots, and have blurred out only our email addresses.

 

A couple of points about this exchange:

  • The “knol” Loughner is referring to is an article on lucid dreaming I wrote for the now-defunct Google Knol project. 
  • But the history of lucid dreaming section of that knol is available here
  • In my response, I hesitate to recommend melatonin. That stuff is not candy, y’all.  Supplements alone are not a healthy approach to lucid dreaming. And melatonin is a crappy supplement for lucid dreaming anyways.
  • I invited Loughner to feel free to submit me some examples of his own lucid dreams, which he never did.
  • The lucid nightmare data set I mention in the email was presented in June of 2009 in Chicago at the annual conference for the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Ominously enough considering the present discussion, it was titled, “Lucid Nightmares:the Dark Side of Self-Awareness in Dreams.”

Lucid Dreaming and Mental Illness

It’s sobering to know that a man who later became a convicted mass-murderer was reading my blog and corresponding with me in 2009. As I suggested to the editor of Gawker, as an online educator, all I can do is hope that my work helps people.

It’s especially sobering as I provide educational material about lucid dreaming, which will probably, once again, get some media buzz as being a “cause” to Loughner’s descent into schizophrenia.

This correlation simply does not hold water.

As I discuss in this article on the supposed dangers of lucid dreaming, there’s no evidence that lucid dreaming can bring on mental illness. From my dangers piece:

“In fact, lucid dreaming has recently been linked to resilience, the ability to maintain stability during and after traumatic events. Lucid dreaming is used clinically to help cope with nightmares, and is considered by many psychologists to promote psychological growth and encourage problem solving.”

The real connection of mental illness and lucid dreaming: people who suffer with mental illness often also have arousal disorders, which can increase the likelihood of hallucinations at sleep onset, and may increase the chance to have a lucid dream due to increased awakenings throughout the night.

But millions of healthy people have lucid dreams every night. And millions more experience sleep onset hallucinations that seem extraordinarily vivid, which coincidentally is a central theme of Oliver Sack’s new book Hallucinations.

Sacks’ point: hallucinations are not just the mark of psychosis. More commonly, they are the mark of being sleep deprived, stressed, drugged or physically exhausted. People with narcolepsy and partial blindness and also experience hallucinations without losing their mind.

Anyhow, Loughner didn’t become a murderer because he was a lucid dreamer, no more than he did because he smoked copious amounts of ganja. He was sick, he needed help, and the saddest part of this case is that the people in his community knew it but seemed powerless to help him.

The Secret Sufferers

One more thing: it’s not weird to me that I corresponded with someone who turned out to be mentally ill.  This probably happens more than I am aware — and that’s true for all of us.  Those suffering with mental illness routinely hide their illness, and most do it pretty well.

They are not “them.”  “They” are us. Bouts of clinical depression, schizophrenia and other personality disorders and psychoses can come and go. Most people heal, picking up where they left off — at least that’s true for those who have community support. Elyn Saks eloquently describes what this looks like from the inside in this TED talk

Society, and especially media, has a way of othering those with sicknesses that we don’t understand. Even though people with mental illness may commit more violent crime (under stressed conditions) than those without, this doesn’t mean that all schizophrenics and other folks with personality disorders are murderers-to-be, waiting to blow up like a greasy stick of dynamite. This is another logical fallacy.

In fact, those with substance abuse problems (including alcoholics) are more likely to be violent than schizophrenics, but as a culture–and perhaps it’s part of human nature — we are much more scared of the sensational and seemingly random acts of violence than the systematic violence that happens around us every day .

And it is far more likely that people with a serious mental illness will be the victim of violence, not the perp.

Our mental health facilities are less funded than they have been since the 1970s. This problem will continue to get worse until we start supporting the mental ill amongst us again.

The grain of truth: Lucid dreaming is powerful medicine

Under all the misplaced fear about the dark side of lucid dreaming, there is a small grain of truth: the practice of lucid dreaming can, over time, bring up disturbing imagery and challenging situations for the dreamer.

It’s not all fluffy bunnies and celebrity fantasies in the dreamworld. Sooner or later, you have to face your fears.

This is why I take lucid dreaming seriously: it’s powerful medicine. It shakes up your ego defenses by design. As Leonard Cohen says, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

In my view, and the view of many lucid dreaming scholars, establishing a secure container is essential to a healthy lucid dreaming practice: by this I mean having a social support network, a healthy home life, and the time to go deeper into process. These are just a few of the prerequisites to success, and can also prevent the occurrence of nightmares and scary “false awakening” type dreams along the way.

These dreams won’t make you schizophrenic, but without proper support, they can agitate your mental state and possibly re-strengthen the fears that came up in the dreams.

Unwanted lucid dreams is a real problem for some people too; in these cases, it’s best to treat too many vivid and nightmarish dreams as a red flag, find ways to relax and ground yourself, and seek professional help if it’s disrupting your life.

My heart goes out to the survivors of the Tuscon tragedy, and to the shattered families who are picking up the pieces.

Ryan edits the consciousness research blog DreamStudies.org.

