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Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle signed a bill into law on May 12 that will allow Hawaii state agencies to ignore you. Well, not always. Only in the case of repeated, duplicative requests. This may be the state’s last, best effort to control the waste of time and resources caused by constant “birther” requests to the Hawaii Department of Health for President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. The new law, reports the Honolulu Advertiser, carves out a limited exemption from Freedom of Information requirements for state agencies when duplicate requests for information are made by the same person....

In a petition for review of the SEC’s finding of securities law violations by Petitioners, the petition is granted in part, where the SEC failed to explain its finding that certain omissions by Petitioners involved a material fact; but denied in part, where the scheme at issue clearly involved an “underwriter,” which refuted Petitioners’ theory that they properly relied on the Regulation S and Section 4 exemptions. Read Zacharias v. SEC, No....

As another school year starts, so do all the good pieces of advice. “Don’t talk to strangers,” “Don’t get behind in your classes,” and “Don’t drink and drive” to name a few. As it turns out, the FBI has a few tips for students, too. In a fairly complex scheme, scammers offer jobs to college students via an email. How smart to target a group that has such little experience they’d think getting a job is that easy!...

Facebook launched ‘Marketplace’ last week, and it didn’t take long before the social media giant’s answer to Craigslist devolved into an anarchic online bazaar hawking the very items banned by the company’s commerce policy. Guns, drugs … Harambe? Marketplace had it all, and Facebook has spent the last few days trying to convince everyone that it was all due to a “technical issue.” So what illegal items turned up in Marketplace before Facebook fixed the glitch?...

You gotta fight for your right to wear a loin cloth in public, and that’s just what Will Walters is doing. The 30-year-old gay man has sued the city of San Diego and some of its police officers, accusing them of violating his scantily clad civil rights. Walters was arrested on suspicion of public nudity while at the city’s July 2011 LGBT Pride Festival. Local law enforcement clearly didn’t understand that a “gladiator type kilt over black underwear” is de rigueur for such events....

California has about 18 million voters, but only six were necessary to decide whether it should be divided into three states. The state Supreme Court, in an unusual preemptory strike, removed a voter initiative from the November ballot. Proposition 9 would have given voters a chance to decide California’s boundaries. Then this happened in Planning and Conservation League v. Padilla. Prop. “Not” 9 Prop. 9 had enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but opponents filed suit to stop it....

Darren Byler, of Kodiak, Alaska, is the owner of a retired crabbing boat, named Wild Alaska, which he uses to run a strip club. He recently found himself facing some serious criminal charges related to his establishment’s facilities for employee and customer bathroom waste. However, it seems that much of the drama has subsided for Byler. As such, this past week, he finally reopened to customers. There is no word as to whether his waste facilities have been updated....

Bar prep is not easy. It feels about the same as studying for every single final exam you had in law school, except with the added caveat that you’re about to take them all at the same time. Simply put, there’s no time to waste. Unfortunately, the schedules that most bar prep courses create are unforgiving when it comes to the pace of the course. A sick day or two can really set you back, and if you can’t catch up, you could find yourself struggling for the rest of the course....

You didn’t need to be a futbolista to have heard rumblings about FIFA corruption or the shady dealings of its President, Sepp Blatter. And those that love soccer have long awaited the day when all those rumblings and rumors and allegations would finally turn into criminal charges. Well, my friends, that promised day is finally come. The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland has opened a criminal investigation of Mr....

Cynthia Turano, arrested after grabbing her husband’s camera in a divorce case, spent the night in jail cells stained with feces and blood and littered with garbage, food scraps, and used medical supplies. She was not charged and was released the next morning, but by that time was blood-stained from her own menstrual period. Guards refused to give her menstrual pads throughout the ordeal. She sued the police who arrested her and the jailers who held her....

