In this culture, when celebrities talk, people listen. That is why Russell Simmons and about 100 other stars are joining in a prison reform campaign. The goal is to cut the American prison population by half over the next ten years. Comedian Amy Schumer, actor Ed Norton, and the author of Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman, are all also on the list of popular figures joining in the fight for prison reform....
Bill Cosby’s rape drama continues. After nearly 40 women have accused him of raping them since as far back as 1965, The New York Times found and published a decade-old deposition where Cosby seemingly admitted to drugging women to have sex with him. Now, Cosby’s lawyers want to know how the deposition, which was supposed to be sealed, got leaked. Since 2004, various claims of sexual assault and date rape have been leveled against Bill Cosby....
The role of a district attorney is to prosecute criminals, not become one. However, sometimes roles reverse, and no one is above the law. Such is the case of district attorney Myrl Serra. Serra has been accused of a slew of sexual allegations as well indecent exposure, with the majority of encounters taking place in his office. Serra is also accused of threatening employees with termination or damage to their reputation if they did not give into his sexual advances, according to The Denver Post....
Delaware has moved into the digital rights vanguard by passing a law granting families the right to control a loved one’s digital assets after his or her death. According to Ars Technica, Delaware is the first U.S. state to accomplish this kind of legislation, although some states (like Idaho and Nevada) have more limited versions of digital rights for heirs. Speaking to the law’s strengths, a spokeswoman for the Delaware governor’s office noted that regardless of the location of the digital account provider (e....
Diabetes drug Actos is supposed to help patients manage high blood sugar, but could it also cause bladder cancer? The rising number of Actos lawsuits say “yes.” Manufacturer Takeda Pharmaceutical was forced to pull the drug from the French market in June 2011, reports Reuters. Responding to growing concerns about the drug, regulators conducted a study and found a slight increase in the risk of bladder cancer. The Food and Drug Administration has not yet issued its own recall, but it did release a safety announcement soon after it learned about the French study....
Facebook’s use of tracking cookies has landed the company in the middle of two class action lawsuits. Facebook has been sued by six Facebook users in federal courts in California and Missouri. The users allege that Facebook was tracking their activity even after they logged off the site. One lawsuit claims that Facebook violated federal wiretap and electronic communications laws. The plaintiffs are requesting that Facebook stop installing tracking cookies on their site....
Farrah Abraham, one of the stars of the MTV show Teen Mom OG, has dropped her lawsuit against the makers of the show. The reason for dropping her $5 million dollar lawsuit? She reached a settlement. Claims of the Lawsuit Last October, Abraham claimed that she was cut from the show because of her work in the adult entertainment industry. So, in February, she filed a lawsuit against Viacom (MTV’s parent company), Teen Mom OG’s production companies, and Morgan J....
The New York Police Department’s school safety division has a long history of removing disruptive children from campus in handcuffs despite their young age. Another child met this fate last week, and it turns out that not only is he 7 years old, but he has special needs. Should this have happened? Joseph Anderson, a first grader in Queens, is known to suffer from ADHD, delayed speech and emotional problems, reports the Associated Press....
John Travolta has beat a defamation lawsuit brought by the author of a book that accused Travolta of frequenting gay bath houses and sexually harassing male masseuses. Given the facts, you may have expected Travolta to have been the plaintiff in the defamation action. However, the author of You’ll Never Spa in This Town Again, Robert Randolph, says that Travolta and his lawyer, Marty Singer, hurt his reputation when they responded to the book by claiming that Randolph suffered from mental problems and that the book was packed with lies, reports TMZ....
This time, thanks to an Amber Alert and the quick thinking of a still unidentified good citizen, a kidnap attempt on an 8 year-old girl failed. Elisa Cardenas was found by police and returned to her family after she escaped her alleged kidnapper’s truck when he slowed to avoid another driver. The suspect, Gregorio Gonzalez, is now in police custody. Elisa Cardenas was playing in the front yard of a home with some friends when Gonzalez allegedly tried to lure the girls into his truck with promises to buy them treats at the local dollar store, reports MSNBC....
