Recent Updates
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Justices Stay Execution with Two Hours Left
Recent Cases 09/24/2008The U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution on Tuesday for a Georgia inmate convicted of killing a police officer in 1989, two hours before the scheduled execution. Troy A. Davis, 39, was convicted of murdering Mark MacPhail, a Savannah police ...
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Facebook Case Has Echoes Of MySpace Suicide Case
Recent Cases 09/23/2008A dad says someone used a Facebook account to torment his mentally disturbed teen-age daughter, and he wants the social-networking site to release that person's account information so he or she can be held liable. Fred Beuckman III says his 16-year-o...
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Potash Price-Fixing Conspiracy Alleged
Recent Cases 09/15/2008The world's leading potash suppliers conspired to fix U.S. prices on the fertilizer, Gage's Fertilizer & Grain claims in a federal antitrust class action. It claims they did this after potash prices tanked in the 1990s because "potash producers, ...
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Nevada Sex Laws Tossed
Recent Cases 09/12/2008Nevada's new sex-offender laws are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge James Mahan made permanent the temporary injunction he issued in July that stopped the state from applying the new laws retroactively. The new l...
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2nd Circuit Won't Change NY's Apportionment Method
Recent Cases 09/11/2008The 2nd Circuit denied a voter's assertion that New York's method of congressional district apportionment should be changed from overall population to voting-age population. Michael Kalson sued Gov. David Paterson and the state election board. Kalson...
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'Rear Window' Copyright Holder Sues Spielberg & Viacom
Recent Cases 09/09/2008Steven Spielberg, Dreamworks and Viacom stole the copyrighted story on which the Hitchcock film "Rear Window" was based and used it as the basis for their movie, "Disturbia," the copyright holder claims in Federal Court. Hitchcock based his movie on ...
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Inspector Suspended For Not Shutting Black-Owned Business
Recent Cases 09/08/2008A 20-year veteran building inspector says Genesee County harassed, suspended and constructively fired him because he refused to shut down a black-owned business on a pretext. Michael O'Leary says his boss told him, "Shut them down, go into that busin...
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Canadian mining company settles with Alaska Eskimos
Recent Cases 09/05/2008Canadian-based Teck Cominco Ltd. asked US District Court Judge John Sedwick Wednesday to approve a $120M settlement agreement with six Eskimo plaintiffs from the Alaskan village of Kivalino. The agreement stems from a 2002 lawsuit filed in the US Dis...
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Wextrust Is A $225 Million Ponzi Scheme The SEC Says
Recent Cases 09/04/2008Joseph Shereshevsky, a felon, and his partner Steven Byers fraudulently raised $225 million from nearly 1,200 investors, the SEC claims in Federal Court. The SEC says the men are running a Ponzi scheme through Wextrust Capital, other Wextrust entitie...
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Harass A Republican, Lose Your Phone
Recent Cases 09/02/2008Ramsey County has obtained an emergency order allowing it to order telephone companies to turn over the names and numbers of anyone who makes harassing phone calls during the Republican National Convention, and to cut off those people's phone service...
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Racism Alleged In Bizarre Punishment
Recent Cases 08/28/2008Top administrators at a Camden middle school forced an entire bilingual class of Hispanic children to eat on the cafeteria floor for a week because one student accidentally spilled some water, and when the teacher complained, the principal and vice p...
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EPA Can Inspect Ship for Chemicals, Court Rules
Recent Cases 08/27/2008The Environmental Protection Agency can inspect a former U.S. Navy hospital ship for toxic chemicals, the 4th circuit ruled. The EPA was issued a warrant under the Toxic Substances Control Act to board the M/V Sanctuary, built in 1944, to test for po...