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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Lindsay Lohan was charged on Wednesday with grand theft over a $2,500 necklace that was allegedly taken from a Los Angeles jewelry store. Lohan was scheduled to appear in court later on Wednesday for an arraignment on the single felony count. If convicted, the 24-year-old "Mean Girls" star could be sent to prison just as she struggles to end more than three years of court appearances, failed drug tests and brief spells in jail stemming from a 2007 drunk driving conviction. Lohan's lawyer has said that the actress denies the allegations and will fight them...

WASHINGTON — Saying that the recession continues to deepen, the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the mortgage market and longer-term Treasury securities in order to revive the economy.

Thirteen people face charges after allegedly telling Fresno Lotto winners that they were losers, and then keeping the winnings for themselves. Undercover officers posing as customers turned in winning lottery tickets worth about $1,000.00 apiece at several Fresno convenience stores.

A pair of married contract pharmacists at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga persuaded their boss that they should be paid for working 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- and the boss agreed, according to court testimony Monday during the couple's preliminary hearing.

Charlie Crist Let My Daughter Die by Robert Schindler, Sr. Posted Jul 31, 2006 As most Americans know, on March 31, 2005, my daughter, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of starvation and thirst after having her feeding tube removed by court order. The sad chain of events that concluded with Terri’s death ignited a media firestorm nationally and internationally. What few saw or heard was the callous inaction of aspiring governor Charlie Crist. Florida Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering....

Last week the Third District Court of Appeals here issued a little noticed and poorly reported ruling that updated a chronicle of waste and corruption in California's Department of Education (CDE). The CDE, which administers more than 40 percent of California's budget, maintains some curious practices on the issue of accountability. When veteran employees uncover massive waste of taxpayer money and blatant fraud, the CDE does not reward the courageous whistleblowers. It prefers to fire, demote and harass them, and then destroys the evidence by wiping out files on their computers and shredding documents. Those are among the many details...

IT WOULD be illegal for the British Museum to return art- works looted by the Nazis to a Jewish family, despite its "moral obligation" to do so, a High Court judge ruled yesterday. Vice-Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt ruled that the British Museum Act - which protects the collections for posterity - cannot be overridden by the ethical merit of a claim involving plundered art. The heirs of the art's original owners, Dr Arthur Feldmann, a Czech lawyer, and his wife Gisela, who died at the hands of the Nazis, said they were "very upset" at the ruling. They called on...

President Bush's call to allow Americans to take a portion of the money they pay as Social Security taxes to set up private retirement accounts has to be a good idea. Why? The more of what a person earns that's in his pocket and under his control, the better off he will be. At a later date, when the details of the president's plans are known, I'll address the various reform plans under debate. For now, let's look at some of the gross political deceit, lies and unkept promises that have become a part of Social Security. Here's what a...

In Jamestown, police say one resident had enough firepower in his house, to equip a small army. Officers confiscated somewhere between five hundred and a thousand guns from the home of 63-year-old Thad Schank. He faces a weapons possession charge. Police also say one of Schank's weapons was stolen a couple months ago, which means it's somewhere out on the streets. When police realized just how many guns Schank had, they decided to get them out of his home, so that no more guns would end up in the hands of criminals.

“The Director Made Me Do It”: The “Winona” Defense By Henry Mark Holzer FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2002 Criminal defense lawyers are constantly trying to find new ways to acquit their clients. Remember the "twinkies" defense, when a criminal defendant claimed he killed because the confection’s ingredients affected his mind? In the just-concluded Winona Ryder trial, her lawyer propounded yet another spurious defense. The jury didn’t buy it. Ryder was charged with three crimes: burglary, vandalism, and felony grand theft (the latter sometimes euphemistically called "shoplifting"), for helping herself to over five- thousand dollars’ worth of designer-expensive clothes and accessories...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate has used one of the first votes of its lame-duck session to accept a pay raise for the fourth consecutive year.</p> <p>The Senate, without debate, used its second vote on Wednesday to reject 58-36 a measure by Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., that would have denied the congressional pay raise.</p> <p>With the slumping economy and financial markets, job layoffs and federal budget deficits, "this is the wrong time for Congress to give itself a pay hike," Feingold said in a statement.</p> <p>The House cleared the way for the raise in July.</p>