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In the aftermath of recent floods in the Midwest, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emergency Preparedness and Response Center is offering tips on flood readiness, recovery information, instructions on reentering a flooded home, and much more. Despite the recent flooding in the Midwest, Fox News reports that “Congress has shown little enthusiasm for taking the unpopular steps that experts say are necessary to fix the nation’s main flood insurance program....

Traffic stops are quite common and every driver needs to know how to handle them well. Even if you did not do anything wrong, you can end up with a criminal charge if your encounter with police goes awry. And your encounter will go awry if you give police officers a hard time. Yes, it’s true that you have rights and that the police work for you. But these authority figures do have reason to be wary when pulling people over, as they do face dangers....

Former workout guru to the stars and star herself of Bravo’s fitness reality shows Work Out and Thintervention, Jackie Warner has talked candidly about her problems with drinking before. “I looked in the mirror one morning and realized that I did not like the person that I had become,” she told Bravo last year. “I could no longer hide the fact that MY decisions were causing me unhappiness.” It doesn’t look like she’ll be any happier following her arrest last weekend, as Warner is now facing assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer charges....

Verizon Wireless has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit, again. Not again as in yet another suit, but again because they had already settled it but it was held up due to appeals. Verizon agreed to pay approximately 175,000 members of the class action lawsuit $21 million over accusations that it wrongfully applied early termination fees to customers when they terminated service. While $21 million sounds like a lot of money, it works out to about $120 per person, before the attorney’s take their fee....

A woman convicted of punching an elderly Walmart greeter had her sentence reduced on Monday, after a court rejected a longer sentence imposed under New York’s “Granny Law.” Jacquetta Simmons, who was 27 at the time of the attack in 2011, was convicted of punching a 70-year-old Walmart greeter in the face, for which she was originally sentenced to five years in prison, reports Buffalo’s WIVB-TV. A judge imposed a new sentence for Simmons to spend one year in jail....

If you run a business, probably the last thing you want to see in your email inbox is a notification about a consumer complaint from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Fortunately for you, if you receive such an email it may not be an actual customer complaint. Unfortunately for you, those email messages may link you to viruses and malware that can infect your computer. The FTC reports that someone is sending out emails with the subject line: “NOTIFICATION OF CONSUMER COMPLAINT....

After two days of hearings that included testimony from Walter Scott’s mother and brother as well as a 153-page motion containing performance reviews and a psychiatric evaluation for North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager, who is charged with murdering Scott, the judge deciding whether to grant Slager bond has yet to make a ruling. Although Judge Clifton Newman said today he will make a decision “as expeditiously as possible,” the length of the hearings and the lack of a definitive answer have left many wondering what is going on....

What is “swatting”? For Hollywood stars who’ve been victims of swatting, it’s a potentially dangerous, high-profile prank. It’s also illegal. Just last week, police busted a 12-year-old boy for celebrity swatting pranks that targeted Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher, TMZ reports. Prosecutors are considering whether or not to pursue criminal charges. So what exactly takes place in a celebrity swatting prank? It’s similar to a prank call. But instead of calling the celebrity, the caller calls 911 or the police....

Was Chris Hansen cheating? Apparently so, and the evidence includes scenes of reporter Kristyn Caddell and Chris Hansen on video. Most people recognize Hansen as the guy who surprises pedophiles and men trying to get with underage girls on Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” reports. In “To Catch a Predator,” Hansen surprises the men, who are being secretly recorded by hidden cameras. He then proceeds to interview the men who were just caught red-handed....

The 9th Circuit recently determined that it is not de facto trademark infringement when a company purchases a competitor’s trademark as a keyword. That way, the company’s product will show up under a search engine’s sponsored links when a user searches for the competitor’s product. Network Automation owns AutoBase, while Advanced Systems Concepts owns ActiveBatch. Both products are scheduling and management software and are direct competitors. In order to advertise its product, Network Automation purchased the keyword “ActiveBatch” on Google Adwords and Microsoft Bing....

