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3M claims an investment company conspired with high-powered lobbyist Lanny Davis in a smear campaign to "coerce" it into paying "tens of millions of dollars ... to save them from the consequences of yet another unprofitable investment," a screening test for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. 3M sued defendants London-based Harvey Boulter, CEO of defendant Porton Capital and a director Porton Capital Technology Funds, both of the Cayman Islands; and Lanny Davis, a principal of co-defendants Davis & Associates, and Davis-Block, all of Washington. Davis, who worked as a special counsel for President Clinton from 1996 to 1998, has lobbied for a...

A private investigator who helped build an extortion case against Joran Van der Sloot says the young Dutchman should have been arrested before he went to Peru. Bo Dietl says FBI agents recorded a meeting last month in Aruba where Van der Sloot requested money from a lawyer for the family of Natalee Holloway in exchange for information about her 2005 disappearance.

Joran van der Sloot faces an arrest warrant on charges of extortion and wire fraud in Alabama, U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said Thursday. The charges are unrelated to van der Sloot's status as a suspect in the killing of a Peruvian woman. The complaint alleges that van der Sloot tried to extort $250,000 from an individual in exchange for the location of the remains of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway and the circumstances surrounding her death, Vance said. Van der Sloot was once the main suspect in Holloway's disappearance in Aruba in 2005.

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Minister of Interior and Justice Jesse Chacon: We do not rule out that assassinated Prosecutor was part of an extortion ring. From hero to suspected criminal in less than two months -Minister of Agriculture, Arnoldo Marquez: The British owners of the large estate El Charcote have not been able to demonstrate they own the land. The documents are not guarantee that the land is private property, but that they belong to the Agrarian Institute or the Land Institute. There goes the VP’s promise to the British Government to respect their property. -General Oswaldo Bracho: The Bolivarian Liberation front which backs...