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How A Simple Gmail Search Could Lead To An Invasion Of Your Privacy

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On the computer, Browsing the Internet, bored, Mac

How many times did you go online today? Did you update your Facebook status? Do a web search? Order a new pair of shoes?

If you did, author Lori Andrews warns, someone has invaded your privacy.

Andrews, a law professor and director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, tackles the question of privacy and the Internet in her new book I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did (Free Press, $26).

She'll talk about her unnerving findings Saturday at Miami Book Fair International. Among the alarming revelations (and there are many): Data aggregators not only sell your information to advertisers but also make it available to other parties, where it can be used against you by a prospective employer, a credit card company, a stalker -- or in a court of law.

"I think people realize if they put a drunken photo on Facebook it might hurt their chances with employers, but people may not realize searches on private emails can be used to make judgments," Andrews says. "If over Gmail I say to my sister, 'I'm thinking about getting a divorce,' I could be offered less-good credit cards because people going through a divorce are less likely to pay their credit card bills. Google a medication for a friend or elderly relative, and people think you've got the disease. I write mysteries, so I've Googled the ingredients of date rape drugs! There are whole criminal cases built on Google searches. People get prosecuted."

Andrews cites many such cases, all of them deeply troubling (including one in which a Pennsylvania school system sent home laptops with students and neglected to mention the computers had built-in cameras for surveillance that shot more than 50,000 photos inside the users' homes). Her solution? Adopting a Social Network Constitution, a sample of which she includes in the book (you can also see it at www.socialnetworkconstitution.com).

"We need a private sphere outside public life," Andrews says. "It's how we build relationships, how we parcel out information. If I'm in a job where I might be discriminated against for certain beliefs, I get to keep those beliefs private."

Q. How widespread is the problem of third parties viewing our data?

Seventy-five percent of employers require Human Resources to look at people's online presence. A third turn people down because they see a picture of the person with a glass of alcohol in their hand, even though they're adults and just drinking a glass of wine. Women who have a sexy picture on Facebook or MySpace have been denied custody of their children. The IRS is looking at whether you have expensive items on your Facebook page. ... Doctors can't blab about your privileged medical facts, but now third parties get around that by discriminating against you based on information from the web. Employers are asking for Facebook passwords. ... since I'm a writer -- I've written 14 books -- I love Dictionary.com. But Dictionary.com puts 233 tracking mechanisms on your computer to follow wherever you go on the web.

Q. You write in the book that third parties can easily misinterpret the information they get from web searches and social network pages. How?

Organizations are telling life insurance companies, 'Don't get a blood or urine test; that's costly. Look at the person's social network page.' If someone is an avid reader the notion is they're too sedentary. But people read on a treadmill! Actual research shows that people who read a lot are less likely to get Alzheimer's. There are important health benefits to reading. They also deny life insurance to people whose friends are skydivers. Why? Because they say, "behavior is contagious." I have a friend who loves Harley Davidsons. I buy Harley shirts online as gifts. It doesn't mean I ride a motorcycle!

Q. Why do judges treat Internet privacy cases so differently from other invasion of privacy cases?

I think what happened is that judges made a wrong decision early on. They said as long as Facebook or a website you're visiting gives consent to take your personal data you don't have to be asked for permission. I think that's completely wrong. They misinterpreted the law. They should've protected privacy. Privacy is a fundamental value under our Constitution. Websites say, 'You agreed to give it up.' But is it likely we'd allow Facebook to say, 'To use us you have to give up your right to vote or to have children'? What I'm trying to do is get our online rights in tune with the rights we have offline.

Q. What's the best way to protect ourselves online?

I'm in favor of an "opt-in" solution: They can't do anything unless I actually request it. We could push for something like the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If I'm denied credit I'm entitled to know the reason and to correct inaccurate information. We should have these rights here, too. ... What astonished me doing research for this book was that with new technologies people initially said privacy was dead. But the courts have started to expand our privacy rights. The Federal Trade Commission is considering a "do not track" list sort of like the "do not call" list. Under that data aggregators can't secretly follow you across the web unless you say it's OK. It's up to you to decide. ... There's also an interesting move in Congress to protect minors from data being used against them, to protect kids when they reach the age of 18 so their lives won't be over just because they liked a violent video when they were 14. When that gets passed, you'll see adults say, "Why don't I have the same right?"

(c)2012 The Miami Herald

Visit The Miami Herald at www.miamiherald.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services

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UK Lawmakers Will Question Google, Starbucks, Amazon Execs In Tax-Dodging Probe

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Starbucks Coffee

LONDON (Reuters) - UK lawmakers will quiz executives of Starbucks, Google and Amazon on Monday about how they have managed to pay only small amounts of tax in Britain while racking up billions of dollars worth of sales here.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, has invited the companies to give evidence amid mounting public and political concern about tax avoidance by big international companies.

"It is hard for the ordinary person to believe it's fair," said Margaret Hodge, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour party and chairman of PAC.

"It makes people incredibly angry in the current fiscal climate," she added, in reference to the austerity measures which large budget deficits have forced on the UK, and other countries.

