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In a 26-Mile Slog, a Shortcut Can Be Tempting By ANDREW W. LEHREN Two California women running together in last year’s New York City Marathon needed more than four hours to cover the first 16 miles. Then, suddenly, they seemingly transformed into elite athletes, their finishing times suggesting a world-record pace through the marathon’s toughest section. Turns out, they had taken a shortcut. They ran in only four boroughs, skipping the Bronx and making a beeline for the finish line. They cheated. And they were not alone. Thirty years after Rosie Ruiz infamously combined distance running and subway riding, some...

"Once a liar, always a liar" is a proverbial parental admonishment. A new study claims there is truth to the adage: People who cheated on exams in high school are considerably more likely to be dishonest later in life, according to a report to be released today by the Josephson Institute of Ethics. The study, which surveyed nearly 7,000 people in various age groups nationwide, offers a sobering assessment of today's youth as cynics who are aware that their behavior crosses boundaries but believe it is necessary to succeed. And the findings suggest that habits formed in childhood persist: Those...

cheating wife was caught by her husband after he spotted their faithful Yorkshire terrier tied up outside a bar. The 40-year-old man was out with the couple's two young children when he spotted the dog tethered to a lamp post. The pet happily started barking when he spotted his master.

John McCain's campaign is still being audited by the Federal Elections Commission, while Obama – the only presidential candidate in history since the public finance system was established to decline public funds during the general election – may have escaped similar scrutiny by the FEC. An FEC spokesman told WND that the commission is obligated to complete an audit of McCain's campaign because he received public funds during the general election. "Under regulations, that is automatically audited by the FEC once you receive public funds," he said. "For the Obama committee, there's a possibility, just like with any other committee,...

<p>David Letterman told his audience Thursday that he is the victim of an alleged extortion attempt and admitted to having sexual relations with several members of his staff, according to a press release from Worldwide Pants Inc. David Letterman admitted to having sexual relationships with female staff members, according to a company statement.</p>

Talk about moving the goalposts... Danish goalkeeper caught on camera making goal smaller during match By Sportsmail Reporter Last updated at 10:34 AM on 26th September 2009 Comments (0) Add to My Stories Talk about moving the goalposts. IFK Gothenburg goalkeeper Kim Christensen faces being banned for literally doing just that. The Dane was caught on camera kicking the flimsy posts closer together during his side's Swedish League clash with Orebro. Suspicions were raised when the referee spotted that the goal, which stands on top of the artificial turf, was standing inside the markings on the pitch that measure out...

The gold medal favourite in tonight's women's 800m World Athletics Championships race is today facing claims that she is really a man. South African Caster Semenya, 18, is set to race in tonight's final in Berlin after sailing through a semi-final on Monday in her first major international sporting competition. But the teenage sensation has sparked controversy over her strikingly muscular physique, and today insiders claimed she would be gender tested following the final in Berlin.

Today, the New York Times provided a report that confirms what a lot of people have suspected. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were among the 104 major league players listed as having tested positive for performance-enhancing substances in 2003, lawyers with knowledge of the results told The New York Times. The two were key members of the Boston Red Sox World Series championship teams in 2004 and 2007. The lawyers did not name the substances Ramirez and Ortiz tested positive for, The Times reported.

Predict the next national pol who will confess to cheating and win a prize

“Who is this guy?” That was my recurring thought watching Gov. Mark Sanford’s slo-mo train wreck of a press conference on Wednesday. I know Mark Sanford from my days as a GOP political consultant in South Carolina. I introduced him at a speech to the libertarian Cato Institute before he became governor. Mark Sanford was smooth. He was smart. Above all, Mark Sanford was cool. In many ways, he was the Republican Barack Obama. Sanford is a true small-government conservative, an ideology that, like Obama’s MoveOn.org liberalism, isn’t very popular. But like Obama, Mark Sanford had the political skills to...

When I heard that it was reported that Sammy Sosa had failed a drug test in 2003, I thought it was anti climactic. After all, it was by now common knowledge that Sosa had in fact been cheating for years. Sammy Sosa was my favorite baseball player starting in the mid 1990's. I often defended him against charges that he wasn't clutch as well as a cheater. Finally, when he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles and suddenly saw his production get cut by about 60% even I couldn't be blind to the obvious. So, it had been years since...

