BREAKING: Maryland House of Delegates votes to repeal death penalty, sending bill to Governor to sign into law

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McDonald’s Corp has been sued by a woman who said her two-year-old son ate a used condom he found in the play area of one of its restaurants in Chicago. Anishi Spencer filed the complaint against the fast-food restaurant chain on Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of herself and her sons, Jonathan Hines and Jacquel Hines. According to the complaint, Spencer and her sons were at a McDonald’s restaurant in Chicago’s South Side on February 4, 2012 when Jacquel picked up the used condom from the floor, and shortly thereafter coughed up a piece of it. Both boys required medical care, and have suffered lasting injuries, pain and discomfort, the complaint said. READ ON: Lawsuit says boy ate used condom at McDonald’s
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McDonald’s Corp has been sued by a woman who said her two-year-old son ate a used condom he found in the play area of one of its restaurants in Chicago.

Anishi Spencer filed the complaint against the fast-food restaurant chain on Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of herself and her sons, Jonathan Hines and Jacquel Hines.

According to the complaint, Spencer and her sons were at a McDonald’s restaurant in Chicago’s South Side on February 4, 2012 when Jacquel picked up the used condom from the floor, and shortly thereafter coughed up a piece of it.

Both boys required medical care, and have suffered lasting injuries, pain and discomfort, the complaint said.

READ ON: Lawsuit says boy ate used condom at McDonald’s

Major tobacco companies must take out advertisements saying they deliberately deceived the U.S. public about the danger and addictiveness of cigarettes, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. The ruling in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia attempts to finalize the wording of the advertisements that the judge first ordered in 2006 after finding the companies violated federal racketeering law. Tobacco companies fought a public admission of deception, calling it a violation of their free speech rights. READ ON: Judge orders tobacco companies to admit deception publicly
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Major tobacco companies must take out advertisements saying they deliberately deceived the U.S. public about the danger and addictiveness of cigarettes, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.

The ruling in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia attempts to finalize the wording of the advertisements that the judge first ordered in 2006 after finding the companies violated federal racketeering law.

Tobacco companies fought a public admission of deception, calling it a violation of their free speech rights.

READ ON: Judge orders tobacco companies to admit deception publicly

Legal weed in states sets up fight with feds — Decoder

Colorado and Washington this week voted to decriminalize recreational marijuana but the drug is still illegal under federal law, raising chances of a showdown between states’ rights and the Department of Justice.  

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Twitter is appealing a judge’s decision requiring the social media company to turn over an Occupy Wall Street protester’s tweets and account information to Manhattan prosecutors.

In June, Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino ruled that releasing Malcolm Harris’s tweets would not violate his privacy, since he had posted them on a public website.

Harris, a Brooklyn-based writer, was arrested with hundreds of other Occupy members during a mass march across the Brooklyn Bridge last fall.

The case has focused attention on a number of murky legal questions surrounding the use of social media, including whether users own the content they post publicly and whether companies like Twitter can prevent authorities from using that information to prosecute social media users.

READ ON: Twitter appeals ruling to hand over Occupy protester’s tweets

Representative Edward Markey released data on Monday from the largest mobile phone companies in the United States showing more than 1.3 million requests by law enforcement agencies for cell phone records in 2011. Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. carrier, reported an annual 15 percent spike in requests, and No. 4 carrier T-Mobile USA said it has seen a 12 percent to 16 percent increase each year. “We cannot allow privacy protections to be swept aside with the sweeping nature of these information requests, especially for innocent consumers,” said Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Law enforcement agencies are looking for a needle, but what are they doing with the haystack?” READ MORE: Cell phone companies see spike in surveillance requests
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Representative Edward Markey released data on Monday from the largest mobile phone companies in the United States showing more than 1.3 million requests by law enforcement agencies for cell phone records in 2011.

Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. carrier, reported an annual 15 percent spike in requests, and No. 4 carrier T-Mobile USA said it has seen a 12 percent to 16 percent increase each year.

“We cannot allow privacy protections to be swept aside with the sweeping nature of these information requests, especially for innocent consumers,” said Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Law enforcement agencies are looking for a needle, but what are they doing with the haystack?”

READ MORE: Cell phone companies see spike in surveillance requests

Apparently, you can blame it on the weatherman. Tourism officials on Belgium’s coast are so upset about a long-term forecast for a rainy summer that they are considering legal steps against the weather service. The officials say a report by private weather bureau Meteo Belgique, which was published in tabloid newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws and predicted only five days above 25 Celsius in July and bad weather in the first half of August, was bad for business. READ MORE: Belgian tourism officials blame the weatherman
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Apparently, you can blame it on the weatherman.

Tourism officials on Belgium’s coast are so upset about a long-term forecast for a rainy summer that they are considering legal steps against the weather service.

The officials say a report by private weather bureau Meteo Belgique, which was published in tabloid newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws and predicted only five days above 25 Celsius in July and bad weather in the first half of August, was bad for business.

READ MORE: Belgian tourism officials blame the weatherman

Kuwaiti gets 10 years in jail for Twitter blasphemy

A Kuwaiti man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.

Shi’ite Muslim Hamad al-Naqi pleaded innocent at the start of the trial last month, saying he did not post the messages and that his Twitter account had been hacked.

The written verdict, delivered by Judge Hisham Abdullah, found Naqi guilty of all charges, a court secretary told Reuters. The sentence was the maximum that 26-year-old Naqi could have received, his lawyer Khaled al-Shatti said.

Read more…

Up to 40,000 Norwegians staged an emotionally-charged sing-along in Oslo on Thursday near the court house where Anders Behring Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in a protest organizers said showed he had not broken their tolerant society. “It’s we who win,” said guitar-strumming folk singer Lillebjoern Nilsen as he led the mass sing-along and watched the crowd sway gently in the rain. Many held roses above their heads, and some wept. The protest followed several days of defiant testimony from Breivik who has admitted he killed his victims in a blood soaked attack on Norway’s multicultural society, but denied criminal guilt, saying he did so in self-defense. READ MORE: Thousands protest at trial of Anders Breivik
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Up to 40,000 Norwegians staged an emotionally-charged sing-along in Oslo on Thursday near the court house where Anders Behring Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in a protest organizers said showed he had not broken their tolerant society.

“It’s we who win,” said guitar-strumming folk singer Lillebjoern Nilsen as he led the mass sing-along and watched the crowd sway gently in the rain. Many held roses above their heads, and some wept.

The protest followed several days of defiant testimony from Breivik who has admitted he killed his victims in a blood soaked attack on Norway’s multicultural society, but denied criminal guilt, saying he did so in self-defense.

READ MORE: Thousands protest at trial of Anders Breivik

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Supreme Court in London February 1, 2012. Assange was detained in Britain in December 2010 on a European arrest warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor after two female former WikiLeaks volunteers accused him of sexual assault. [REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth] Read more: Julian Assange appeals extradition to UK’s top court
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Supreme Court in London February 1, 2012.

Assange was detained in Britain in December 2010 on a European arrest warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor after two female former WikiLeaks volunteers accused him of sexual assault. [REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth]

Read more: Julian Assange appeals extradition to UK’s top court