Britain and Germany last week announced plans to push the Group of 20 economic powers to make multinational companies pay their "fair share" of taxes following reports of large firms exploiting loopholes to avoid taxes.

A Reuters report last month showed that Starbucks had paid no corporation, or income, tax in the UK in the past three years.

The world's biggest coffee chain paid only 8.6 million pounds ($13.74 million) in total UK tax over 13 years during which it recorded sales of 3.1 billion pounds.

Campaign group UK Uncut, which is opposed to government austerity measures, and which has organised protests against British telecoms operator Vodafoneand pharmacist Boots over their tax practices, said in a statement on Monday that they planned to target Starbucks.

Starbucks said it followed the tax rules in every country where it operates and sought to pay its fair share of taxes.

"We are committed to being transparent on this issue and look forward to appearing before this committee," a spokeswoman said.

Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Tory Alstead will give evidence to the committee, as will Matt Brittin, Chief Executive Officer of Google UK, and Andrew Cecil, Brussels-based Director of Public Policy for Amazon, a PAC spokesman said.

Google's filings show it had $4 billion of sales in the UK last year, but despite having a group-wide profit margin of 33 percent, its main UK unit had a tax charge of just 3.4 million pounds in 2011.

The company avoids UK tax by channeling non-U.S. sales via an Irish unit, an arrangement that allowed it to pay taxes at a rate of 3.2 percent on non-U.S. profits. Amazon's main UK unit paid less than 1 million pounds in income tax last year. The company had UK sales worth $5.3-7.2 billion, filings show.

Amazon avoids UK taxes by reporting European sales through a Luxembourg-based unit. This structure allowed it to pay a tax rate of 11 percent on foreign profits last year - less than half the average corporate income tax rate in its major markets.

Google declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

Hodge and former financial services minister Paul Myners told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the government should consider a new revenue-based tax to ensure profits from UK sales didn't go offshore.

(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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Apple Paid $21 Million After It Was Accused Of Ripping Off This Clock For The iPad

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Apple paid Swiss Federal Railways $21 million after the transport company accused Apple of ripping off its clock design for the clock on new iPads running iOS 6, according to Mashable. The company noticed its clock was being used without permission in September:

The Swiss clock in question was originally designed in the 1940s by Hans Hilfiker and is considered a symbol of the company and the country. Initially, Swiss Federal Railways threatened to push for legal action, but within a few weeks, Apple seemed to give into pressure and agreed to license the clock’s design.

Here's Apple's clock on the left and the Swiss clock on the right:

apple clocks

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Don't Expect Colleges In Washington And Colorado To Change Their Campus Weed Policies

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weed, smoking a joint, marijuana

Social media is abuzz with future college students dreaming of doing bong hits openly on the greens of universities in Colorado and Washington state. But those dreams may go up in smoke.

"If someone thinks they are going to walk around campus smoking a joint, it's not going to happen," University of Washington spokesman Norman Arkans says.

Although voters in Colorado and Washington approved the legalization of marijuana, officials aren't expecting cannabis-welcoming changes in campus policy.

The federal government still considers marijuana illegal, and universities don't want to risk their federal funding for research or student financial aid.

"We don't see that it will change our policies very much," Arkans says. "We get caught in the vice between the state law and our obligations under the federal government. While it may be legal two blocks off campus, it will be illegal under federal law, so it will be illegal on campus."

Even the University of Colorado-Boulder, which tops Princeton Review's list of "Reefer Madness" schools, doesn't expect a change in policy anytime soon.

"We have a lot of sorting out to do," says University of Colorado-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard. The Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act puts the university at risk for all of its federal funding if they knowingly and willingly allow illegal substance use on campus.

"Now the question is, 'Is that a federal definition or a state definition of illegal?'" Hilliard says. "We are already sorting through it now, but it's complex and it's going to take time."

Other universities, including the University of Denver and The Evergreen State College, are waiting to hear from lawyers and the government on how the ruling will affect them. University of Denver spokeswoman Kim DeVigil says it's too soon to know how the school will handle the passage of the amendment.

Under the Colorado and Washington laws, personal possession of up to an ounce of marijuana would be legal for anyone 21 and older. Cannabis would be sold and taxed at state-licensed stores. In Colorado, a person could have up to six marijuana plants, but "grow-your-own" pot would still be banned in Washington. Both states prohibit public use.

"You won't see a big influx of people who just want to go to school in these states just because they want to party. They already can go party," court qualified cannabis expert Chris Conrad says. "The age limit is 21, so until they are 21 it will not make a huge difference no matter what campus they are on."

Craig Hirokawa, a University of Denver senior, voted against legalizing marijuana in Colorado. "What sort of message are we sending if we're using pot money to fund education?" the political science major says.

Hirokawa, 22, of Parker, Colo., says he doesn't think the new law will lead to an influx of drug users enrolling in the school. "They would have to wait three years to be able to smoke," he says, referring to the fact that people must be 21 to possess pot.

His opposition may be in the minority on campus. At a university election-watch party Hirokawa attended Tuesday, most students seemed happy with the results, he says.

