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Florida executed a 65-year-old man on Wednesday who had spent more than three decades on death row for the murder of a woman he met at a bar. Robert Waterhouse was put to death by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, the fourth inmate executed in the United States this year. He was pronounced dead at 8:22 p.m. local time, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff. He was sentenced to die for the January 1980 murder of Deborah Kammerer, a 29-year-old St. Petersburg woman who encountered Waterhouse at a bar in the Tampa Bay area.

PLAYBOY founder Hugh Hefner's oldest son has been busted for allegedly attacking his girlfriend, former Playmate of the Year Claire Sinclair. Police responded to a 911 call from a Sinclair family member, saying that Marston Hefner had attacked her, TMZ reported. Officers found Sinclair, the 2011 Playmate of the Year, with visible injuries, including bruises and red marks. Sources told TMZ that Hefner, 21, punched and kicked Sinclair, 20, and she then called family members, who in turn called police.

The trustee overseeing MF Global's liquidation has come out and confirmed that the amount of customers’ funds of the failed brokerage are now expected to be at least $1.6 billion. This gap has now risen from the previous estimate of $1.2 billion. This is the biggest financial crime perhaps in history far worse than Madoff. This is the outright theft of client funds that nobody is being called to account for no less the recipients of such funds being made to return them. The collapse of MF Global, which was headed by former Goldman Sachs CEO, Senator, and New Jersey...

THE Granville Police in St James seized a firearm along with one round of ammunition yesterday morning. Reports from the Granville Police are that about 7:30 am, a team of police was on patrol along Tucker Main Road, when they searched a man and a homemade handgun and one 9 mm round was found on his person. The man was arrested and charged. Meanwhile, quick and coordinated efforts on the part of police personnel from the Flying Squad, the Motorised Patrol Division, the Denham Town Police and the Newport West Police led to the recovery of a motor vehicle within...

(Barbados Nation) More arrests are on the cards following an intense police audit of shooting clubs and firearm dealers this past week. The ongoing investigation has also resulted in the transferral of two police officers and the temporary closure of the firearms section of the Royal Barbados Police Force. The SUNDAY SUN has further been reliably informed that an undisclosed number of unregistered firearms and quantity of ammunition were uncovered during the probe, which has revealed some other stunning irregularities. Yesterday, Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin said he preferred not to make any comment at this stage.

Local law enforcement agents arrested a suspect early Friday morning at an Odessa hotel, several hours after a Midland bank was robbed. Mark David Willmann, 42,was charged with bank robbery, a federal offense. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Counts granted a temporary motion by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to hold Willmann without the possibility of bond. -snip- Law enforcement agencies received tips identifying Willmann from a photo of the bank surveillance video released to local media outlets shortly after the robbery .... Two people positively identified Willmann about an hour after the photo and story were posted on the Reporter-Telegram’s social...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The LAPD is fighting crime from a high-tech war room that gives it eyes all over the city. The surveillance hub is now a model for police forces around the world and KCAL9 got an exclusive tour inside from Chief Charlie Beck. “We are targets on our own soil,” says Beck. “We have to be ready.” What began as a grass roots idea following the 9/11 terrorist attacks is now a state-of-the-art real-time analysis critical response center. It’s called RACR, and it’s located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

A Tennessee couple who 'unfriended' a woman on Facebook were murdered in their home by the jilted woman's father and another man, police said on Thursday. "It's the worst thing I've ever seen," Johnson County Sheriff Mike Reece said, adding he had never seen anything like it in his 27 years in law enforcement in the area. "We've had murders, but nothing like this. This is just senseless." He said Billy Clay Payne, Jr. and Billie Jean Hayworth were killed last month after they deleted Jenelle Potter, the daughter of one of the suspects, from their 'friends' list. Both were...

Once the fake money is in your hands, it’s your responsibility—and if you try to use it, you could go to jail for 20 years. This is even the case when the business handing out the counterfeited cash is the U.S. Post Office, as one man in Los Angeles found out. David Larazus’ LA Times column details the odd story of David Lipin, who cashed a postal money order and received eight $100 bills—all of which turned out to be fake. Lipin not only had to eat the loss, but also deal with the police, who said he could have...

From 1980 to 2007, the number of prisoners held in the United States quadrupled to 2.3 million, with an additional 5 million on probation or parole. What Ayn Rand once called the “freest, noblest country in the history of the world” is now the most incarcerated, and the second-most incarcerated country in history, just barely edged out by Stalin’s Soviet Union. We’re used to hearing about the widening chasm between the haves and have-nots; we’re less accustomed to contemplating a more fundamental gap: the abyss that separates the fortunate majority, who control their own bodies, from the luckless minority, whose...