Police sting operations have become as complicated as movie heists, with layer upon layer of subterfuge designed to lure master criminals into law enforcement’s web. Take this gambit from police in St. Petersburg, Florida: after a genius car thief left paperwork bearing his name in a car he was accused of stealing, a cunning detective called him to come pick them up. Not suspecting the slick stratagem, the thief stole yet another car and drove it to the police station....

Complaints about razors in ice cream or earrings in McDonald’s hamburgers have been put to shame. Tainted yogurt is now king. In her written statement, the woman called Garcia “pushy,” saying that he had brought the sample just for her. Upon tasting it, she immediately spit it out. It tasted like semen. When the woman spoke to the manager, reports The Smoking Gun, she was told that the tainted yogurt was actually Greek yogurt, and that people liked it because it had a lot of protein....

The California Penal Code states that the county’s chief probation officer shall have the “sole discretion,” consistent with the terms and conditions of probation, to decide which persons shall be supervised using a global positioning system (GPS). A California District Court says the GPS law is unconstitutional. In an opinion issued on Tuesday, the court ruled that the chief probation officer cannot order a person to wear a GPS device in conflict with a court order....

Your next cocktail hour might feature a kale-wheatgrass smoothie rather than a Manhattan. That is, if the latest Millennial trend takes hold: the sober happy hour. Youths these days are adding some good, clean fun to their socializing and we can see it making its way into the legal industry sooner or later. Is the sober happy hour the worst thing ever invented or could this be a welcome addition to our booze-soaked trade?...

Silicone butt injections are all the rage, but one provider has likely landed herself behind bars. The Food and Drug Administration busted Kimberly Smedley in November, accusing her of illegally administering silicone butt injections to strippers in Washington, D.C. Now she’s pleaded guilty to the crime. The Atlanta woman will serve a maximum of 5 years in prison and prosecutors plan to seek a $250,000 fine, according to documents obtained by the Smoking Gun....

Government lawyers seem to be in a rush to wrap up high-profile cases before the new administration takes over. In December, Deutsche Bank settled a federal investigation into its mortgage securities, for $7.2 billion. Then came Volkswagen, laying out almost $15 billion in what might be the most expensive corporate scandal ever. Last week, Takata agreed to settle an investigation into its cover up of airbag defects for $1 billion, a relative steal....

A D.C. federal judge tossed out Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) FOIA lawsuit against the EPA partially because it contained an “imaginative conspiracy theory.” In Competitive Enterprise Institute v. EPA, Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for D.C. found that CEI was using weak (albeit creative) arguments to compel the EPA to release about a thousand withheld emails. So what made Judge Boasberg declare CEI’s arguments to be an “imaginative conspiracy theory?...

It’s hard to put a positive spin on a really bad move. But perhaps Judge Gregory Ross could become the poster child for “Wake Up Your Judge Day.” He’s the judge who awarded joint custody of a child to a twice-convicted child rapist, apparently because of a blunder on a legal form he signed. A Michigan court spokesman said it was really the prosecutor’s mistake, but somebody’s head is going to roll....

You remember those days as a child when Grandma was baking? You could smell those muffins from a mile away. They smelt so good that you just had to sneak one. And you remember when you were a bit older and there was that girl at the local Walmart, and her booty just looked so good that you just had to grab it? That same irresistible impulse that led to your obesity and a short jail stint must have been what overcame 27-year-old David Allen Thompson of Charleroi, Pennsylvania....

Two McDonald’s patrons are under arrest after an allegedly “messed up” cheeseburger order led to a drunken rampage. The men say they told grave-shift workers at a McDonald’s in Murfreesboro, Tenn., to hold the onions on their cheeseburgers, Nashville’s WTVF-TV reports. But when they discovered the offensive onions hiding under their buns, they went back to the drive-thru to demand satisfaction. The McDonald’s manager, however, wasn’t lovin’ it. “We got cussed out and told to get the ‘F’ out of their line,” McDonald’s rampage suspect Chris Slate, 21, told WTVF....