"I find it difficult to believe that universities are all of the sudden going to cannabis-friendly coffee shops on campus," says Chris Simunek, editor-in-chief of High Times magazine, which advocates the legalization of marijuana. "I think for universities it is going to be best for them to look the other way, like they have been doing for years."

SEE ALSO: What Marijuana Does To Your Body And Mind

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The FBI Found Classified Documents On Paula Broadwell's Computer

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david petraeus paula broadwell plane

The FBI has been investigating Paula Broadwell, former CIA director David Petraeus' biographer and reported mistress, for months, citing concerns about classified information and a potential national security breach.

Well, it turns out that during the FBI's investigation, the bureau did find classified documents on Broadwell's computer, reports the Wall Street Journal.

In September, the FBI began to do a legal analysis to see if there were any charges that could be brought. They decided to interview Broadwell.

During her first interview, she admitted that she was having an affair with Petraeus and gave up her computer to the investigators.

On it, they found classified documents.

Petraeus was interviewed too, and he admitted to the affair as well. However, he said that he did not provide Broadwell with those classified documents. Broadwell echoed Petraeus' claims in her next interview with investigators in early November.

The source of the classified documents remains unclear.

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The BBC Still Doesn't Seem To Understand How Badly It Screwed Up

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The BBC should prove that 'Newsnight’ was not acting with malice towards Lord McAlpine, argues Boris Johnson.

You know, I am afraid that they still don’t get it. The people at the BBC show no real sign of understanding what they have done wrong, let alone making amends. We have heard an awful lot in the past 24 hours about the personal calvary of George Entwistle. We know of the agony of Lord Patten, who has told us that the resignation of Entwistle was “one of the saddest evenings” of his public life. We have been told of the grief of hundreds of BBC journalists, the anxiety, the anger, their fear for their jobs. Everyone at the BBC is agreed on one thing: that it is a “tragedy”. Yes, it is a tragedy for the poor old BBC.

It’s tragic for us! say Beeb journalists, who are all interviewing each other in a ludicrous orgy of self-pity. In all this nauseating navel-gazing and narcissism, there seems to be no one – from Lord Patten downwards – who appears to be remotely interested in the person the BBC has injured. Has anyone even begun to apologise, in a fitting manner, to Alistair McAlpine?

To call someone a paedophile is to place them, these days, in a special category. We loathe paedophiles, as a society, because we know more and more about their crimes. They groom and manipulate vulnerable young people. They are cunning, plausible, selfish and ruthless. They cause appalling physical and psychological pain to children – people who should be getting protection and support.

Paedophiles, therefore, do the rest of humanity a sort of service, because they confer moral superiority on absolutely everyone else. A convicted paedophile is a “nonce”, and a “nonce” is the person that every other prisoner – burglar, rapist, murderer, you name it – can spit on and feel good about it. Paedophiles are there to be jostled, beaten up and shanked in the showers, and the rest of the prison population will whistle and look the other way.

To call someone a paedophile is to consign them to the lowest circle of hell – and while they are still alive. It follows that you should not call someone a paedophile unless you are pretty sure of your facts. It is utterly incredible that the BBC’s flagship news programme decided to level this poisonous allegation against Lord McAlpine when it had not the slightest evidence to support its case. It was sickening yesterday morning, at 7am, to hear the BBC radio newscaster claim – as if it were some kind of mitigation – that Newsnight did not “name” McAlpine. Is it really claiming that it protected his identity?

If so, it shows utter contempt for its listeners and for the intelligence of the British public. On the afternoon of Friday November 2, it was “tweeted” that a senior Tory politician was to be exposed on Newsnight as a paedophile. It wasn’t a vague allegation about a “ring” of paedophiles. It was about a particular individual, who was supposed to have committed a series of specific and vile crimes against a former occupant of the Bryn Estyn children’s home in Wales. “McAlpine” was the name of the mystery millionaire who had surfaced in the 2000 Waterhouse report into the scandal. “McAlpine” was the name the programme’s makers fed out to various Left-wing tweeters and bloggers; and within hours of Newsnight’s bizarre broadcast, people such as Sally Bercow and George Monbiot were pointing the finger at the bewildered and utterly blameless figure of Alistair McAlpine, 70, who is spending his retirement running a B&B in southern Italy.

You can’t really blame the tweeters and the bloggers. “McAlpine” was the steer they were given, and it was Alistair McAlpine that Newsnight had in its sights. It was no protection of McAlpine that he wasn’t explicitly named in the first broadcast – and it should be no defence of Newsnight, either. A twitstorm, a blogstorm, an internet hurricane howled around the former Tory treasurer. The whole of Fleet Street started to torment their readers with ever more prominent stories about this Top Tory Paedo, while those who used the web could see who was intended. The Prime Minister was dragged in, and immediately instituted an inquiry.