Is a settlement a diamond company’s best friend? The answer to that question will have to wait for De Beers, the world’s biggest diamond producer. On July 13, a federal appeals court refused to approve the settlement in a class action suit against De Beers by diamond purchasers who have claimed the company broke anti-trust laws. The settlement has been sent back to a lower court for reconsideration. According to a report by Reuters, De Beers plead guilty in 2004 to a price fixing charge....

One of the primary rules of independent investigations is you can’t investigate yourself. And when it came to investigating state and city police departments, that responsibility often fell to the feds – the Department of Justice. Under the Obama administration, those investigations often resulted in determinations that local police departments were acting illegally, along with subsequent lawsuits settlements. But that practice appears to be changing under President Trump. Trump’s new Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week that the federal government should not be spending money on lawsuits against local police departments....

Dennis Hopper may be having a hard time with the whole rest in peace concept. Issues surrounding his estate have been going on since the actor died of cancer in May of this year. First it was his estate suing his wife, Victoria Hopper (Duffy), for taking valuable art work from their home following his death. At the time of Hopper’s passing, the couple was estranged and in a heated divorce battle....

The time came for Rap Superstar Lil’ Wayne to report to prison and serve a yearlong sentence for gun possession. But that sentence was put on temporary hold while the rapper gets some dental work done. According to the New York Times, a Manhattan judge agreed to put off Lil’ Wayne’s sentencing until March 2, at the latest, so that the rapper could have dental surgery. His lawyer said that it was a “medical situation” which could not have been remedied earlier, because his dentist had been abroad performing charity work....

After all his shenanigans, it’s odd to see Justin Bieber getting a good report. The singer has just been given a good probation review, and news sources are calling the report “glowing.” We would call it behaving normally, but what do we know. Bieber is on probation after he plead no contest to misdemeanor vandalism last year. The singer was accused of throwing eggs at a neighbor’s home causing thousands of dollars of damage....

Kim Kardashian and a paparazzo were cited for speeding on Tuesday. The photographer, Juliano Goncalves, was also cited for stopping in a nonemergency situation, The Associated Press reports. Kardashian was pulled over for driving too fast on U.S. 101 in Los Angeles, apparently because she was being chased by paparazzi. Three other cars, likely all driven by paparazzi, then also stopped to snap pictures. But since Kardashian was allegedly being chased, can she potentially fight her ticket?...

Khloe Kardashian’s NBA hubby Lamar Odom was arrested on suspicion of DUI this morning. The basketball player’s coordination was apparently off on U.S. 101 in Los Angeles, where he was allegedly driving erratically just before 4 a.m. While the DUI is all too real, recent reports that Odom went missing after a fight with Khloe and that the two are legally separating are apparently not true, according to various sources....

McDonald’s and Burger King apple slices are part of a nationwide recall over fears of possible listeria contamination in prepackaged fruit and vegetables. No illnesses have been reported, but the fast-food restaurants have stopped serving apple slices affected by the recall. The voluntary recall covers nearly 300,000 units of fruit, vegetable, and sandwich products shipped to 36 states and the District of Columbia, the Associated Press reports. The recalled packages are stamped with “use by” dates of July 8 through August 20....

Sometimes it takes a while for a spouse to decide to take the name of their mate. Case in point, Portia de Rossi, nee Rogers, has decided to take the name of her spouse, Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres and de Rossi were legally married in 2008, during the period when same sex marriage was legal in California. Same sex marriage was banned by the passage of Proposition 8, later that year. As has been noted in previous posts, a recent decision by a U....

Call it bait and switch, but something’s fishy in the New York seafood industry. According to a recent study, over one fourth of the seafood found in New York supermarkets are mislabeled, and what’s inside the package is almost always a cheaper species than what’s on the label. A recent study conducted by the New York OAG, entitled “Fishy Business: Seafood Fraud and Mislabeling in New York State Supermarkets” found that 27 percent of seafood available for purchase in supermarkets was mislabeled, and “typically cheaper, less desirable species than the desired species....