A gathering at an Atlanta elementary school last summer planted the seeds for a cheating scandal. Fifth-graders from five public schools had attended summer classes together at Deerwood Academy in southwestern Atlanta. Then they all had retaken the standardized test each had failed in the spring: the math portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT. Officials from the five schools came to Deerwood to collect answer sheets from their respective students and send them off for automated grading. But state investigators say the test papers from one group of students apparently took a detour. When the results came back,...

According to the Memphis Courant, there is a growing scandal surrounding Derrick Rose, currently of the Bulls. In a letter to the school the NCAA says an unknown person took the SAT for a player, with his knowledge, and then the player used that test to get into Memphis. The NCAA said the athlete in question played for the Tigers in the 2007-08 season and the 2008 NCAA tournament. The only person who played just that season was Rose. ... The Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday that someone with access to Rose's academic records at Simeon High School changed a D...

The further we get from the housing bubble that helped to prompt our current financial meltdown, the less we seem bothered by the decline in trustworthiness and the rise in cheating that fueled the irrational exuberance of the home mortgage market. And then along comes New York Times reporter Edmund Andrews to remind us of that era via his own personal story of attempted mortgage deception and borrowing irresponsibility. If you want to understand how individual wrongs by seemingly upstanding members of society piled up and helped fuel our national ruin, read Andrews’ piece, My Personal Credit Crisis, in last...

Many market-watchers claim that U.S. economic statistics are increasingly being revised downward in subsequent periods, suggesting that the figures initially being reported by Washington are "puffed up," so to speak, most likely for political purposes. Well, I went back and had a look at the differences between the reported and revised data for various series, including monthly retail sales, nonfarm payrolls, industrial production, and durable goods orders, to try and figure out if the cynics are right. Using data from Bloomberg, I calculated whether the revised data for each month was lower than the first-cut estimate. Then I tabulated 12-month...

...HMC frequently under-reported its income from outside money management firms by “netting” it, or cancelling it out, with management fees paid out by the University. This practice, which reduces HMC tax obligations, is questionable because much of the income that Harvard receives from the firms actually derives from management fees that the firms collect from other investors—activities unrelated to the University’s tax-exempt purpose...In one particularly infuriating incident, Rose said that after he repeatedly inquired about a seemingly purposeless investment vehicle, a lawyer informed him that the company was actually set up to help a former employee defer his income to...

After about a month of will-he-or-won’t-he intrigue, the disgraced ex-CEO of Qwest Communications International Inc. has reported to prison in Pennsylvania.Joe Nacchio entered the system on Tuesday after a federal judge denied a last-minute appeal for a new trial. Nacchio faces the same fate as other inmates of the luxury, minimum-security Schuykill facility – according to the Wall Street Journal, Nacchio will work 7.5 hours per day and eat lots of margarine. That’s the only condiment served with meal-time bread. (Apparently “luxury prison” does not include butter, which we find to be most apropos. Perhaps Nacchio’s nickname will be “Oleo...

Anyone who believes Hugo Chavez's presidency is the result of a free and fair election should stop reading and go protest against global warming. For the rest of us, it may come as a surprise to some; we may have witnessed the last free and fair election in this country. How long ago that election was does not matter now; there will not be another one. Remember when "B1 Bob" Dornan lost his House seat to a woman named Sanchez? The election was stolen by Hermandad Nacional Mexicana a group that made a concerted effort to register illegal aliens. Since...

SANTA ANA, Calif. — An IRS agent who conducts audits of taxpayers has agreed to plead guilty to cheating on his own taxes. In a plea agreement filed Monday in a U.S. District Court in Orange County, 43-year-old Jim H. Liu (LOO) of Diamond Bar admitted that he filed a tax return claiming a loss on a real estate transaction when he in fact saw a large profit.

Unsettled closure: Judge scolds jury on reduced verdict for Jeffrey Scott; victim's family not satisfiedSecond-degree murder conviction, 25-year sentence draw emotional reactionsIt was a case that can -- and did -- make a grown man cry. Jimmy Wayne Pittman wanted a life sentence for Jeffrey Scott, the man who beat to death the daughter he adopted as a small child in Bossier City, La. "This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, physically and mentally," said Pittman as tears rolled down his cheeks and into his white beard. "This is always going to be hard. I loved...

“64 percent of all students engage in one of three of the most serious cheating behaviors — copying from another student's work, using cheat notes or helping someone else cheat.” I wonder how many people find the above statistic the least bit surprising. More importantly, I’m curious as to how it has come to this? Why do students cheat in such large numbers? I would guess that a substantial portion of these cheaters use “pre-conventional” thinking skills. According to Kohlberg’s Moral Stages of Development, cheaters see morality as something external to themselves, as something that people say they must do...