The whole thing became so unbearable that Lord McAlpine was forced to break cover, and point out that Newsnight was wrong. It was not just wrong: it was a slander more cruel, revolting and idiotic than anything perpetrated by the News of the World. The programme makers hadn’t taken account of the real anxieties about the reliability of their witness, as expressed by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, who led the inquiry into Bryn Estyn. They hadn’t shown him a picture of McAlpine. They hadn’t even put the allegations to McAlpine! Unbelievable! And why not? It was, as they say, a story that was too good to check. It wasn’t just that it showed Newsnight taking up the cudgels against paedophiles, after the embarrassment of the axed Savile exposé. It went one better. It pushed all the buttons. It was like a dream come true for any vaguely resentful and Left-of-centre BBC producer. It was a chance to pour unlimited ordure on a man who – in their book – jolly well had it coming. He is rich, he is a toff, he is a Lord, he is a Tory, and – joy of joys – he is an EX-AIDE TO MRS THATCHER.

The journalism was so shoddy, so cretinous, so ready to let the wish be father to the thought that the Beeb really now has to show that Newsnight was not acting with malice. The BBC cannot minimise what the programme has done. There will be people out there who will continue to believe that there is no smoke without fire, that Newsnight would never have broadcast such allegations unless there was something in it. The BBC owes it to McAlpine to grovel and keep grovelling until the public gets the message. Everyone associated with the “paedophile” segment on Newsnight should be sacked instantly. Then Chris Patten should make a penitential pilgrimage to McAlpine’s Italian B&B, on his knees and scourging himself with a copy of the BBC charter. This tragedy is not about the BBC; it is about the smearing of an innocent man. The BBC needs to grasp that first.

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Afghan Witness Says More Than One US Soldier Participated In Massacre

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Robert BalesThe wife of an Afghan villager killed in a massacre blamed solely on a decorated U.S. officer told an Army investigator that more than one soldier was present in the March attack, Bill Rigby of Reuters reports. 

The woman's account, relayed in a pre-trial hearing by Army criminal investigator Leona Mansapit, casts doubt on the government's case that Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales acted alone in the rampage that killed 16 Afghan villagers in two villages before dawn on March 11.

Military prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Bales and say that they will present evidence of "chilling premeditation" that will prove he acted alone.

Mansapit said that the Afghan woman recalled a gunman entering the couple's room shouting about the Taliban and took her husband out of the room while another U.S. soldier blocked the door. Mansapit added that the woman said she saw more soldiers outside "speaking English among themselves."

The testimony echoes several other witness statements.

SEE ALSO: Serious Questions Remain In The Case Of The Biggest Civilian Massacre Since Vietnam >

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Australia Announces Child Abuse Probe After Senior Policeman Accuses Catholic Church Of Cover Up

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Australia Catholics

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard today announced that there would be an enormous investigation into institutional responses to allegations of child sex abuse. The government will begin working out the scope of the Royal Probe in the coming weeks, the Australian reports.

While Gillard has been clear that the probe will not focus exclusively on one religious order or institution, it appears clear that the probe has largely been ordered as a response to accusations against the Catholic Church in Australia.

Last week, Peter Fox, a senior policeman with the New South Wales force, told an Australian TV news show that he believed a network of priests in the NSW Hunter region had destroyed evidence and been using parish money to cover up a large number of accusations of sexual abuse in the region.

Fox argued that this network had now expanded. "I've got no doubt that it's got tentacles everywhere," he said Monday. "State boundaries aren't going to stop these sorts of predators from operating." One psychologist who had dealt with the victims said that one particular order — St John of God — should be shut down as at least 70 percent of the priests had been accused of abuse.

A state-wide inquiry in the Victoria found priests had abused at least 620 children since the 1930s.

The Catholic Church in Australia has long been accused of an inadequate response to reports of pedophile priests. The head of the Church, Cardinal George Pell, current Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, has accepted the need for an inquiry, though added that "ongoing and at times one-sided media coverage has deepened this uncertainty" had created negative perspectives about the Catholic Church.

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Gay Marriage Victories Give New Life To This Banned Guinness Ad From 1995

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Guinness gay ad 1995

The campaign to legalize same-sex marriage -- which won four state referenda in the 2012 elections cycle -- has given new life to a 12-year-old commercial (below) made by Ogilvy & Mather for Guinness in the U.K., which was never aired.

The spot was cited recently by Business Insider as one of "15 Ads That Changed The Way We Think About Gays And Lesbians." Since then, Buzzfeed, The Daily Beast, Daily of the Day, and Jezebel have all spotlighted it. The ad has received 122,000 views on YouTube since it was uploaded in 2010 -- five years after it was made and then shelved.

The ad features the song "Stand By Your Man" and shows the classic unspoken domestic civil war between a couple in which one partner is messy and the other is a neatnik. Only at the end of the ad is it revealed that both partners are men.

The ad never saw the light of day after it was created due to a "massive negative backlash," according to Adweek. Adrespect.org wrote that once the press heard about the upcoming ad, Guinness denied that it existed:

Artfully shot with the help of maverick California-based British producer Tony Kaye, the UK tabloid press widely reported the planned ad before it aired, to much scandal. Pubs and consumers were shocked that the traditional brand would air a gay ad.

Fearing greater backlash by straight consumers, the TV spot was ultimately dropped by Guinness. Later, the company tried to deny that this spot even existed.

