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The U.S. Supreme Court upheld opening prayers at town meetings Monday, ruling that even consistent sectarian prayers did not violate the First Amendment. In a 5-4 decision in Greece v. Galloway, the High Court affirmed the town of Greece, New York’s practice of offering a prayer before opening town board meetings, despite the fact that the vast majority of these prayers were distinctly Christian. Two Greece residents sued over the practice, The New York Times reports....

In a 68 to 31 vote, the U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. The historic confirmation means that Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, the third woman to hold the judicial honor, and the 111th justice to serve on America’s highest court. Sotomayor will fill the vacancy left by former Justice David Souter who retired from the court in June 2009 after nearly nineteen years on the Court....

The year ain’t over yet. Meaning that some A, B, or C-list stars could still make it on this countdown. (And let’s be honest, we welcome D-listers as well.) But with time running out on 2016, we thought we’d take a moment and look back on the most notorious celeb busts of the year. And considering the last 350-plus days have been known more for the tragic deaths of some of music, movies, and pop culture’s most kindred souls, perhaps the celebrities below should feel fortunate they only went to jail, and not the great beyond....

Nut eaters beware! In the last two weeks, Trader Joe’s has issued two recalls: one for almonds possibly contaminated with peanuts, and one for walnuts possibly contaminated with salmonella. Here’s what consumers need to know: Almond Recall On March 12, 2015, Trader Joe’s posted a notice on its website recalling its Cinnamon Almonds. The almonds may contain peanuts which were not mentioned on the packaging. While some people may be able to eat almonds, which are tree nuts, they may be allergic to peanuts, which are legumes....

When your criminal case goes south, you may wish to appeal your conviction. But appeals are only likely to be successful in certain circumstances where there has been some sort of mistake or error. Here are a few situations in which you can certainly appeal your conviction: 1st Appeal Guaranteed After a conviction resulting from a trial, generally all criminal defendants are guaranteed their first appeals, also known as the “appeal as a matter of right....

It’s a legal phrase we hear all the time, but we many not know exactly what it means. So what is the burden of proof in a criminal case? And who carries this burden? As a general principle, the burden of proof is the obligation to present enough evidence to prove that your allegation is true. This obligation, and the amount of proof necessary, differs depending on the type case and what claim the evidence is presented to prove....

Don’t urinate in public, no matter how popular your movie was. Actor Bronson Pelletier of “Twilight” fame apparently thought he could relieve himself at Los Angeles International Airport. There’s nothing wrong with taking a leak there, if you do it in the designated areas – those designated areas being the restrooms. But don’t celebrities get special urinating privileges in Los Angeles? Well, if Pelletier had any confusion about that, he was certainly set straight....

Halloween is a festive time for communities to come together in costume and share candy. But with children’s freedom to knock on strangers’ doors comes heightened parental fears of sex offenders. A number of states have Halloween sex offender laws in place to assuage parents’ pedophilia concerns. But is the perceived heightened threat around Halloween actually credible, or are sex offenders the new bogeymen? Many cities and counties have enacted special Halloween sex offender laws that dictate what sex offenders are allowed to do and where they are allowed to be on Halloween....

The police are at your door. They want to questions you because you’re suspected of a crime. Yikes! Your first instinct may be to tell them about everything, including the time in third grade when you stole your teacher’s candy. Or, you may want to bolt and run. If you ever become implicated in criminal investigation, here are some tips you can follow: Any run-in with the police can be intimidating and stressful....

Last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a BB gun does not count as a firearm when it comes to a felon-in-possession charge. David Haywood, who was convicted of a felony in 2005, was convicted three years ago for possession of a firearm and sentenced to the mandatory minimum 5 year sentence. Now, his conviction is overturned. Most states restrict the rights of individuals who have been convicted of a felony when it comes to gun ownership....

