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The latest update in the Paula Deen lawsuit: claims of racial discrimination didn’t survive the chopping block. A federal judge in Georgia has ruled that plaintiff Lisa Jackson, who is white, has no standing to sue Deen’s restaurant for race discrimination. Jackson was a former restaurant manager at one of Deen and her brother’s restaurants, Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House. What exactly does this ruling mean for Jackson’s lawsuit against Deen?...

For those of us who don’t want to be trampled at the door of a box store on Black Friday, there’s Cyber Monday, the day we can feed the capitalist consumption machine from the safety of our homes, phones, and cubicles. And while we may not need to worry as much about our physical wellbeing on Cyber Monday, our online health is at a far greater risk. Shopping scams, Wi-Fi hackers, and data theft can ruin your holiday deal treasure hunt....

Most of us have heard the apocryphal tale of Kitty Genovese, a woman who was brutally attacked and murdered in New York in 1964 while her neighbors ignored her screams for help. While many of the details of that particular story have been refuted, anecdotes about neighbors who don’t want to get involved in possible criminal situations abound. As uncomfortable as intervention can be, none of us want to be known as the person who did nothing when calling the police might have saved someone’s life....

According to a new decision by the Supreme Court, “cocaine base” is not limited to crack cocaine for the purposes of prosecution and mandatory minimum sentencing under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (ADAA). In other words, the disparate treatment between powder and crack cocaine has now been extended to other substances, such as freebase and coca paste. The ADAA imposes a mandatory 10-year sentence for anyone who possesses 5 kilograms or more of a mixture containing cocaine, and for anyone possessing 50 grams of a mixture that contains cocaine base....

The Supreme Court today ruled that a small religious group, Summum, can’t make a Utah city put up a monument containing “the Seven Aphorisms of SUMMUM,” a granite marker that the group donated to a public park. For anyone already asking “Huh?!?” Summum indicates the “Aphorisms” were written on stone tablets received by Moses with the Ten Commandments which “held very profound and deep meanings.” However, Moses destroyed those tablets because people “were in no way ready for them”....

After Target’s security breach, many customers are scrambling to make sure they are not victims of identity theft. As an apology for the massive security breach that affected 40 million credit and debit card accounts – and an attempt to win back customers – the stores are now offering 10 percent off total purchases and free credit reports. Media sources like Miami’s WFOR-TV are spinning the retail giant’s offer of a “free credit report” as a special thing, but it isn’t actually that big of a deal....

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a challenge to a District of Columbia ban on handgun ownership, a case that may impact gun ownership rights nationwide. (Read a transcript of oral arguments [PDF file]). The specific question before the Court in Heller v. District of Columbia is whether the Second Amendment forbids the District of Columbia from banning private possession of handguns while allowing possession of rifles and shotguns....

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is being sued. A class action lawsuit has been filed in Manhattan Supreme Court against one of Puck’s catering companies in New York. According to the suit, the company was allegedly adding a 22% service charge, but didn’t share those charges with servers and bartenders. A plaintiff’s representative told the New York Post that hundreds of thousands in unpaid gratuity are owed. The Wolfgang Puck catering company contracts with other well-known companies like Live Nation, Google, and Rolling Stone magazine to provide their food and drink services at public and private functions....

The founder of “Girls Gone Wild,” Joe Francis, has been found guilty of assault and false imprisonment after a two-week trial in Los Angeles. Francis was convicted of five misdemeanor counts in total, and could face up to five years behind bars, reports the Associated Press. So why was he charged with these crimes? These charges stemmed from an incident in 2011, when Francis was accused of tricking three women into coming to his apartment and then not allowing them to leave....

NYPD authorities on Tuesday denied Amanda Bynes’ claims that officers sexually harassed her during her arrest for allegedly smoking pot in her apartment building and then throwing a bong out the window. NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne confirmed that the department had internally investigated the matter and had found no evidence to back up Bynes’ allegations, reports TMZ. Bynes’ Twitter rants may be mostly hot air, but if her allegations are true, she has cause for legal recourse....