"There was a desire by the agency and Guinness to have a certain ambiguity about it," Kaye told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in 1997 about the ad he created. "So that when you watch the spot, you said, 'Well are these guys gay or not?' These guys are gay -- the storytelling, to me, needed him to give the other guy a little peck on the cheek."

When asked why the company would deny the existence of the ad he shot, Kaye offered, "Most of them have the vision of a dead rat. I think it was charming and it was very funny and would sell a hell of a lot of beer."

Here, 12 years later, is the ad:

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Chris Christie Said Nothing About A Massive Inmate Escape During Sandy

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Chris Christie

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey's governor Chris Christie made no public statement about the total chaos at a Newark halfway house that raged along with the storm, The New York Times reports.

Fifteen inmates escaped after the power failed at Logan Hall, a halfway house that looks like a prison, the Times reported.

One inmate was still at large as of Sunday.

Christie is close friends with a former executive at Community Education, which runs many of the Garden State's halfway houses.

The New York Times has previously investigated Community Education, finding inmates easily slip away from its halfway houses.

During Hurricane Sandy, guards were unprepared and reportedly did not even have flashlights. The Christie administration has not publicly revealed there was a disturbance there, according to the Times.

A representative for Christie did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

While Christie's website doesn't have any press announcements about the Logan Hall disturbance, Essex County officials did reveal inmates had escaped during the storm, Newark Patch reported.

However, Patch reported that only five inmates had escaped.

SEE ALSO: Staten Island Residents Who Survived Sandy Might Wind Up In A Prison >

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Law Students Reveal Their Third Year Is For Totally Slacking Off

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Beer funnel, South BeachLet's see, how to phrase this?

Version One [Polite academese]:  The pedagogic value of the third year of law school has long been questioned by law students.

Version Two [Qualitative sociology in the Internet age]: 3LOL

Seriously, legal academics and administrators could find worse uses for ten minutes of their time than reading through the linked TLS thread, which provides a mordant reminder that many 3Ls do literally none of the assigned reading, show up for class only if compelled to do so, and pay no attention to what's going on even when they're physically there.  A few highlights:

I've gone to 3 classes in two weeks. That's three hours in two weeks. I'm exhausted.

I was assigned 8 pages to read for tomorrow...can't even get through 4. How the hell did I read hundreds in 1L?!

Tomorrow is the third week of class. I've been to two days of school. And I have zero books.

I'm at 3LOL in a town where some bars stay open until 5am daily. I should leave a credit card open at each of them, just for the convenience of having a permanently open tab at all of them.

I think I'm gonna take random classes in the rest of the university. I signed up for calculus this semester. The professor emailed said he thought I might be too busy with law school. I told him I won't be as busy as he might think.

What could explain this horribly "unprofessional" behavior, which, as every candid observer knows, is epidemic among third-year law students? (And far from unknown among the more cynical and strategic 2Ls).

The answer is straightforward: so many 3Ls behave this way because they've concluded the third year of law school is, for them, a waste of very large amounts of both time and money.  This is hardly an irrational conclusion, given the following:

1. They've come to realize that both class attendance and diligent reading bear only a very loose relationship to the grades they get.  Especially in traditional doctrine-oriented classes featuring an issue-spotting final exam, a couple of weeks or indeed even a couple of days of cramming with one of the many excellent outlines for the professor's class that are floating around work just as well or better in regard to getting a good grade as going to class and doing the readings.

2. By 3L, grades don't matter anyway.  A student's class standing is pretty much determined, and worse yet students have come to realize that grades only matter for the kinds of jobs that can be gotten through OCI, which is another way of saying that the only grades that really count are those you got as a 1L.

3. 3Ls who have done any amount of substantive legal work realize that going to law school is a very inefficient way to go about learning how to be a lawyer.

4. Quite apart from their lack of vocational utility, a lot of law school classes have little or no inherent intellectual value. In addition, even when classes do have such value, many 3Ls have, after 20 years of formal schooling, no interest in pursuing further education for its own sake -- especially at the price they're being required to pay for something they don't want anyway.

Which brings us to the matter of the ABA's attendance policy.  It came as quite a surprise to me when, at some point early on in my legal academic career, I learned that the ABA Rules require students to go to class (see 304-d).  As a law student I had never heard of such a thing, and indeed the last time I had been formally required to show up for class, as far as I was aware, was in high school.   But it turns out that the ABA accreditation standards require "regular and punctual" attendance on the part of students, and in theory any law school that fails to enforce this policy puts its accreditation in danger.

This rule is, at least formally (an important qualifier), taken quite seriously by law schools, as illustrated by the University of Pittsburgh Law School's policy:

The American Bar Association Standards for Approval of Law Schools and the policy of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law require regular and punctual class attendance in order for a student to satisfy residence and credit hour requirements.  Accordingly, students are expected and required to attend all regularly scheduled Law School classes in which they are enrolled.  Attendance includes preparation.  Any student who fails to attend at least eighty percent of regularly scheduled classes for any course (i.e., fails to comply with “the 80% rule”) will be certified out and will receive a “U” (“unsatisfactory”) for the course.  The 80% rule is applied based on the number of class meetings and not the number of credit hours for a course.  For example:

Course Meetings (per week)

Allowed Absences (per term)

4

11

3

8

2

6

1

3

Individual faculty members may impose a greater class attendance requirement for a particular course.