Interesting tidbits coming in about Bernie Madoff. Specifically, we're hearing that the smart money KNEW Bernie had to be cheating, because the returns he was generating were impossibly good. Many Wall Streeters suspected the wrong rigged game, though: They thought it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme. And here's the best part: That's why they invested with him. For years and years I've heard people say that [Bernie's] investment performance was too good to be true. The returns were too steady -- like GE earnings under Welch -- and too high given the supposed strategy. One Madoff investor, himself...

J.P. Hayes may be the most admired rule-breaker in America. "This is a great story for sports and honesty in sports," said Mike Golic on ESPN Radio's show Mike and Mike in the Morning. Hayes, 43, a middle-of-the-road pro-golfer, realized that he had mistakenly used a non-regulation ball for just two strokes in a PGA Tour qualifying tournament last week in Texas. Since the ball was unapproved for competition, Hayes admitted his mistake -- and was disqualified. "I violated a rule and I had to take my medicine," Hayes said. But Hayes didn't really have to turn himself in. No...

A state appeals court in San Francisco has upheld a San Mateo County Superior Court sentence of three years in prison for a former political fundraiser who was a fugitive for 15 years. Norman Hsu, 57, was sentenced in January for a 1992 no-contest plea to a charge of grand theft in an investment scheme. County prosecutors said Hsu operated a so-called Ponzi scheme, by soliciting investments in a purported latex glove company and paying returns to early investors with funds from later investors. Prosecutors said he defrauded about 20 victims of nearly $1 million. After pleading no contest to...

With a mandatory recount set to begin next week, the Minnesota Senate race between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, comedian Al Franken, has never been more serious. Officials say the winner will probably not be known until mid-December, at the earliest. Both campaigns are watching the vote count closely, with Republicans raising questions about the integrity of a process that so far has squeezed Coleman's lead from about 725 votes the day after Election Day to just 206 one week later. "I call it the bleed," Fritz Knaak, Coleman's lead recount lawyer, told FOXNews.com. "This was so...

Oh, milk chocolate. Wherefore art thou? Apparently not in some Hershey’s products that contained milk chocolate for years, and that has passionate chocolate aficionados fighting mad. Products such as Whatchamacallit, Milk Duds, Mr. Goodbar and Krackel no longer have milk chocolate coatings, and Hershey’s Kissables are now labeled “chocolate candy” instead of “milk chocolate.” What’s going on here? On Friday, TODAY consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman reported that Hershey’s has switched to less expensive ingredients in several of its products. In particular, cocoa butter — the ingredient famous for giving chocolate its creamy, melt-in-your-mouth texture — has been replaced with vegetable...

Patrol fires 12 troopers in cheating case Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:21 AM FROM THE (CANTON) REPOSITORY CANTON -- Twelve officers accused of cheating on a certification test for a device used to gather evidence against intoxicated drivers have been fired from the State Highway Patrol. Patrol spokesman Lt. Tony Bradshaw said it's the first time in the law-enforcement agency's 75-year history that so many officers have been let go at once. The patrol said the three sergeants and eight troopers from the Canton post and one Wooster trooper cheated on a certification exam for administering breath tests to determine...

This is just too good! The Obama Campaign, in their desperation to explain away John McCain's masterful performance at the Rick Warren "Civil Forum on the Presidency" Saturday night, have allowed their minions in the press to put forth the vile assertion that John McCain cheated by listening in on Obama's time with Rick Warren. Byron York is now reporting that actually it was Barack Obama who had more information going into the questioning than did John McCain! It turns out that Rick Warren shared a third question with Obama, in addition to the first two he shared with both...

The moonbats a barking that McCain didn't hide in a cone of silence. What can this exchange mean except that Obama knew a question in advance? REV. WARREN: Okay. This one is dear to my heart. Most people don't know that there are 148 million orphans in the world. One hundred forty-eight million kids growing up without mommies and dads. They don't need to be in an orphanage, they need to be in families, but a lot of families can't afford to take these kids in. Would you be willing to consider and even commit to doing some kind of...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – While many studies have examined cheating among college students, new research looks at the issue from a different perspective – identifying students who are least likely to cheat. The study of students at one Ohio university found that students who scored high on measures of courage, empathy and honesty were less likely than others to report their cheating in the past – or intending to cheat in the future Moreover, those students who reported less cheating were also less likely to believe that their fellow students regularly committed academic dishonesty. People who don’t cheat “have a more...