After a string of recent toy recalls, The Walt Disney Company stated that it will begin independent testing of toys featuring Disney characters, and Toys ‘R’ Us announced the implementation of a more stringent toy safety checking policy. The New York Times reports Disney’s independent testing, “set to begin within the next two weeks, will involve some of the more than 65,000 children’s products from around 2,000 vendors of toys, jewelry, furniture and other Disney items....
Last June, Omar Mateen entered Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida and opened fire, killing 49 people and wounding another 53. During a 911 call, Mateen swore allegiance to the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS or ISIL) and told officers he was motivated by the Iraq War and the U.S.’s campaign against ISIS. This week, some of the victims’ families filed a federal lawsuit against Twitter, Google, and Facebook, claiming the social media and tech giants “profit from ISIS postings through advertising revenue....
Most people are probably familiar with the little rolls of powdery, sugary candy “tablets” frequently given out at Halloween. Yes, we’re talking about “Smarties”, but the little candy has been making unwelcome news headlines lately, with stories of kids “smoking” the candy. Apparently, the practice isn’t really so much “smoking” (there’s no fire involved), as much as snorting or inhaling and then blowing out candy “smoke”. Kids have taken to this practice for a variety of misguided reasons....
A 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is heading to the Supreme Court. A group of activists, lawyers and journalists, including the ACLU, challenged the international wiretapping law, which gives the government permission to listen to overseas communications without much judicial oversight. Though the high court will be opining on the lawsuit, it will not be considering the law’s substance. The Obama administration is trying to stave off the challenge and has argued that the plaintiffs have no standing to sue....
Toyota must pay $11 million to the victims of a fatal 2006 crash after a federal jury found that the design of the car contributed to the crash. Koua Fong Lee was the driver of the 1996 Toyota Camry that slammed into another car at high speed, killing that car’s driver, the driver’s son, and a 6-year-old passenger who was paralyzed and died a year later. The suit follows revelations that Toyota suffered problems with sudden acceleration in some vehicles....
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, gun control laws and guns in schools are the talk of the town. In fact, New York is poised to pass the “toughest” gun control laws in the country today. But is all this talk really just talk? If states were truly concerned about gun violence, especially gun violence in schools, wouldn’t just about every state ban carrying guns on school grounds?...
Counterfeit toys are a problem year-round, but during the holiday season the problem is especially pronounced. When people are trying to find those highly sought after toys, counterfeiters are hard at work trying to make cheap replicas that will fool a purchaser, and disappoint (and potentially harm) a recipient. Despite the best efforts of customs and other federal investigators, counterfeit toys do get through and get sold to unsuspecting consumers....
BMW is recalling 200,000 vehicles because a possible defect in the front passenger seat air bag sensor could prevent the safety device from properly deploying during an accident. The German car company is offering to replace the sensor device and extend warranty coverage on the affected parts for owners of all affected vehicles. The recall, announced on Wednesday, affects BMW’s model year 2006 3-series, model year 2004-2006 5-series, and model year 2004-2006 X3 vehicles....
To slightly adjust an old saying, the seed pod doesn’t fall far from the … plant. The youngest child of Reggae legend Bob Marley has admitted to growing marijuana in the basement of her Caln, Pennsylvania home. On September 7, Makeda Jahnesta Marley plead guilty to charges of manufacture of a controlled substance and tampering with physical evidence. When police were called to her home on a domestic disturbance call in September of 2008, according to the West Chester Daily Local News, Marley was arguing with her tenant Howard Stinson over whether she would let him collect his belongings before being tossed off the premises....
There has been a lot of talk recently about the radiation risk that may or may not exist from the new airport body scanners. However, according to The New York Times, a radiation risk exists at another place where it has not been receiving a lot of attention: the dentist’s office. According to The Times, unregulated, high doses of radiation are being delivered to patients at the dentist’s office, with no upside and lots of risk....