Pending legislation in the state House of Representatives would allow the National Rifle Association to sue Lancaster and 29 other Pennsylvania cities. The bill, co-sponsored by six of Lancaster County's eight House members, would allow judges to impose triple damages against a city if a court finds its ordinance requiring the reporting of a lost or stolen handgun to be illegal. "They ought to be ashamed of themselves, to try to penalize communities that would regulate illegal guns because they don't have the guts to do it themselves," Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray said. The 30 Pennsylvania cities passed ordinances requiring...

by John HillStand With ArizonaMore than 10,000 people in 24 hours viewed our video "14 Illegals in 24 Seconds", showing illegal aliens - most with large backpacks - easily moving over terrain near Tucson, 30 miles North of the border. Floods of illegals crossing the Arizona desert occur continually, thanks to the failure of the Federal government to provide secure border fencing or adequate border patrol agent numbers. But what of the fencing that does exist in parts of Arizona? How well does that stop those determined to get in? Well this next video should give you a clue, and...

NEW YORK – A former employee of one of the world’s largest international banks who has provided WND with more than 1,000 pages of evidence alleges the Internet giant PayPal and American Express are implicated in an international money-laundering scheme involving hundreds of billions of dollars. The whistleblower, John Cruz, was a relationship manager in the southern New York region for the London-based global bank HSBC. “I found many accounts where PayPal and American Express were used as conduits through which hundreds of thousands of dollars were deposited or withdrawn from HSBC customer accounts in a pattern of suspicious transactions...

This is a story about a young and impressionable female intern in the White House -- a virgin, with girlish dreams about princes and presidents. Young girls are trained to marry the wealthiest or most powerful man on the block. When the prince comes calling, few young girls can resist this opportunity. However, they are not the ones who are abusing power and betraying both youth and a wife. That would be the prince or president himself. And no, I am not talking about Monica Lewinsky in the Clinton White House. I am talking, sadly, about the recent revelations by...

Nearly 90 city employees were suspended Monday and face potential firing and prosecution for receiving unemployment benefits while holding their city jobs, District officials said. In addition, about 40 former city workers cashed unemployment checks they were not entitled to and also face sanctions. In all, the city estimates it has paid out as much as $800,000 in unemployment benefits to working city employees since 2009.

Members of an Atlanta street gang were filmed beating a man who was brutally assaulted because “faggots” were not allowed in their neighborhood, according to a videotape of the apparent hate crime. The 30-second clip, posted today to the Worldstar Hip Hop web site, was shot outside a grocery store in Atlanta’s Pittsburgh neighborhood. The business, located at 1029 McDaniel Street SW, is a popular congregating spot for members of the Pittsburgh Jack City Gang (or “PBJC”). The group has also used the name “Jack City 1029.” After being provided a link to the video, an Atlanta police spokesperson told...

A U.S. teenager who admitted stabbing, strangling and slitting the throat of a young neighbor girl wrote in her journal on the night of the killing that it was an "ahmazing" and "pretty enjoyable" experience -- then headed off to church with a laugh. The words written by Alyssa Bustamante were read aloud in court Monday as part of a sentencing hearing to determine whether she should get life in prison or something less for the October 2009 murder of her neighbor, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, in Missouri. Bustamante, 18, sat silently as law enforcement officers, attorneys and forensics experts read...

Josh Powell Tragedy: Son Said Mom Was In Trunk of Car, Lawyer Claims The young sons of Susan and Josh Powell, who died with their father when he ignited an explosion in their Washington home, were beginning to verbalize that their mother was in the trunk of their father's car on the night that she disappeared in 2009, a lawyer for the missing woman's parents said. Attorney Steve Downing told the Associated Press that Braden and Charles Powell, who were 2 and 4 at the time of Susan Powell's disappearance, were beginning to tell their grandparents details about the night...

A Newark man died after a tussle with a former high school wrestler he tried to rob early Saturday, NBC New York has learned. Law-enforcement sources told NBC New York that 30-year-old Gian Davis approached two men near Bloomfield Avenue at about 1:15 a.m. and asked for change. When the men said "no," he then asked to borrow a cell phone, grabbed it and tried to run off with it, sources said. One of the men lunged to get the phone back and Davis put him in a headlock, according to sources. Then, sources say the other man, a former...