Huffington Post's female pundits enraged over cheating John EdwardsBy David Paulin Over at the lefty Huffington Post, John Edwards' confession of being a cheat has, interestingly, provoked fury among some of the gal pundits. They're mercilessly trashing the pretty boy populist -- spitting a toxic venom that even their like-minded male counterparts cannot match. Some, incredibly, are even digging their nails into Edwards' wife Elizabeth (who is battling cancer) for having aided and abetted her husband's public lies. What's going on? Could these ladies be writing with some deeper understanding of the issues at play, perhaps having suffered, like so...

A bizarre series of incidents during last year's Women's World Cup in China is raising questions about the security of visiting delegations in China at the upcoming Olympics. In the days before their World Cup opener against host China last September, members of the Danish women's soccer team say they faced ongoing harassment that culminated in the discovery of two men attempting to secretly videotape a team meeting at their hotel through a two-way mirror. Breaking an 11-month silence about the incidents, Danish coach Kenneth Heiner-Möller told SI.com that he discovered the two intruders behind the mirror as he prepared...

A NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered John Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter – the mother of his “love child” – has been secretly receiv­ing $15,000 a month as part of an elaborate cover-up...

Virginia GOP Chairman calls for criminal investigation into mounting evidence of coordinated voter fraud activities 7/28/2008 11:05:00 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Richmond, Virginia (July 28, 2008) – Delegate Jeff Frederick, Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, this morning called on Governor Kaine and Attorney General McDonnell to open a thorough and rigorous investigation into what appears to be coordinated and widespread voter fraud activities occurring throughout Virginia. Frederick’s request is in response to a report last week of three individuals in Hampton, Virginia being arrested and charged with voter registration fraud, a Class 5 Felony, as well as reports...

To most Americans, the 1980 Olympics never happened. The Carter administration sponsored a boycott ostensibly designed to punish the Soviet Union for its invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. government used all its diplomatic power to get its allies in the Cold War to join the boycott. More than 40 countries went along. With no Americans participating, NBC canceled its coverage of the Games. Most American newspapers, which had planned to send hundreds of reporters and photographers to Moscow, scrubbed their plans, too. In all, no more than 20 American reporters traveled to Moscow for the Games. I was one of...

The Pascua Yaqui Tribe's top casino executive encouraged tribal members to vote early last week by offering free meals at Casino del Sol worth up to $20 per vote. Like laws governing Arizona and federal elections, the tribe's code makes it unlawful to give anything of value to someone as an incentive to vote or to refrain from voting. CEO Wendell Long issued a memo on the eve of early voting for the Tribal Council that urged tribal gaming enterprise employees to clear it with supervisors and then "leave their work post to cast their vote." "As a small token...

Schools and universities could soon be facing a different kind of drug problem: a rise in students taking brain-enhancing pills to boost their exam results. Government advisers warned yesterday that new drugs to treat conditions as varied as Alzheimer's disease, attention deficit disorder, and narcolepsy are in danger of being misused by students eager to bump up their grades. The use of brain-boosting drugs, many of which are designed to improve memory and attention span in people with serious degenerative brain diseases, could become as big a problem for the education system as performance-enhancing drugs are in sport, the experts...

A shocking 34 percent of mothers reported having had an extramarital affair after the birth of their children, according to a study released yesterday. More than half, 53 percent, of women polled in the "Sex and the American Mom" survey also said they had entertained the idea of straying on their spouses. "That's a far cry from just fantasizing about it, which I think is an important distinction," said Pilar Guzman, editor-in-chief of Cookie magazine, which conducted the survey in conjunction with the "AOL Body" Web site. "They're thinking 'when and how can I do this?' " Celebrities whom moms...

The Democrat Party resorted to handing out handbills linking Mayor Greg Davis, the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives (MS-01), to supporting a leader of the KKK. The DCCC was caught distributing handbills and flyers that accused Greg Davis of supporting a KKK leader. This action by the DCCC will escape press coverage on election day. It is a last minute surprise to motivate core Democrat supporters without press scrutiny. This ad could have been posted weeks ago but it wasn't because of the embarassment that would have resulted. A copy of the handbill can be seen at Yallpolitics.com.

What was he thinking? What exactly was running through the expensively educated, politically astute mind of Eliot Spitzer when he allegedly hired a prostitute for a tryst in a Washington hotel? In the days since the Emperors Club became the most notorious escort service on the planet, and in the hours since Spitzer resigned, the question has been asked a thousand different ways: Is he nuts? If not nuts, some kind of sexaholic? If not a sexaholic, what? If past sex scandals are any indicator, here's what we can safely predict: Spitzer won't say. There is plenty of ritual to...

