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About 2.5 million General Electric dishwashers are being recalled nationwide, because leaking rinse solution dispensers can short circuit the appliance’s wiring and cause a fire, according to an announcement from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The recall includes GE built-in dishwashers sold between September 1997 and December 2001, under the brand names Eterna, GE, GE Profile, GE Monogram, Hotpoint, and Sears-Kenmore. See the CPSC Press Release for detailed information on affected brands and models....

Variety is the spice of life. The importance of options also applies to tobacco products. E-cigarettes are the most recent take on tobacco and a recent U.S. Court of Appeals opinion affirms that the tobacco vapor cigarette is, in fact, a tobacco product, rather than a drug as the Food and Drug Administration argued. The issue before the court hinged on an important classification: whether electronic cigarettes are a tobacco product or a drug or device....

Churches and religious organizations get some perks when it comes to paying taxes. In fact, 501(c)(3) organizations can be tax exempt, if they follow certain rules. And members of the clergy can get certain tax breaks as well. Or at least they could before a recent federal court ruling in Wisconsin. The “parsonage allowance” allowed a pastor or “minister of the gospel” to exclude mortgages, utility bills, and other housing-related expenses from gross income on their tax returns....

A former professional wrestler has filed a class action lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment claiming that he contracted Hepatitis C during one of the bloody wrestling matches he took part in. Billy Jack Haynes wrestled for the WWE (then known as the WWF) from 1986 to 1988. In addition to his Hepatitis C claim, Haynes’ lawsuit also claims that the organization failed to warn wrestlers about the long-term health risks associated with concussions and encouraged wrestlers to use steroids and cocaine, reports TMZ....

Imagine watching your child have a tonic-clonic seizure for an hour, with no way to stop it, until an ambulance arrives and administers emergency medication. If you’re lucky enough not to be familiar with a tonic-clonic seizure, it’s when you slump over, potentially falling on the ground and injuring yourself, eyes rolled back, in the fetal position, hands clocked inward, foaming at the mouth, convulsing violently, biting your tongue until it bleeds, and urinating on yourself....

Jodie Sweetin, otherwise known as Stephanie Tanner from “Full House,” rang in the new year by paying off all of the taxes she owed to the IRS. She’s done Uncle Sam (and probably Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey) proud. Maybe we’re seeing wholesome remnants of our favorite middle child? Celebrity Tax Problems The 31-year-old found herself in a sticky situation with the IRS after they discovered she failed to pay $53,626....

Justin Bieber will have to pay the piper after pleading “no contest” to vandalism – something to the tune of $80,900 in restitution. And that’s not all the rabble-rousing pop star have to do. The Biebs, charged with the misdemeanor egging a neighbor’s house, accepted a plea deal which also includes two years of probation, five days of community service, and 12 weeks of anger management classes. CNN reports that Bieber didn’t even appear in court on Wednesday to enter his plea, but Shawn Holley, a notable celebrity defense attorney, accepted the deal on his behalf....

Incarceration can be hard for anyone, and for those suffering from mental illness, prison can be a nightmare. As public funding for mental health plummets and prison populations soar, the prospects for mentally ill inmates may only get worse. While this situation may seem dire, there can be options available for inmates who seek mental health treatment while incarcerated. Inmates and Mental Illness As state-funded mental health institutions began “deinstitutionalizing” patients in the 1960s, and those patients lacked access to mental health services, mentally ill people were instead funneled into the criminal justice system....

But perhaps those worried that business interests would invade the White House were worried about the wrong Trump. In a libel lawsuit against British tabloid the Daily Mail, Melania Trump appears to consider her role as First Lady to be a “unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to make millions of dollars. Failure to Launch Melania is suing Mail Media over its reporting last summer that a modeling agency for which she worked in the 1990s was also a high-end escort service....

More rumblings can be heard from the troubled auto maker Toyota about Toyota issues with its popular Corolla and Matrix. Many consumers are complaining about problems with Matrix and Corolla power steering. As reported by the New York Times, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has initiated an investigation into the reported power steering problems that could affect around 500,000 2009 and 2010 Toyota Corollas and Matrixes. According to Reuters, Toyota has no plans for yet another recall, and will initiate a recall only if the power steering problem is found to be a safety threat....

