Hundreds of hungry families lined up outside the Pendás Law Firm’s Orlando office early Tuesday morning, hoping to receive a free Thanksgiving turkey.

Starting at 8 a.m., attorney Lou Pendás and a group of volunteers began handing out frozen turkeys to the first 1,000 families in line, no questions asked.

Pendás said anyone could come and line up for a free turkey at his office, on East Colonial Drive.

But the giveaway was intended for families in need first and foremost, so organizers said they trusted Central Floridians to abide by the honor system.

The first few people in line showed up outside the law office around 3 a.m. Tuesday, hoping for a free holiday meal during an especially rough year.

It’s the second consecutive year the Pendás Law Firm gave away tons’ worth of turkeys.

Lou Pendás said he originally came up with idea after a number of clients told him they were worried about struggling during the holidays.

The day before the giveaway in Orlando, Pendás and his family handed out another 1,000 frozen birds at his firm’s Tampa office.

President Barack Obama appealed Saturday to Republicans in the U.S. Senate to stop blocking a nuclear arms pact with Moscow, saying failure to soon ratify it could jeopardize improving relations with Russia and send a mixed signal to Iran about the strength of the international front against its nuclear program.

He blamed the supercharged partisan climate in Washington for the delay and said inaction on the pact would leave "a partner hanging" at a time of better cooperation among the United States, its NATO partners and Russia.

Obama said European allies at the NATO summit told him that the stalled treaty is critical to U.S.-European security. He talked with reporters after the 28-nation alliance met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to press his case, noting that Russia had voted with the U.S. and other allies to impose the latest round of U.N. penalties against Iran over its nuclear program. Russia is a partner with Iran in a civilian nuclear power project and generally has been less concerned than the U.S. that Iran may be hiding a bomb program.

Obama suggested Republican senators standing in the way of the pact with Russia were abandoning Ronald Reagan's lesson of nuclear diplomacy: "Trust but verify."

The treaty would limit each country's stockpile of nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current level of 2,200, bringing the arsenals to a level last seen in the 1950s. It would replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, which expired last December.

A former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo has gone on trial for war crimes allegedly committed by his militia.

Jean-Pierre Bemba pleaded not guilty to three counts of war crimes and two counts of crimes against humanity as his trial opened at the International Criminal Court in The Hague Monday.

Bemba's trial is only the third to get underway at the court since it began work in 2002.

Prosecutors accuse Bemba of permitting his militia, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, to rape and murder civilians in the neighboring Central African Republic in late 2002 and early 2003. 

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told reporters Monday that the case will define the legal responsibility of a commander to control his troops.  He said the prosecutor's office is not arguing that Bemba personally committed the crimes or even ordered them -- but he said the troops who committed crimes were always under Bemba's authority and control. 

Bemba's lawyers say he had no command of the troops once they crossed the border into the Central African Republic and is not responsible for their crimes.

Bemba sent his fighters to the C.A.R. at the request of the country's then-President Ange-Feliz Patasse.  Patasse wanted them to fight a rebellion led by the country's former army chief of staff, Francois Bozize, who is now the C.A.R.'s president. 

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that two men will be eligible for the death penalty if they are found guilty of killing a Bibb County sheriff's deputy even if they didn't know he was a law enforcement officer.

The state is seeking the death penalty against Antron Dawayne Fair and Damon Antwon Jolly for the 2006 killing of deputy Joseph Whitehead. In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court said the death penalty should not be barred.

Whitehead was a member of a team of officers attempting to serve a "no-knock" warrant on a house in Macon that was suspected of drug trafficking. He was killed moments after entering the home.

Fair and Jolly were charged with murder, and prosecutors cited the killing of a police officer as an aggravating circumstance.

It was the second time the case has been appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court in an attempt to block the state from seeking the death penalty. Trials have not been scheduled for either defendant.

Defense attorneys contended in the latest appeal that the statute that lists aggravating circumstances permitting the death penalty violates constitutional rights to equal protection. They said a person who kills an undercover officer without knowing it should not be treated the same as one who knowingly kills an officer.

A man who was convicted and fined for tweeting that he planned to blow up an airport will take his case to Britain's High Court in a test of the limits of free speech on the Internet, his lawyers said Monday

Attorneys for Paul Chambers said prominent human rights lawyer Ben Emmerson has been instructed to lead the legal challenge to Chambers' conviction.

Chambers, a 27-year-old trainee accountant, was arrested in January after he posted a message on Twitter saying he would blow Robin Hood Airport in northern England "sky high" if his flight, due to leave a week later, was delayed.

Chambers insisted it was a joke. But a judge found him guilty of sending a menacing message over a public telecommunications network and ordered him to pay a 385 pound ($615) fine plus legal costs.

Earlier this month another judge rejected Chambers' appeal.

The verdict caused a wave of outrage on Twitter, with thousands of supporters retweeting Chambers' message with the tag "I Am Spartacus" - a reference to the 1960 movie epic in which the titular hero's fellow rebels all assume his identity in a gesture of solidarity.

The state’s highest court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a Brockton woman who was convicted five years ago of second-degree murder in the 1985 death of her toddler daughter.

Margaret Earle was convicted in 2005 — 20 years after her daughter died. Her boyfriend was convicted of first-degree murder for stomping on the girl’s stomach.
Medical testimony established that Rachelle Pelletier’s small bowel was severed, which caused bacteria to build up and led to organ failure and death.

Prosecutors had argued that Earle failed to seek appropriate medical attention for the 21-month-old. But the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the evidence of malice was “legally insufficient” to support Earle’s second-degree murder conviction.

Earle’s lawyer, Michael Schneider, said his client still feels “horrible” about the loss of her child but was “thrilled” with the court’s ruling.

“Peggy has known in her heart that she had no involvement in this thing whatsoever,” he said. “Twenty-five years later she’s glad to put it behind her.”
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz, whose office prosecuted the case, said he was “gravely disturbed” by the reversal.