Nelson worked for dentist James Knight for 10 years until he fired her in 2010 because of her looks. Knight claimed that she was too attractive to keep around, lest he be tempted to sleep with her and endanger his marriage. The ordeal and court ruling of the “irresistible employee” became a national story on news shows and comedy programs. Nelson asked the court to reconsider its decision, and this week it agreed to do so.   read more

“Do not use any electronic device,” Francis says, “such as the telephone, cell or smartphone, BlackBerry, iPhone, PDA computer, the Internet, email, any text or instant message service, any Internet chat room, blog or website such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or Twitter to communicate to anyone any information about the case.”   read more

A lot of the time, Carney says he can’t answer the media’s question on an issue. Since taking the job in early 2011, the former Time reporter had conducted 444 briefings through June 18. During that span Carney used some variation of "I don’t have the answer” a total of 1,905 times, according to Yahoo! News.   read more

The median dollar value of possessions and cash stolen jumped 54% from 1994 to 2011, BJS reported, with the median financial loss going from $389 (adjusted for inflation) to $600. Because the average loss (as opposed to the median loss) in 2011 was $2,116, it would appear that high-end burglars are proving successful. However, low-income households are still victimized at a higher rate that upper-income households.   read more

Convicted murderer Gary Haugen, who has been on Oregon’s death row since 2007, cannot force Gov. John Kitzhaber to put him to death, according to a unanimous Oregon Supreme Court ruling last week. Calling Oregon’s death penalty system “compromised and inequitable,” Kitzhaber also stated that he would not allow any executions to proceed, at least until the state legislature had a chance to consider and enact reforms.   read more

The Associated Press found 24 instances of defendants who went to jail because of bite marks, but ultimately were found not guilty as a result of DNA testing. In separate cases, two men in Mississippi were convicted in the 1990s of raping and murdering three-year-old girls based on bite mark evidence. DNA testing later revealed that another man was guilty of both crimes and that the alleged bite marks were actually caused by crawfish or insects.   read more

Keith Cressman of Oklahoma City filed litigation in 2011 objecting to the state’s standard license plate, adopted in 2008, which appears on three million vehicles statewide, claiming the image on it promotes Native American spiritual beliefs and thus endorses a religion. Federal Judge Joe Heaton dismissed the lawsuit last year, but a panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to reinstate it on June 11.   read more

Demographers attribute the early arrival of Caucasian natural decrease to several factors, especially the Great Recession and sluggish aftermath, which depressed both birth rates and immigration; and the much higher average age of whites compared to other groups (the median age of whites is 42, of Asians-34, of blacks-32, of Hispanics-28), which translates into lower rates of population growth.   read more

The bookless library will have 100 e-readers for people to borrow in order to read any of the 10,000 digital titles that will be available. Residents also will have access to dozens of computers to browse, study, and learn digital skills. One of the inspirations for the Bexar paperless public library was the bookless engineering school library at the University of Texas San Antonio, which has been open for three years.   read more

As of Friday, Dingell had served 20,997 days (or 57 years, 5 months and 26 days) as a representative from southeast Michigan. He first joined Congress in 1955. He had already broken the record for the longest time served in the House of Representatives in February 2009. Now he has broken the overall Congressional record, previously held by Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who served in the House of Representatives from 1953 to 1959 and in the Senate from 1959 until his death on June 28, 2010.   read more

Madden summarizes the beginning of the story of The Silver Collar, the book that preceded The Silver Crown thus: “The plot of The Silver Collar is almost traditional. Iris and Alfie are lovers. Deeply besotted until one night a werewolf attacks them and Iris’s twin brother, Matthew. Matthew is killed and Alfie is bitten. Alfie becomes a werewolf as Iris becomes a werewolf killer. Suddenly their relationship isn’t going so well….”   read more

The two researchers conjured up a two-dimensional graph that measures the “ideological distance between the median of the Democratic and Republican parties in the state legislative chambers.” The congressional median is around 1.2. Louisiana is the least divisive state at 0.5. California is literally off the grid, which only goes up to 2.5. California’s score looks to be around 3.0. The next closest to California is Colorado at 2.2.   read more

Logs were placed across the road on April 1, along with a “closed” sign, according to the civil complaint. Cheng says the road closure was “unauthorized” and goes against the doctrine of “love your neighbor.” Cheng accused Father George Belgarde, the Jesuit shrine’s director, of taking “an openly hostile stance toward our temple and our members, and refused to discuss or consider a compromise like his predecessors.” Belgarde became director of the Shrine in 2011.   read more

The group plans to display a monument bench that will feature quotes from Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a renowned atheist activist, an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli signed by President John Adams, and quotes from founders Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.   read more

The plaintiffs from High Times Magazine, The Daily Doobie and The Hemp Connoisseur insist they “do not sell or promote obscenity,” and demand the court throw out HB 13-1317. They pointed out that alcohol is banned for Americans younger than 21, but that alcohol-related magazines are allowed to be sold openly.   read more

As for young Mr. Mahankali, he has never even eaten a knaidel, a culinary lapse likely soon to be remedied, given the many offers he has already received. But will it be kosher or kashrut? And here’s a tip for aspiring spelling champions: the plural of knaidel is knaidlach. Or is it knaidelach?   read more