The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing a bill Monday that would require the police to return stolen firearms to their rightful owner once they are no longer needed for "evidentiary purposes." SB 350 would also require the police to auction off contraband firearms every six months rather than destroy them, and would prohibit agency employees from bidding on the firearms or profiting from their sale. Before auctioning any firearms, however, the police in custody of the weapon would be required to use their "best efforts" to locate the rightful owner. This bill appears to be a genuine effort to make...

Today, Cato is releasing a new study, Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens, by Clayton Cramer and David Burnett. The paper makes use of a news report-gathering project to explore in more detail how Americans use guns in self-defense. The paper makes many excellent points, but I’ll mention just three here. First, the average person tends to imagine that these self-defense situations involve criminals getting shot. Such cases do occur, but the overwhelming number of self-defense cases involve situations where the gun is never fired. The second point relates to the first. The average person usually does...

Do any freepers know of any reputable online background/trace checks

Over the last few years, calls for the right to carry firearms concealed have reached a crescendo. In step, politicians from both sides of the aisle have endorsed opinions on the subject and, with very few exceptions, these public servants tend to tailor their stances in line with those of their base of support. For those opposed to concealed carry, this often means pointing to numbers that make the argument gun-related deaths would be vastly diminished if we all were to simply disarm but what these interests tend to avoid are the powerful anecdotal cases where a legally armed citizen...

MOSCOW, January 31 (RIA Novosti) Tags: Saiga-12, AK-47, Izhmash, USA, Russia, Moscow Izhmash, the manufacturer of the legendary Kalashnikov AK-47, will supply Saiga-12 semi-automatic smoothbore shotguns to a number of police forces in the U.S., Izhmash reported on its web site on Tuesday. The contracts were signed at the Shot Show exhibition in Las Vegas on January 17-20. “The first Saiga-12 deliveries to U.S. law enforcement were already made in January 2012,” Izhmash General Director Maxim Kuzyuk said. At the exhibition, Izhmash also signed an agreement on exclusive imports to the U.S. market with Russian Weapon Company and an agreement...

A 15-year-old boy has admitted to killing his parents and hiding their bodies underneath blankets in the family's car parked outside their Oakland home, police said Saturday. Police arrested the juvenile, whom this newspaper is not naming because he is a minor, on suspicion of murder after speaking to him earlier in the day. He told investigators he killed Robert Kamin, 54, and Susan Poff, 50 -- a longtime couple who recently moved into the neighborhood -- on Thursday and hid their bodies in the home, a police source said. Police are not releasing the cause of death until a...

IN A HORRIFIC assault in Center City on Saturday night, three teenagers who were spouting racial slurs pulled a man out of a cab to beat him. And when the cabdriver intervened to stop the assault, the teens turned their rage on him, police said yesterday. About 8:25 p.m., a cab was stopped at a red light at 15th and Chestnut streets when two 17-year-old boys and a 15-year-old boy approached and started calling the male passenger in the back seat racially derogatory names, police said. The boys then threw an unknown liquid at the cab before they opened the...

Republican Former Massachusetts Governor Willard Mitt Romney and Bain Capital and Numerous Health Care Corporations Today's Wall Street Journal summarized the investments made by Bain Capital, a venture capital and private equity firm lead by Governor Romney, The Wall Street Journal, aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain's involvement and shortly afterward. Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested,...

Is Now The Time To Move Away From Major U.S. Cities?January 26, 2011 As the U.S. economy falls apart and as the world becomes increasingly unstable, more Americans than ever are becoming "preppers". It is estimated that there are at least two million preppers in the United States today, but nobody really knows. The truth is that it is hard to take a poll because a lot of preppers simply do not talk about their preparations. Your neighbor could be storing up food in the garage or in an extra bedroom and you might never even know it. An increasing...

This suspicion that we have exorcised the fear of the law from the criminal mind with soft policing and a “caring” judiciary is often reinforced by the actions of the law when an ordinary citizen seeks to defend his or her property or physical safety when confronted by lawbreakers – hence the frisson of delight most of us have in movie scenes where the tables are turned on some criminal who expects his victim to be terrified into meek obedience when faced with the threat of violence by knife….

EXCLUSIVE Fury at wreaths for £1million armed robber Sick 'cashpoint' tribute   Fake ... but Thomas Curtis's gang took real ATMs   SICK graveside tributes have been left by family and pals for an armed robber and ram-raider found hanged in jail. Victims of the £1million crimes carried out by Thomas Curtis, 29, and his gang last night voiced fury at the display in Elm, Cambs, which includes a replica ATM and a Post Office sign. Friends and relatives "honoured" the robber by leaving rose-edged tributes at the grave that recall his trail of violent crime. Dad-of-two Curtis was...

