Samuel Mullet, leader of an Amish group in Berholz, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for violating federal anti-hate crimes law when he ordered the forced cutting of men’s beards and a woman’s long hair. Hair and beard cuttings are considered degrading and insulting in the Amish world, where being unshorn is a sign of holiness. But the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the hate crime convictions, saying the trial judge erred when instructing the jury on the definition of a hate crime.   read more

Duplicate keys that open high-security locks can now be made by anyone, thanks to 3-D printers. And they can do so without even having the original key to work from, according to Wired’s Andy Greenberg. With just photographs of keyholes on hand, experts can create “bump” keys that can open “millions of locks with a carefully practiced rap on its head with a hammer,” Greenberg reports.   read more

The American Academy of Pediatrics says in a new paper that middle schools and high schools should push back start times to 8:30 a.m. or later so students can get more rest. Opponents of later school start times cite their effect on after-school employment, athletics and other extracurricular activities.   read more

The Ricketts family, whose net worth is more than $1 billion, owns the Cubs, the most profitable team in baseball. Not profitable enough for the Ricketts, apparently. The family doesn’t want to pay for healthcare for all its employees, so they cut the hours of stadium personnel, including grounds crew, according to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. On the day of the rainout, upper management had sent home 10 members of the grounds crew without consulting the on-field supervisors.   read more

A 12-year veteran has decided she’d rather leave the Navy than cut her hair or wear a wig as demanded by a new supervisor. Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Jessica Sims was by all accounts an exemplary sailor. She had been an instructor at Navy medical schools for the last several years and had kept her hair in natural locks with a bun for most of that time, as did other African-American female sailors at her duty stations.   read more

One ambassador snuck in under the wire before the State Department made its decision. Daniel Shapiro, the U.S. envoy to Israel, took the challenge and was drenched. He then challenged U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, but she didn’t get a chance to participate before State sent its cable to U.S. missions. As of August 22, more than $53 million had been donated toward ALS research as a result of the Ice Bucket Challenge, according to the ALS Association.   read more

With as few as 8% of registered voters showing up to vote in some recent elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission has urged the City Council to consider improving turnout with a lottery pilot program. No actual vote would be required, but those participating would have to show up at the polls to participate. There was no decision on what the grand prize for participating in the democratic process.   read more

A suit (pdf) was filed last week by two men, at least one of whom has ties to the No Berkeley Beverage Tax campaign, which receives funding from the American Beverage Association. It claims that the city substituted the phrase “high-calorie, sugary drinks” for “sugar-sweetened beverage” in the ballot language. The plaintiffs, Anthony Johnson and Leon Cain, would prefer the phrase “sugar-sweetened beverage products” to be used.   read more

Neither Moskowitz nor Brothman testified in their own defense because they didn’t want their affair to become known. Nevertheless, she was convicted in 1950 and served two years in prison. Moskowitz also had to pay a $10,000 fine (equal to nearly $100,000 today), and, after being released, she struggled to put her life back together with such a black mark against her during the Cold War.   read more

an official with the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), which provides protection for American diplomats and works to maintain the integrity of U.S. travel documents, decided to test new facial recognition software created to detect passport fraud. The DSS official happened to use an FBI wanted poster containing Stammer’s image for his experiment and found that it matched the photo of an American in Nepal going by the name of Kevin Hodges.   read more

Nevada Department of Wildlife personnel are gathering fish from ditches usually fed by the Truckee River near Reno to a hydroelectric generating station. Because of the drought, water is not being diverted into the ditches, which would normally result in a fishkill. But last week about 25 people waded into the ditches, electrically stunning then gathering fish to be transplanted back to the Truckee or into a nearby pond.   read more

Levitt’s research discovered only 31 instances of voter impersonation out of more than one billion ballots cast in general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014. "The factor that really influences whether people think the elections are fair? Whether their preferred candidates win,” Levitt wrote.   read more

The chair of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, Barbara Cross, said the move made sense because of the potential threat seed borrowing posed. “Agri-terrorism is a very, very real scenario,” she told the local newspaper. “Protecting and maintaining the food sources of America is an overwhelming challenge... so you’ve got agri-tourism on one side and agri-terrorism on the other.”   read more

With wildfire season here, California taxpayers will be glad to know that they’ve got a hard-working corps of firefighters they can call on day or night, who don’t take vacations and work cheap. Really cheap. California employs about 4,000 inmate firefighters. They’re “low-level” offenders who earn $2 a day in canteen credits, as well as two days off their sentences for each day they spend at fire camps.   read more

According to O’Connell, her supervisor, Mark Lewis, told her in 2013 not to hire Latino employees. He later came to O’Connell’s store and saw a Hispanic employee, Feliciano Romero. “Didn’t I tell you not to hire Hispanics?” Lewis allegedly said to O’Connell, who is suing Taco Bell.   read more

The U.S. Department of Justice has drawn attention to itself for helping an organization opposed to Iran maintain secrecy of its records. United Against Nuclear Iran is operated by a who’s who list of American and foreign politicos, including former intelligence chiefs from Israel, Germany and Britain. A Greek shipping magnate accused by UANI of violating sanctions by doing business with Iran. But the Justice Department stepped in to block the request in court.   read more