Attendance records will be based on sign-in sheets that will be circulated during each class, although a faculty member may adopt a different procedure for monitoring attendance in a seminar or clinical course or if the faculty member chooses to impose a greater class attendance requirement than the 80% rule.  It is the responsibility of each student to sign his or her name at the appropriate place on the attendance sheet prior to the end of each class, and each student who fails to do so will be considered absent. The standards of academic integrity apply to this policy.

Each student is responsible for maintaining his or her own records of attendance.  As a courtesy, the School’s records for each student will be available through PeopleSoft in the my.pitt.edu portal.  (Each student will have access only to his or her own records and will be able to view the attendance record for each class in which the student is registered. To learn how to track your attendance through PeopleSoft, please review the PDF or video tutorial that is available by clicking the “Learn More” link under the Student Center Login menu item. The instructions are titled “Viewing Your Law Class Attendance Online.”) 

Students will receive no other notice or warning regarding their attendance unless a student violates the 80% rule (i.e., exceeds the maximum allowable number of absences) in a particular class.  In that event, the student will be certified out of that class and the Deans’ Office will send a letter to the student’s Law School mailbox notifying the student that he or she has been certified out of the class.  The notice will be deemed to have been received by the student upon delivery to the student’s mailbox.

Of course many schools don't go this far. Here's Northwestern's policy:

Class attendance is required in all courses, as is mandated by our accrediting authorities. No student should enroll in any course without the intention and capability of satisfying this requirement. Failure to attend a class regularly may cause reduction in the grade, loss of credit for the course, additional remedial work, denial of residence credit or other appropriate sanctions in the discretion of the instructor or the Dean.

This "there's a rule but we're not going to actually require anyone to do anything to enforce it" seems to remain the general practice at higher-ranked schools.  I'd be curious to learn if there are any faculty members at elite schools that employ sign-in sheets or the like, and I would expect that the percentage of a school's faculty who track attendance is inversely related to the school's hierarchical status.  (Until a couple of years ago CU faculty had the privilege of expressly waiving the "80% rule," which is apparently the common law understanding of what the ABA means by regular attendance, but the powers that be decided granting faculty this privilege was in conflict with the Plain Meaning of the ABA Text).

Anyway, the class attendance requirement casts an interesting light on the sociological structure of legal education, which in this and other ways tends towards a combination of petty authoritarianism and emotional regression, i.e. high school all over again. It's not exactly a shock that, by their third year, so many law students are in open revolt against that structure.

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LA's New Condom Law Could Doom The Porn Industry

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jenna jameson

The show must go on, is the entertainer's credo, and it did just that in the nation's Porn Capital even after Los Angeles County voted to require performers to use condoms when filming sex scenes.

One of the industry's biggest stars, James Deen, reported for work, condom-free as usual, just hours after voters adopted the new law.

During a break in the action Thursday, however, Deen raised the same questions on the mind of everyone in LA's billion-dollar-plus porn industry: Can a planned court challenge get the new law tossed out before it is even implemented? Or, perhaps this time next year, will he be making films like "Atomic Vixens" and "Asian Fever Sex Objects" in some place like Las Vegas or Florida?

The law, listed on the ballot as Measure B, was passed by 56 percent of voters Tuesday. It won't take effect until election results are certified, which likely will be several more days. It could take months longer before county health officials decide how to enforce it and whether they must begin dispatching prophylactic police officers to keep a close eye on actors.

The Department of Public Health issued a terse statement with no timetable for developing an enforcement plan. There was no hint of whether there would be surprise inspections or if public employees would be paid to watch porn flicks to see if actors were complying.

The nation's adult entertainment industry, which is believed to generate as much as $7 billion a year in revenue, according to the trade publication Adult Video News, vigorously opposed the new law. It argued it is unneeded because of safeguards that include monthly venereal disease checks for all working actors.

They also maintained it would be costly and difficult to enforce and could drive the business out of Los Angeles' sprawling San Fernando Valley, taking with it as many as 10,000 jobs, including actors, directors, film editors and crafts and makeup people.

The main problem, they say, is that fans don't want to see actors using condoms.

"The last time we attempted to go all condom, our industry lost sales by over 30 percent," said Deen. "That's a huge hit to our economy."

Deen, who has appeared in more than 1,000 hardcore films over the past nine years and estimates he's been in about 4,000 sex scenes, said he's never been infected with any disease and he gets tested every two weeks.

"I love condoms, I think they're great and the safest thing you can do in engaging in sexual intercourse with a stranger," he said, adding he uses them in his personal life but not onscreen.

Industry officials, meanwhile, say the last reported case of HIV linked directly to work was in 2004. Since then, they add, about 300,000 films have been made.