There aren’t many places left for the cigarette smokers of the world. Pushed out of offices, airplanes, bars, and even some sidewalks, the choice is either to quit or to smoke at home. Or, find something that isn’t “smoking.” Many new and long-time smokers are turning to vaping instead, in the hopes of circumventing anti-cigarette ordinances. The question then becomes, what’s the difference between smoking and vaping, and can you get in trouble for vaping the same way you can get in trouble for smoking cigarettes?...

Blogger Perez Hilton is facing potential legal trouble for allegedly posting an explicit photo of 17 year-old Miley Cyrus, supposedly taken when the pop star was climbing out of a car. The photo apparently shows Cyrus without underwear. This wouldn’t be the first time that Hilton has posted up-skirt photos of celebrities; he has posted up-skirt shots of Britney Spears in the past. But this time, the difference is that Cyrus is underage....

Recently there has been a great deal of controversy over the new Transportation Security Administration full-body digital x-ray machines and their alternative, the “enhanced pat down.” When the body scanners first arrived, many wondered whether the images could be saved or recorded for nefarious purposes. In order to calm the fears of many privacy advocates, federal agencies have promised that body scans cannot be stored and recorded. However, this week, the U....

The Second Amendment protects the rights of most citizens to buy a gun, but some people are disqualified. Chalk it up to yet another limit on the right to bear arms. But there isn’t much you can do about it, so at least you can know what kinds of behavior would disqualify you. The rules for buying guns are dictated by both state and federal law. To figure out the state limitations on who can buy a gun, you might have to ask a local attorney....

While parents are regularly and explicitly warned about the dangers of shaken baby syndrome, it is an unfortunate everyday occurrence. According to the New York Department of Health, there are an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 infants shaken every year. One in four shaken infants will die, and 80% of those that don’t die suffer permanent injury. What makes shaken baby syndrome so tragic is that parents may not mean to harm their infants, but due to their fragile constitution, even a brief shaking can cause irreversible injury and even death....

It’s a busy week in the Sheen/ex-Sheen household. Charlie Sheen’s wages get docked for child support to ex-wife Brooke Mueller Sheen, while Sheen’s other ex-wife Denise Richards adopts a baby girl, Eloise Joni Richards. Richards has two other daughters from her marriage with Sheen. Daughter Lola is 6 and daughter Sam is 7. The baby girl was adopted domestically, reports People. Kal-El Cage, son of Nicolas Cage and Cage’s wife Alice Kim, didn’t fare as well....

Ex-FAA Chief Randy Babbitt is now cleared for departure, after a judge dismissed an embarrassing DWI charge that led to his ouster from the agency. Babbitt, 65, resigned his post in December after he was arrested for an alleged wrong-way DWI in Virginia. Babbitt underwent an alcohol breath test at the scene, but police initially declined to publicly release the results of that test. Now we know why, thanks to evidence that Babbitt’s DWI lawyer introduced at trial – including video of Babbitt’s arrest, which convinced the judge to toss his DWI charge, the Associated Press reports....

Even government agencies are making smartphone “apps” now. The FBI’s iPhone app, Child ID, was released last week. What’s the purpose of the FBI’s new application? It’s exactly what the title implies. Child ID will allow parents to store information on their children such as height, weight, gender, date of birth, hair and eye color and whether or not they have piercings. The application will also allow parents to store a child’s photos....

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But if you are allergic to wheat and you eat Cheerios, you may want to skip it this week. On Monday, breakfast cereal maker General Mills announced that it was recalling nearly two million boxes of Honey Nut and regular Cheerios marked gluten free. The company said in a press release that “an undeclared allergen – wheat – with potentially adverse health effects may be present in the cereals we produced on several dates in Lodi, in July....

Police deal with false criminal accusations with relative frequency. It is an unfortunately regular occurrence for people going through bitter divorces, particularly when it comes to child custody. However, the penalties for falsely accusing someone of a crime range from none at all to potentially decades behind bars. It all depends on how the accusation is made, the intent of the accuser, and what is being accused. It should be clear that a person who accidentally makes a false accusation to police is unlikely to face any criminal penalty at all....