Teenagers text everywhere they go. They text in class, at home, and sometimes even when they drive. Now there are new technologies and apps that may stop texting while driving. One product, called Cellcontrol, is relatively cheap. It is also potentially life-saving. Cellcontrol costs about $7.95 a month for up to six phones, reports USA Today . It blocks use of cell phones while driving. Users install a small device into their car....

The recently lawsuit filed by Michael Grossman and his life partner Michael Ludin against the Directors Guild of America (DGA) is taking on one of Hollywood’s oldest organizations. The pair are claiming discrimination and suing the 80-year-old DGA after their health plan refused to pay for naturopathic care. Generally, naturopathic care encompasses quite a few different types of treatments, including semi-reputable treatments such as chiropractic or acupuncture. However, naturopathic care and treatment can also be dangerous, fraudulent, and downright foolish in its denial of actual scientific effectiveness, such as with vaccines, or other modern treatments, which some naturopaths claim are bad....

In a raid on 7-Eleven stores on Monday, federal agents busted more than a dozen franchise locations for allegedly hiring victimized illegal immigrants and providing them with stolen IDs. In raids stretching from New York to Virginia, authorities seized 14 convenience stores and five homes which were allegedly used by the owners to house their underpaid and undocumented workers, reports Reuters. Aside from the moral issues involved in exploiting immigrant workers with marginal pay and plantation-style housing, these 7-Eleven owners are facing serious criminal charges....

Most parents raise their sons and daughters to always do the right thing. But that may have backfired for a New York man whose teen daughter called 911 to report his DUI in progress. Ja Mail Lewis and the mother of his girls must have done something right, but he wasn’t at his best on Wednesday when police pulled him over for a suspected DUI. They were tipped off by Lewis’ 14-year-old daughter, who called to report her dad from the backseat of the car....

Almost half of the links the U.S. Supreme Court has cited in its opinions are now deader than doornail dead. The Nine aren’t typically credited with being the most tech-savvy jurists in the nation, but according to The Atlantic, a new Harvard study found that 49 percent of the online resources linked to by the High Court don’t work. Link rot isn’t only a problem for the Supreme Court, but it may be a bit more pressing if these black hole links make past jurisprudence incomplete....

The government sent incorrect tax information to some 800,000 people who signed up for insurance plans through HealthCare.gov last year. The error is expected to delay the tax returns for about one out of every five people who used the federal insurance marketplace to avoid tax penalties for being uninsured. If you were one of these enrollees, what do you need to know about the mix-up, and how will it affect your tax filing?...

The fifty states all define crimes slightly differently, so there is not a single blanket answer for when a theft graduates from a misdemeanor to a felony. The difference between a misdemeanor and a felony is the severity of the crime involved, or in the case of a theft, the value of what was stolen. But there is more to it. Three factors impact a theft charge: what was stolen, how much was stolen, and the alleged thief’s prior record....

Last week, the Department of Justice announced that an international ransomware and hacking operation, which hit a Pennsylvania county’s district attorney’s office for a $1,400 ransom, had been shut down. The bust happened as a result of a coordinated effort between 40 nations as the cybercrime operation had a worldwide impact. The DOJ announced that arrests were made in four separate countries and dozens of servers that hosted the malicious programs were shut down....

It’s exam season, and many students out there will be tempted to pass off someone else’s term paper as their own. And in the Internet age, copying and pasting has made plagiarism even easier. At the same time, Google searches have made catching plagiarists easier as well. So if you get caught plagiarizing someone else’s work, are you going to jail? Well, that depends on the context – what were you plagiarizing and why?...

Johnson & Johnson is facing hundreds of lawsuits filed by over 10,000 plaintiffs alleging the company’s baby powder contained dangerous levels of asbestos in the talc used to create it. After losing several high-profile, high-damages jury verdicts (and having another overturned on appeal) a bombshell Reuters report shows J&J knew there was asbestos in its baby powder as far back as the early 1970’s and spent the ensuing decades misleading customers and U....