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LA judge in banana workers case cites threats
Legal Career News |
2010/06/08 09:14
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A California judge said Monday threats had been made against her and witnesses in connection with lawsuits claiming Nicaraguan workers on Dole Foods banana plantations were harmed by pesticides. Judge Victoria Chaney met with lawyers in closed session regarding new claims of witness tampering, then took the bench to abruptly announce there had been threats to her and to witnesses in radio addresses in Nicaragua. She said she was notifying the judicial protective unit. "This appears to be flagrant witness tampering," she said. "I have even more grave concerns about witness safety than I did before." Chaney didn't reveal the source of the threats, and transcripts of the broadcasts haven't been released. She did say the tampering didn't appear to involve plaintiff's attorney Steve Condie. |
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400 Marijuana Dispensaries To Close In Los Angeles
Lawyer Blog News |
2010/06/07 14:16
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Los Angeles is home to hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries, but concern over their proliferation has provoked a backlash. Police are cracking down on most of them starting Monday. A new city ordinance limits the number and locations of medical marijuana dispensaries allowed to operate in Los Angeles. Those that registered with the city before a 2007 moratorium may be able to remain in business. But they can't be near schools, libraries, parks and other sensitive areas. Police officers will begin closing down 400 unregistered dispensaries now operating illegally. "The sky isn't going to fall down," says Asha Greenberg, assistant city attorney. "LAPD isn't going to go around kicking down doors, etc. Initially we're going to be doing information gathering." Greenberg says L.A.'s new ordinance makes it a misdemeanor to run a dispensary without city approval. "Anyone who is operating a medical marijuana establishment, who is violating the city's ordinance is subject to arrest," Greenberg says. Dispensary owners and patients have filed more than 20 lawsuits against the city, arguing that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it prohibits access to their medicine. So far, their attempts at temporary restraining orders have been turned down in court.
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Court won't hear Clinton pay lawsuit
Legal Career News |
2010/06/07 14:15
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The Supreme Court won't hear arguments that Hillary Rodham Clinton is ineligible to be secretary of state. The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group. The Constitution says no member of Congress can be appointed to a government post if that job's pay was increased during the lawmaker's current term. Clinton was serving as New York senator when the secretary of state's salary was raised to its current level of $191,300. Congress lowered the salary so that Clinton could take the position. Judicial Watch says the congressional fix doesn't change the fact that Clinton's appointment was illegal.
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Lehman, Nortel, Bank of America, Google in Court News
Business Law Info |
2010/06/07 14:14
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Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s ex- Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him and his colleagues of failing to disclose Repo 105, a financing method allegedly used to conceal billions of dollars of debt, according to court records. Separately, Ernst & Young LLP, the Lehman auditor, also asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit in a court filing June 4, saying its work met all applicable professional standards. The class-action lawsuit, based on a 2,200-page report by Lehman bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas, was filed April 23 on behalf of retirement funds including the Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Association in Oakland, California, and the Government of Guam Retirement Fund. The Lehman executives denied in court papers that the investors had lost money on Lehman securities because of misstatements and omissions in offering documents. Lehman’s accounting for Repo 105 transactions conformed to generally accepted accounting principles and was approved by Ernst & Young, they said. “Plaintiffs’ effort to turn the report into a basis for securities law violations fails,” they said in a filing in federal court in Manhattan. |
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2 New Jersey Terror Suspects to Appear in Court
Court Feed News |
2010/06/07 13:12
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Two young New Jersey men are scheduled to appear in federal court in Newark Monday morning on charges of trying to join a terrorist group. The two were arrested Saturday at John F. Kennedy International Airport before they could board separate flights to Egypt, where they hoped to continue on to Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabab, a militant organization with links to Al Qaeda. New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 21, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 23, had gone to Jordan in 2007. From there, they tried to get into Iraq but were turned back. "It's a cause for concern," Kelly told reporters during a press conference on Sunday. "It's not unlike other cases that we've seen recently where individuals who express an interest to do 'jihad' go overseas and then are turned around" and "come back to attempt acts of violence in the United States," he said, citing other high-profile cases, like Najibullah Zazi and Faisal Shahzad, both charged with plotting separate acts of terror inside the United States.
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Lesbian couple weds in Portugal's 1st gay marriage
Lawyer Blog News |
2010/06/07 12:14
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A lesbian couple wed Monday in Portugal's first same-sex ceremony since the predominantly Catholic country introduced a law allowing gay marriage last month. Teresa Pires and Helena Paixao, divorced Portuguese mothers in their 30s who have been together since 2003, married in a 15-minute ceremony at a Lisbon registry office. "This is a great victory, a dream come true," Pires said as the couple kissed and hugged. "Now we're a family, that's the important thing," Pires said, adding they would continue to fight for equal rights for homosexuals, including adoption. The ceremony came less than a month after Portugal's conservative president ratified a gay marriage law passed by Parliament in January. His approval made Portugal the sixth in Europe to let same-sex couples wed. The center-left Socialist government said the law is part of its effort to modernize Portugal, where homosexuality was a crime until 1982. Three years ago the same government lifted Portugal's ban on abortion, despite church opposition.
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