Going to court is not how most people prefer to spend their time. In fact, most of us would have more anxiety about going to court than having to speak in public. Why? Because there is probably a lot at stake when you go to court - your rights, your obligations, your [...]

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) _ Fifteen Philadelphia police officers have been taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked and beaten by city police.
A spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter says the mayor stands behind the police department but his first glance of the video does appear to show the officers overstepping [...]

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By PAUL ELIAS Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ A judge plans to allow three of six Chinese crew members who have been held in the United States since their ship spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay to return home in the next few weeks.
The captain, however, and two other crew members [...]

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LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A former nanny for Rob Lowe claims she was sexually abused by the actor but continued working for him because she loved his two boys and needed the job.
Jessica Gibson says in legal papers filed Monday in Santa Barbara, Calif., that Lowe touched her inappropriately several times between September 2005 and [...]

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By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) _ A smiling J.K. Rowling stepped out of a car and strode into a lower Manhattan courthouse early Monday for the start of her lawsuit against a publisher.
Rowling, who wore a gray pinstriped jacket and a gray knee-length skirt, didn’t speak as she entered the courthouse where [...]

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By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Supreme Court has refused to review a 30-year prison sentence for a teen who was 12 when he killed his grandparents in South Carolina.
Lawyers for Christopher Pittman wanted the justices to examine whether the long prison term for a child violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel [...]

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ERIE, Pa. (AP) _ A 10-year-old girl accused of brutally attacking another girl on a playground is too emotionally immature to understand the criminal charges against her and they should be dismissed, a public defender said.
The 10-year-old and another girl, 11, face charges including aggravated assault for the attack on another 10-year-old girl in an [...]

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By JASON DEAREN Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ When Michela Alioto-Pier was an aide to Vice President Al Gore in 1992, she couldn’t navigate her wheelchair in some areas of the West Wing.
So she threatened to sue, and the White House improved wheelchair access.
Now a San Francisco supervisor, Alioto-Pier is running into similar trouble [...]

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By MIKE ROBINSON Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) _ The government’s star witness at political fundraiser Antoin ”Tony” Rezko’s fraud trial gave an embarrassing, detailed account Monday of how he gorged on powerful drugs in his office, aboard chartered planes and in all-night sessions with male companions in luxury hotels.
Attorney Stuart P. Levine, the political insider [...]

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By JOE MANDAK Associated Press Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) _ A western Pennsylvania couple has sued Google Inc., saying pictures of their home on its Web site violate their privacy and devalued their property.
Images of the home Aaron and Christine Boring bought in the Pittsburgh suburb of Franklin Park in October 2006 appeared on Google’s ”Street View” [...]

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