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The holidays are upon us, a time for family and friends to reunite. It’s also a time of year when the number of calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline drops dramatically. While this may sound like good news, the hotline says that the drop in calls may be due to victims trying to put on a happy face when family and friends are around, reports CBS News. In fact, instead of a time for peace and accord, the holidays can be an extremely stressful time for many couples leading to an actual increase in violent confrontations....

A nationwide phone scam in which impostor IRS agents threaten victims with arrest or deportation if they refuse to immediately settle tax debts has reportedly already bilked more than 1000 people out of nearly $5 million. The scheme, which federal authorities have been investigating since 2013, involves callers claiming to be with the IRS. The fake agents demand payment of taxes, often claiming that police are on their way and insist on remaining on the phone while the victim drives to a store to make a payment by loading money onto a prepaid debit card, reports The Arizona Republic....

She may be famous for pawning off her eight kids on nannies and treating her ex-hubby like trash, but Kate Gosselin has never needed a marriage counselor. Or at least that’s what she continues to argue, even though a Pennsylvania judge has ordered her to pay about $10,300 to Sylvia Lafair, a woman who claims that she hit the streets of Los Angeles after Kate hired her to help save her dwindling marriage....

The upcoming royal wedding – of pop culture royalty Kim Kardashian and Kanye West – is set to take place in France, and you bet it will be très chic. But while Ukraine is getting invaded, and people across the globe live in poverty, Kimye are suffering a “crisis” of their own – French law. French law requires that one of the parties being married must reside “in the country for at least 40 days prior to the wedding,” according to Radar Online....

A confusing legal battle between Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his seven-month-old daughter, is escalating. The dueling couple appeared to have filed restraining orders against each other this week in the wake of a major blowup, E! News reports. But, that may only be half-true. However, it’s also been reported that Gibson filed a temporary restraining order against Grigorieva, along with a notice about a forthcoming court hearing and a notice of visitation rights and child custody....

In 2017, Nelly was accused of raping Monique Greene, a 21 year old woman, on his tour bus in Washington. The rape charges were eventually dismissed because Greene refused to testify. Greene quickly followed with a lawsuit for sexual assault and defamation. In that suit, Greene included the testimony of two other women that allege Nelly sexually assaulted them in the U.K. And now the whole ordeal has come to an abrupt end, at least in the courtroom....

On Tuesday, the federal government agreed to a settlement worth $52 million to escape commitments to complete the “road to nowhere” project in a wilderness area of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, in North Carolina. According to the Washington Post, the original agreement that prompted the great payout was a 1943 pact to build a 30 mile stretch of road along the Tennessee border. The road was intended to replace a highway flooded by the construction of a dam, which was necessary to increase electricity production needed for the war effort....

Low levels of radioactive compounds have been detected in bluefin tuna off the California coast. Cesium-137 and cesium-134 were found in 15 tuna captured near San Diego last August, Reuters reports. Scientists believe the fish carried the radioactive materials from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. The chemicals were released into the waters along the country’s eastern coast following the tsunami last year. So how bad is the radiation?...

A Native American group will get its day in court, as the Ninth Circuit has revived part of a lawsuit that seeks permission to smoke marijuana for religious purposes. The Oklevueha Native American Church of Hawaii sued the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration after agents seized a $7,000 shipment of marijuana addressed to the church’s founder in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reports. The church’s lawsuit demanded the return of, or reimbursement for, the seized pot, which was intended for use during religious ceremonies....

You should tell your lawyer your story. Criminal defense lawyers defend both the guilty and the innocent. Your lawyer’s job is to resolve the charges against you, not to judge you morally. If truth was obvious, we would’t have such an elaborate process to uncover it. But we do have discovery, investigations, trials, and appeals. Why? Because things are not always what they seem. The government has a version of the story that says you committed a crime....

