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As the investigation into actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death continues, police have arrested three people on drug charges. The three – Robert Vineberg, 57, Max Rosenblum, 22, and his girlfriend Juliana Luchkiw, also 22 – were arrested during a raid on a building in Lower Manhattan. Police were tracing what they believed to be the source of the heroin suspected of playing a role in the Oscar-winning actor’s death. A fourth person was also arrested in the raid, but charges against him were later dropped, The New York Times reports....

Consumers are being warned by the Better Business Bureau about a new scam involving an online survey that promises takers a free gift card. According to the BBB, official-looking posts sent by email or appearing on social media encourage consumers to claim a free gift card to a major retailer such as Walmart. All the consumers have to do in order to receive the card, according to the message, is complete a customer satisfaction survey....

This time, the recall announcements come from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. On March 8, the FSIS announced a recall from Nestlé Professional North America, a Cleveland, Ohio company on approximately 6,000 pounds of a ready-to-eat (RTE) bacon base product that may be contaminated with Salmonella. On March 9, the USDA, FSIS and Ruiz Foods, Inc., a Denison, Texas company, announced a recall on approximately 115,700 pounds of a ready-to-eat (RTE) beef products that may also be contaminated with Salmonella....

This one goes out to coach potatoes and casual viewers everywhere: those extra loud TV ads may be banned. You heard right, the obnoxiously loud commercials that punctuate your favorite television program may soon come under some serious regulation. Australia, Brazil, Russia, France and Israel have all enacted legislation aimed at reducing loud TV ads. The Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (appropriately abbreviated to CALM) Act would require the volume of an ad to be at the same noise level as the program that it interrupts....

Fish poaching is serious – and illegal – business. Police in Maryland are now armed with new poaching laws and high-tech equipment to battle the problem. This is good news for fisherman. Last year the state had to shut down the fishing season early. Poachers had taken 13 tons of striped bass. Fishermen who were legitimately trying to make a living were out of luck. Biologists were called in to analyze the potential damage to the area....

How did CVS pharmacy manage to get slapped with the largest civil penalty issued under the Controlled Substance Act? By failing to properly monitor repeated purchases of key ingredients used to make methampetamine in at least five states, that’s how. The CVS $75 million meth fine is the product of allowing such purchases to continue for over a year, which ultimately help cause the huge increase in Southern California drug trafficking....

Last month, Devin Kelley gunned down 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. At the time, we wondered whether the Air Force may be liable for the shooting, as it failed to report Kelley’s court-martial for domestic violence to the National Criminal Information Center database, a conviction that would have barred him from purchasing the military-style rifle he used in the shooting. This week, two families of victims slain in the shooting filed a lawsuit against the store that sold Kelley a Ruger AR-556, despite a “possibly disqualifying issue” tied to his permit to carry....

According to new research released by the PEW research center, federal criminal prosecutions are on the decline. The new numbers show that federal criminal prosecutions have been on a consistent decline since 2011, and have even fallen to a 20 year low. Much of this is credited to the visionary approach implemented by former Attorney General Eric Holder to not prosecute every federal crime, but to focus on those where there is a substantial federal interest....

A member of the grand jury that declined to press charges against former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown has filed a lawsuit against St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch. The anonymous juror, known only as “Grand Juror Doe,” is seeking the right to speak publicly about what went on during the grand jury’s investigation, reports The Huffington Post. The grand juror wishes to speak out in order to correct what the lawsuit claims is “not entirely accurate” portrayals of grand jurors’ views, as well as to “contribute to the current public dialogue concerning race relations....

Three GOP congressional leaders are appealing a federal judge’s ruling that declared a law prohibiting the government from recognizing same-sex marriages to be unconstitutional, according to court papers filed late Friday. Private lawyers for the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group notified the federal court in San Francisco that they are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision issued by according to Judge Jeffrey White. The government cited Section 3 of the law, which defines spouse as a member of the opposite sex....