Authorities say a customer at a South Carolina Waffle shop pulled a gun and shot one of two men trying to rob the restaurant. Authorities said the customer had a concealed weapon permit and tried to hold the two men at gunpoint until officers arrived, but that one suspect began to point his gun at the customer, who then fired shots. The second robber fled and is being sought by authorities.

“[A]s a professional courtesy,and to avoid needless preparation by the Committee and its staff for a deposition next week, I am writing to advise you that my client is going to assert his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to be a witness against himself,” attorney Tobin Romero, representing Patrick J. Cunningham, chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, advised House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa in a January 19 letter obtained by William LaJeunesse of Fox News. Romero claims Cunningham did nothing wrong and acted in good faith, but the...

Wednesday marked the first time since early 2011 that there were no shootings or murders in the city of Chicago in a 24-hour period, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said in a statement released Thursday. “On January 18, for a 24-hour period, there were no shootings and murders in the city of Chicago,” McCarthy said. “The last time we went a day without a murder or shooting was nearly a year ago in early 2011. This is clearly the result of the tremendous police work of the men and women of the Chicago Police Department.

As of 5 p.m. Friday: The Washoe Drive Fire has burned 3,177 acres and is now 65% contained. In the press conference, we did learn a person came forward taking responsibility for ashes improperly discarded in the area. 29 homes have been destroyed. Three homes have four to five-percent damage, one has minimal damage. Authorities also tell us seven out buildings were damaged.

Here's something Chicagoans can celebrate. Or is it? Police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced Thursday the city of Chicago went 24 hours without a murder or shooting. Wednesday marked Chicago's first shooting- and murder-free day for almost a year. Early 2011 was the last time the city was this still, McCarthy said.

Jason Bauer, a former Oakland Country Democratic Party official, was sentenced to one year of probation and $2,600 in fines for his involvement with a 2010 fake Tea Party scheme. Bauer is the second person involved in the plot to be sentenced. Former Oakland County Democratic Party Chair Mike McGuinness pleaded no contest in October to charges of perjury and forgery. Capitol Confidential broke the story of the fake “Tea Party” in July of 2010 in the article, “Democratic Party Political Director Linked to Mysterious Tea Party Political Party.” The Tea Party fraud was initially caught by blogger Jason Gillman,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The nearly $62 million earned illegally through inside trading by two hedge fund executives, four financial analysts and a Dell Inc. employee represents "a stunning portrait of organized corruption on a broad scale" and was notable for exploiting the secrets of a single technology giant, a prosecutor said Wednesday in announcing charges in the case.

LA QUINTA (CBS) — Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to hit the links Saturday in the Humana Challenge golf tournament. The Humana Challenge begins Thursday morning with professionals like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar and Bill Haas. Celebrity players include singers Smokey Robinson, Alice Cooper, Michael Bolton; actors Morgan Freeman and Don Cheadle and basketball Hall of Famer Julius Erving. The tournament will be played at the La Quinta Country Club and the Palmer and Nicklaus Private Courses at PGA West, and airs live on Golf Channel 12-3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and 1-4 p.m. on Saturday...

The central conflict of the Obama Presidency has been between the jobs and growth crisis he inherited and the President's hell-for-leather pursuit of his larger social-policy ambitions. The tragedy is that the economic recovery has been so lackluster because the second impulse keeps winning. Yesterday came proof positive with the White House's repudiation of the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada's $7 billion shovel-ready project that would support tens of thousands of jobs if only it could get the requisite U.S. permits. Those jobs, apparently, can wait.Unless the President objected, December's payroll tax deal gave TransCanada the go-ahead in February to start...

NEW YORK – A 24-year-old man who pleaded guilty to murder and other crimes in a violent stabbing rampage in New York City last winter was sentenced Wednesday to 200 years in prison during a hearing in which he hurled epithets at one of his victims and was told by the judge that he was a "sociopath." Maksim Gelman, born in Ukraine, pleaded guilty in November in Brooklyn to murder and other charges in the spree in February 2011, which included stabbing his stepfather and two others to death, fatally running down a pedestrian, stealing a car and attacking a...