John Thompson had spent 18 years on death row for murder and burglary, when, one month before his execution, exculpatory evidence was discovered proving his innocence. After being released, Thompson sued New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick under Section 1983, claiming that his failure to properly train prosecutors about their disclosure duties resulted in his wrongful incarceration. The jury agreed, awarding him $14 million. However, this week, the Supreme Court overturned the award, finding that John Thompson failed to prove that Connick showed deliberate indifference towards his employees’ training....

The teen cyberbullying cases continue after two Florida teenagers were arrested after creating a fake Facebook page in the name of their classmates. They took things up another notch by adding their classmate’s head on a “nude prepubescent girl’s body,” The Smoking Gun reports. Taylor Wynn, 16 and McKenzie Barker, 15, were arrested and charged with cyberstalking. They also added the caption: “I am a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Comitty!...

Walmart has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by thousands of employees claiming the retail behemoth denied health insurance benefits to same-sex spouses of employees. While the lawsuit was filed by one former employee, Jacqueline A. Cote, the settlement will apply to thousands of employees who weren’t able to obtain health insurance coverage for their same-sex spouses from 2011 to 2013. Under the terms of the settlement, which still must be approved by the U....

Walmart cashiers in California won a landmark victory in their class action suit, Brown v. Walmart, for the right to take a seat. Though denying any wrongdoing in this nine-year-old federal case, Walmart agreed to pay $65 million to nearly 100,000 current and former cashiers, preventing the case from going to trial later this year. The company also agreed to provide seating for its California cashiers. The settlement still needs approval by a federal judge....

The Warhol Foundation has filed a lawsuit against a photographer claiming that a 1984 piece by Andy Warhol infringes upon her copyright. The work of art in question is the Prince Series, which includes several different paintings of the musician Prince. The photographer claims that her 1981 publicity photo of Prince was used to make unauthorized derivative works. The photographer, after the death of Prince last year, contacted the foundation to demand payment of damages for an alleged copyright infringement....

Last Thursday, a jury awarded $11 million to plaintiffs in a case that just smelled rotten from the start. In this particular instance, that is not a metaphorical, but a literal description. The plaintiffs in this case are the farming neighbors of a Premium Standard Farms hog farm. The Premium Standard operation in Gentry County, Missouri, emitted odors so foul, they “defied description,” according to Stephen A. Weiss, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs....

Sacha Baron Cohen is taking heat up and down from conservatives over his portrayal of numerous “right-wing” public figures on his Who Is America? series. Many have sued or threatened to sue. Will they win? It’s highly doubtful. Why? Because he interviews public figures that have probably signed a release. In the past few months, Showtime has aired Who Is America? episodes showing public figures saying or doing some highly controversial things in interviews they were duped into doing with Cohen....

A “Hawaii Five-O” lawsuit seeks at least $10 million in punitive damages for an alleged contract breach, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The suit was filed by talent agent George Litto. Litto represented Leonard Freeman, the writer-producer of the original “Hawaii Five-O” in 1966. After Freeman’s death in 1974, Litto claims he negotiated a contract in which he and Freeman’s widow would split the profits from any future productions of the TV series....

Florida’s “stand your ground” law has taken a political beating this year, and its involvement in a shooting over pizza is not helping. On Sunday, Randall White was at Little Caesars in St. Petersburg, Florida, waiting to enjoy his pizza. When his pie took too long to arrive, he started complaining. Another man named Michael Jock was also waiting in line, and told White to stop whining. White then raised his fist and in response Jock pulled out a gun....

It’s hard to pick a sunscreen. You approach the shelf and are tasked with choosing between at least 20 different tubes. Not only that, each has a different level of protection, a special scent, an application method, and the absence (or presence) of certain ingredients. What are you to do? Last summer, the Food and Drug Administration tried to arm consumers with the tools to pick the best sunscreen possible. It planned to cap sunscreens at SPF 50, do away with “waterproof” claims, and warn consumers to look for UVA protection....