Robert Lyons, 39, got into a heated argument with his mother over Avril Lavigne concert tickets in 2008. Lyons was so angry at his mother, 61-year-old Linda Bolek, that he murdered her. Bolek’s body was discovered in the condo that she shared with Lyons in Carol Stream, Illinois. She had been stabbed nine times. What exactly was the Avril Lavigne-spurred argument about? Apparently, Lyons was upset that his mother refused to call a friend to arrange for tickets to an Avril Lavigne concert that Lyons wanted to attend, reports the Chicago Tribune....

The web is celebrated for cultivating an increased sense of connection. But a new study shows that added online access leads to more fracturing in real life. Racially charged hate crimes go up as broadband access expands. But there is a very important caveat. The correlation between increased internet access and spikes in hate crimes is much stronger in places that are already racially segregated, according to academics from NYU’s Stern School of Business and the University of Minnesota....

An Indiana man arrested last week and charged with the murder of a 19-year-old woman made his first appearance in court today after leading police to the bodies of six more women he is believed to have killed. Despite his earlier cooperation with police, suspect Darren Vann, 43, was silent during his first court appearance, reports the Chicago Tribune. Vann is currently being charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of 19-year-old Afrika Hardy – who was found strangled in a motel room last week – and 35-year-old Anith Jones, whose body was among the six found by investigators after Vann’s arrest....

Since the assimilation of social media into everyday life became nearly unavoidable, lawmakers have been working to strengthen the laws prohibiting cyberbullying, cybercrime, and online threats. Potentially in spite of the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 that reversed the conviction of a man who posted his own original rap lyrics about his fantasy of killing his wife on social media, state’s around the country continue to embrace new laws that create for a safer, less hostile online environment....

Pop star Katy Perry is being sued in federal court for allegedly stealing the song “Dark Horse” from a Christian rapper. But that’s not all the suit accuses her of doing. The complaint, filed this week in St. Louis by Grammy-nominated gospel rapper Flame and three other songwriters, claims that the religious message of their 2008 song “Joyful Noise” has been irreparably tarnished “by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music” in Perry’s 2013 song “Dark Horse....

An Ohio Supreme Court custody decision has given custody of a daughter to the biological mother in a lesbian relationship. The same-sex couple’s custody dispute, with one partner being the biological parent and the other the non-biological parent, was decided in a 4-3 decision. Kelly Mullen, the biological parent, had originally shared parenting responsibilities with her lesbian partner, Michele Hobbs. After the couple split, a custody battle ensued. Hobbs argued to the court that she was intended to be the co-parent of their daughter despite not being the biological parent, reports the ABA Journal....

TSA Security Breach. That was all the explanation passengers on a flight from Philadelphia to Bermuda were given when they were evacuated from their flight this morning. The U.S. Airways plane was carrying 102 passengers and 5 crew members. According to Fox News, The Philly security breach was not with a passenger. Rather, an unidentified and man without a security badge was helping load luggage onto the plane; when police approached him, he attempted to flee the scene....

A federal judge has stepped in on behalf of teen Jessica Ahlquist, ordering the removal of a prayer banner displayed at Rhode Island’s Cranston High School West. The eight-foot by four-foot mural urges students to be honest and kind, and to embrace friendship and sportsmanship. It also begins with the words “Our Heavenly Father” and closes with “Amen.” As an atheist, Ahlquist felt ostracized by its presence. Lawyers from Cranston High argued that the prayer is merely historical, as it dates back to 1963....

While using a drug dog to sniff for drugs is not unconstitutional, doing so after a completed traffic stop is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 opinion, that the use of a drug dog to sniff for drugs, without any reasonable suspicion, after a completed traffic stop unreasonably extended the stop. The Case Dennys Rodriguez was pulled over by an officer for erratically driving and veering onto the shoulder....

A Connecticut man has sued Sylvester Stallone, accusing him of copyright infringement with respect to the 2010 military film The Expendables. The Expendables lawsuit claims that plaintiff Marcus Webb wrote and registered The Cordoba Caper in 2006. Both scripts allegedly tell the story of a team of mercenaries sent to dethrone a dictator named General Garza. Webb has asked for unspecified damages, and seeks to stop production of The Expendables 2, which is due for release in August 2012....