Hot on the heels of Bishop Thomas Olmstead stripping St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix of its affiliation with the Roman Catholic diocese after it terminated a pregnancy to save the life of the mother, the National Women's Law Center has released a report on entitled Below the Radar: Health Care Providers' Religious Refusals Can ( Read more... )

You know about North Carolina, right? The state? Like many other states, they have a State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). Their SBI has a crime lab with a forensic biology section that tests stuff for ... stuff ( Read more... )

Hey everyone! Meet Paul Warner Powell! He's this fun, nifty neighborhood fellow from Manassas, VA. The kind of guy that confronts and tries to rape little 16-year old white girls when he finds out they're dating black fellows, and then murders them when they resist. And then attacks, rapes, and cuts their 14-year old sister and leaves them for ( Read more... )

In this quick Reuters piece about the 12-year prison sentence handed down by a Belgrade court to Ilija Jurišić for 1992 war crimes, the offense is described as "improper battlefield conduct by ordering an attack on a column of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) on May 15, 1992 in the town of Tuzla ( Read more... )

Susan Denise Atkins, a former member of the Manson family who killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate during a two-day killing spree in 1969, has died, according to a California corrections spokesman. She was 61. Susan was the subject of a recent much-publicized parole hearing in which she was again denied. Atkins died at 11:46 p.m. PT Thursday (2:46 ( Read more... )

... especially if David Grann has anything to say about it. Grann, in his explosive New Yorker piece on the Cameron Todd Willingham case, cherry picks his data to fuel an already-unstable political mixture. And lord does he play his hand like Johnny Chan. Hell, had I not already read ample documents on the 1991 Cameron Todd Willingham arson/ ( Read more... )

What kills me most about the supposed newsworthiness of Ron Paul's "audit the Fed" bill isn't that it's worthwhile, or even that it makes any sense whatsoever. It is that it is actually garnering support in the House of Representatives in the form of about half of the elected congresspersons in the lower house. Now ignoring for a moment how ( Read more... )

Let's just hope it is one. Susan Atkins was denied parole yesterday, with another hearing set for three years from now, a date that she likely won't live to see.

And this garish parade of whiny, entitled criminals begging for clemency now culminates in entreaties by the legal representation of none other than one Susan Atkins. For those of you that need a refresher: Susan Atkins, along with an accomplice, held down and plunged a knife sixteen times into the body of an innocent woman whom she did not know ( Read more... )

"My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct. The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice. With these critics who want to have an honest ( Read more... )