Rueban Navarrette shows mendacious dexterity in appropriating the language of competitive economics to support an agenda that has nothing to do with improving the economy of the United States. He understands well that competition fosters excellence, but seems to deliberately elide the fact that it also reveals hard truths about the people who lose. Anyone who lays into the Democrats with a quarterstaff for being anti-competitive will usually get my seal of approval. In Navarrette’s case, I withhold my utterly unimportant benediction. He got one or two points correct, but failed to tell the whole story. I’ll do my best...

CHAPEL HILL - Chapel Hill High School officials busted a cheating ring this month in which students used a master key to enter teachers' offices at night and, in at least one case, used a camera phone to copy exam answers. Officials learned of the stolen key Feb. 15 while investigating students for having the answers to a mid-term, Principal Jackie Ellis said in an e-mail message Monday. The key opened most of the school's doors, she said. The cheating apparently went on for several years, with the key being passed from one year's graduates to the next and with...

Frustrated at the obstacles confronting his investigation of "Spygate," Sen. Arlen Specter accused the New England Patriots of "stonewalling" on Friday and suggested the NFL might never get around to questioning key witness Matt Walsh, a former Patriots video assistant. Specter's comments are in stark contrast to remarks on Wednesday from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who told reporters that the NFL was moving toward an agreement that would allow Walsh to tell what he knows about the Patriots' spying practices without fear of being sued.

A team of out-of-state attorneys has filed a lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages from the Patriots [team stats] and coach Bill Belichick claiming that the team defrauded St. Louis fans and players when they allegedly taped a Rams practice before narrowly winning the 2002 Super Bowl. The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, is one in a series of attacks on the team and Belichick, who were fined and sanctioned in last year’s “Spygate� scandal for videotaping signals during a 2007 New York Jets [team stats] game. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of former Rams...

A day after meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in Washington, Sen. Arlen Specter said he continues to be troubled by a number of issues surrounding the league's handling of Spygate and will continue his investigation. Specter, R-Pa., told ESPN.com that Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., offered support Thursday for his inquiry into the New England Patriots' questionable videotaping practices, saying Leahy is "prepared to have the committee pay for people who travel and investigate." Leahy sat in on a part of Wednesday's session with Goodell and league counsel, Specter said. Sen. Arlen Specter, ranking Republican on the Senate...

NEW HAVEN - Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton's Election Day visit to New Haven poll workers Tuesday prompted state election officials to caution that politicking within 75 feet of polling sites is against state law. Two television station reporters told state officials Tuesday morning that Clinton brought poll workers coffee and talked with a firefighter at a New Haven precinct when polls opened at 6 a.m., said Adam Joseph, a spokesman for the secretary of the state's office. WTNH-TV reported that Chelsea Clinton immediately went outside after election moderator Nilda Torres announced that the polls were open.

"The illegal tactics the New England Patriots evidently employed Sunday against the New York Jets -- capturing signals and corresponding audio with a sideline camera -- might have allowed the Patriots to sniff out blitzes had security officials not intervened, scouts and coaches said. "With the computer and video technology, you can dial it up at halftime," an AFC personnel evaluator said. "You can say, 'This is their such-and-such blitz. We'll give you the signal, the code word, and let you know it's coming.'" " (emphasis added).

No Stigma for Cheaters In the past there was great shame attached to being a "cheater." Today, it seems to be accepted. A Duke University study shows that 75 percent of students admit to cheating. 90 percent of student admit to copying someone’s paper.

So many New York City students received extra time and other accommodations on a respected national test this year that several testing experts are saying the results should be considered invalid. On the test known as the nation's report card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, New York state gave accommodations to more fourth-graders than any other state in the nation, and New York City gave more help than any of the ten other major cities that participate in a separate city-by-city comparison. On three of four tests the accommodation rate hovered around 20%. On the last — a fourth-grade...

MANLIUS, N.Y. (AP) - Six students at suburban Syracuse high school and two graduates are accused of hacking into the school's computer system and changing their grades and test scores. Authorities say 6 of the teenagers involved are current students at the school. Of the other two suspects, one attends Syracuse University and the other is a student at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. They're accused of breaking into the school's computers to change their scores on Advance Placement exams, SAT tests and classroom examinations.