An in-development Microsoft smart phone app designed to help drivers and pedestrians avoid unsafe neighborhoods is proving controversial among some minority rights groups that find the software potentially discriminatory. The as-of-yet unnamed product is being referred to as the “Avoid The Ghetto” app by those who are concerned with where it will guide users. “I’m going to be up in arms about it if it happens,” said Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace. Wallace spent her afternoon at a rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and said she felt safe there, but fears the app may project otherwise. “Can you...

An in-development Microsoft smart phone app designed to help drivers and pedestrians avoid unsafe neighborhoods is proving controversial among some minority rights groups that find the software potentially discriminatory. The as-of-yet unnamed product is being referred to as the “Avoid The Ghetto” app by those who are concerned with where it will guide users. “I’m going to be up in arms about it if it happens,” said Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace. Wallace spent her afternoon at a rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and said she felt safe there, but fears the app may project otherwise. “Can you...

If I hear one more hysterical outburst from some liberal, whose brain is hotwired to Attorney General Eric Holder’s mouth, about Jim Crow returning to South Carolina, I’m going to disconnect my television cable. It seems this type of mindless volcanic eruption is a consequence of South Carolina requiring one of five forms of identification in order for someone to exercise the franchise. One of these means of identification South Carolina makes available free, in addition to providing free rides to the polls for anyone who asks. As Eric Holder — the brains behind both the Fast and Furious gun-running...

MONTEVIDEO — Unconditional bail was set at $750,000 this morning for Darek Jon Nelson, 24, of Montevideo, who faces murder and manslaughter charges for the stabbing death of 18-year-old Vinessa Lozano Friday night in Montevideo. Nelson made his first appearance before District Judge Dwayne Knutsen in Chippewa County District Court. According to the complaint, Nelson began planning to kill Lozano on Jan. 9, after he became upset that Lozano didn’t come to his home on Jan. 8. Nelson told investigators that he hid a knife in his hooded sweatshirt while he worked his shift at the Pizza Ranch restaurant. He...

...Gelareh Bagherzadeh was studying molecular genetic technology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She was of Iranian descent and was active in promoting Iranian women's rights, Houston Police Department spokesman Victor Senties said. She was a vocal critic of the Iranian government, according to prior interviews with the Houston Chronicle. Whether discrimination or her personal background was connected to her death was not clear, Senties said. "At this point, it does not appear that she was targeted," Senties said. Investigators do not know the motive for the shooting, he said. Bagherzadeh was shot about 12:30 a.m. outside the family's home in...

WATCH: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/indian-american-group-learns-shoot-after-string-vi/nGNG5/ ARTICLE Asian-Indian community taking self-defense classes after home invasions http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/asian-indian-community-taking-self-defense-classes/nGMfw/ ALPHARETTA, Ga. — A Fulton County grand jury has indicted seven Colombian nationals for a violent home invasion. Lawyers for the men appeared in court Friday morning to learn the suspects won't get bond. Roswell police said the men robbed Raj Sharma and his family at gunpoint two weeks ago looking for gold. Police are looking into whether the men are tied to cases targeting Indian families in Alpharetta and Cobb County. "As a community, we're completely ignorant about firearms," Sanjeev Navalkar said. Navalkar works in insurance but...

DEARBORN, Mich. (WJBK) - A woman is in the hospital after witnesses say she was assaulted at a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant in Dearborn over the weekend. Family members tell FOX 2 the woman was celebrating her grandson's seventh birthday Sunday afternoon when she asked patrons at a nearby table to clean up their language. "She said, 'please don't use that language with children,'" said the victim's daughter told. "They told her to 'shut the f--- up and turn around.'"

The Pepsi Beverages Co. paid a $3.1 million fine to settle federal charges of racial discrimination in its hiring. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) assessed the fine, declaring that “screening job applicants for prior criminal records disproportionately affects blacks and Hispanics.” “Everyone knows that minorities are more likely to be criminals than whites are,” said EEOC spokesman Clem Clodpate. “Consequently, screening for previous criminal history is, ipso facto, discriminatory.” “Besides, Pepsi failed to demonstrate a business need for excluding criminals from being hired,” Clodpate added. “Who’s to say that a person with a criminal record couldn’t adequately perform the...

For years, Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe lived something of a double life. He was widely admired by his flock at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, which he helped build into one of the largest Roman Catholic parishes in the Las Vegas area. But at the same time, he was stealing money from the church. He stole from the gift shop. He stole from the votive candle collection. He stole from a fund for novenas, or Masses in honor of the dead. Over nearly a decade, he pocketed about $650,000. His motive was all too familiar in slot-machine-heavy Nevada. McAuliffe was a gambling...