When police ordered a New Mexico woman’s cavity search, no heroin was found. But the woman did get a steep, $1,122 bill for the search. The woman, who remains unnamed, has filed suit against the county asking them to cover the cost of the cavity search. The body cavity search was ordered after police were tipped off by a “reliable source” that the woman had heroin. On July 1st, a search warrant was issued....

Victims of last year’s salmonella outbreak say they are fed up. They are angry that no one has been charged in the salmonella outbreak linked to hundreds of illnesses and nine deaths. “It seems like it’s been forgotten. That’s kind of how the country ebbs and flows — it’s in the news for a while, then everything quiets down,” Lou Tousignant told the Associated Press. His 78-year-old father died in January from salmonella poisoning after eating tainted peanut butter in his nursing home....

Joran Van der Sloot confessed! No – not to the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He has publicly admitted to the 2010 strangulation of Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru. When questioned by a Peruvian judge on Friday, Van der Sloot said he’d like to offer a “sincere confession” but needed more time to think. He long ago admitted that he became enraged when he found Flores looking at his laptop, which contained information about the Holloway case....

You may have read about “swatting” pranks on celebrities and how they could potentially lead to death and serious injury. As a result, you may be wondering how to protect yourself if you are ever a victim of swatting. If you haven’t heard, celebrity swatting is the latest prank sweeping Hollywood. People like Simon Cowell, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher have all fallen victim to this hoax. (Police arrested Bieber and Kutcher’s alleged “swatter” last week, E!...

The involvement of private enterprise in the criminal justice system has expanded beyond private prisons to include parole and probation monitoring and rehabilitation services. But one Louisiana judge and private, pretrial supervision company have taken things too far, according to an ACLU lawsuit, charging arrestees an additional fee on top of their posted bail in order to be released from jail. The suit alleges that Judge Trudy White has forced individuals arrested and held at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison to pay Rehabilitation Home Incarceration an extra $525 to secure their release, a process ACLU attorney Brandon Buskey calls “a court-approved shakedown....

Animal lovers in Oregon can celebrate since a state court of appeals ruled that animals are more than just property. They can also be considered the victim of a crime, according to Wednesday’s ruling. The ruling arose from a particularly heinous case of animal abuse by Arnold Weldon Nix. Officers investigated his farm in 2010 and found many emaciated horses and goats along with several dead animals. The case is making headlines not because Nix was found guilty of animal abuse but because the ruling marks a change in how the law treats animals....

The U.S. Border Patrol settled a racial profiling lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The settlement resolves a lawsuit that alleged agents were racially profiling people in a rural area of Washington state. As part of the settlement, the Border Patrol agreed to share records of every traffic stop it makes in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for 18 months. The lawsuit in Washington state was borne by mounting tensions between immigrants and Border Control agents on the Olympic Peninsula, reports The Associated Press....

A 3-year-old Oregon girl is expected to recover after she swallowed 37 Buckyball magnets that were so strong, they tore holes in her intestine and stomach. The girl apparently swallowed the Buckyballs because they “look[ed] like what we put on Christmas cookies,” her mother told Portland’s KPTV. But Buckyballs – marketed as “powerful rare-earth magnets” – are not edible. What happened to the girl shows just how powerful the magnets are, and why they should be kept out of children’s hands....

While having your identification on you in public is generally advisable, there is no law that requires people to carry identification with them when out in public. As such, you cannot be arrested simply for not having your ID on your person. However, there are situations that can lead to arrest if you fail to identify yourself. Although carrying a government issued ID at all times is not required by law, certain activities do require showing a government issued ID....

A lawyer can only adequately represent her client if she knows all the facts. On the other hand, a client may be wary of telling his attorney everything, for fear of it reflecting poorly on his case or that the attorney will turn around and spill the beans to prosecutors or the judge. While there are legal protections in place to foster full communication between criminal defendants and their counsel and you should feel comfortable answering all of your attorney’s questions honestly, these protections have their limitations....