Michael Weinstein, the nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation's founder and president, disputes those figures, saying there have been other, more recent HIV infections, not to mention numerous cases of gonorrhea, chlamydia and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Weinstein, whose group led a petition campaign to place the measure on the ballot, says he plans to take his campaign statewide.

In the meantime, he says implementing and enforcing the new law should be easy.

"This is no different than supervising restaurants or nail salons or barbershops," Weinstein said. "You fill out forms, you are granted a permit and, periodically, somebody goes out and does spot inspections."

Easy to implement or not, porn producers say the cost of paying for permits will likely be steep and the drop-off in sales could bankrupt them.

"Certainly this is the biggest threat that I've seen to the industry in a very, very long time," said Steven Hirsch, chief executive of Vivid Entertainment Group, one of the largest purveyors of porn films, including celebrity sex tapes and popular X-rated parodies of "Batman" and "Superman" films. "There have been obscenity prosecutions, but this is something on a whole different level."

Hirsch, who co-founded Vivid 28 years ago, said he is confident the industry will get the law overturned on the grounds it violates filmmakers' First Amendment rights of free expression.

If it isn't overturned, he said his company will simply move production out of Los Angeles County to survive.

Several people who attended an emergency meeting of the industry's advocacy group, the Free Speech Coalition, last week, said porn producers have already been in touch with officials in Las Vegas and parts of Florida. In some instances, they said, tax incentives have been offered to lure them.

Through a quirk in county law, the industry might even be able to pack up and move just a few miles down the freeway to Pasadena or Long Beach.

Those municipalities, although located in Los Angeles County, have their own health departments, and Pasadena said earlier this week it won't enforce the new law.

That would be just fine for many actors and directors, who say they don't really want to leave their home base.

"People forget that porn people are people too," said Kylie Ireland, a veteran actress and director who has appeared in such films as "Being Porn Again" and "Calipornication."

"They forget that we have families and we are married and we have kids and we have lives and jobs and hobbies just like everybody else."

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JetBlue Pilot Who Had A Mid-Air Meltdown Is Free To Go Home

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jetblue clayton osbon home

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — A JetBlue Airways pilot who disrupted a cross-country flight by leaving the cockpit and yelling about religion and terrorists is free to go home rather than be committed to a mental health facility, a Texas judge ruled Friday.

Clayton Osbon was charged with interference with a flight crew for the March incident, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity in July. A forensic neuropsychologist testified in a short, unpublicized trial that Osbon had a "brief psychotic disorder" brought on by lack of sleep.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson said Friday that Osbon would be allowed to go free, but set certain conditions for his release. He will not be allowed to fly or board any commercial or private planes without the permission of Robinson or his probation officer, and he will not be allowed to communicate with any passengers from the March 27 flight he disrupted, according to the judge's order.

"This is a bad situation for you and your family, but you are fortunate to have the type of immediate support that you have," Robinson said.

Passengers on the March 27 flight from New York to Las Vegas said the 49-year-old Osbon ran through the cabin yelling about Jesus and al-Qaida. The flight was diverted and safely landed in Amarillo, Texas.

At least 10 passengers have sued JetBlue over the episode.

Osbon appeared in a green jail jumpsuit and did not make an extended statement in court. His attorney, Dean Roper, said afterward that he didn't know if Osbon would fly again, but was relieved the months-long legal proceeding was at an end.

"It's been a long ordeal for everyone involved, especially Mr. Osbon," Roper said.

Osbon left the federal courthouse without commenting to reporters and was expected head back to his home in Georgia later in the day. Osbon and a friend who attended the hearing planned to make the 1,300-mile trip by car, Roper said.

JetBlue spokeswoman Sharon Jones said Friday that Osbon still was employed and listed on "inactive duty." Jones declined to say if Robinson's order would affect that status.

Osbon showed up unusually late for the March 27 flight. The plane was in midair when he told his first officer that they wouldn't make it to their destination, according to court documents.

Osbon began to ramble about religion, scolded air traffic controllers to quiet down, then turned off the radios altogether and dimmed the monitors in the cockpit. He said aloud that "things just don't matter" and encouraged his co-pilot to take a leap of faith.

When he left the cockpit, passengers moved to restrain him. A flight attendant's ribs were bruised in the scuffle, but no one was seriously injured.

Neuropsychologist Robert E.H. Johnson testified in July that Osbon's psychotic disorder at the time of flight lasted for about a week afterward, according to a hearing transcript. He determined Osbon suffered from a brief psychotic disorder and delusions "secondary to sleep deprivation." He didn't say how long Osbon had gone without sleeping before boarding the plane, and his psychiatric evaluation of Osbon has been sealed.

Those symptoms made Osbon incapable of understanding why his actions on the flight were wrong, Johnson testified.

After the July trial, Osbon was sent to a prison medical facility in North Carolina for evaluation. Robinson was to decide what happened next for Osbon in August, but instead extended his evaluation period into October after being notified that Osbon had suffered a psychotic episode in prison. She did not say what the nature of the episode was, if it was connected to his previous disorder or what prompted it.

___

Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant in Dallas contributed to this report.

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