Legal News Today

Please tune into our special presentation for the holidays presented by your host, Brenton Wombles. He will have a holiday music show for friends and family for your holidays.This year’s theme is ‘A Children’s Winter Wonderland’. It celebrates the pureness that the holidays bring, as seen through the eyes of children. The magic and joy of a Winter Wonderland through a child’s eyes transform the White House and its stately, storied rooms, reminding us all of the beauty of this holiday season and the blessings we have experienced over the past year.

While much of the world last week was focusing on events in Ferguson, Mo., or on the case of a 12-year-old who displayed a realistic toy gun and was shot to death by a police officer in Cleveland, a different kind of confrontation involving police and race began playing out in federal court.Nine Cleveland police officers -- eight whites and one Latino -- are suing the city, alleging racial discrimination. They say they were disciplined more harshly than black officers were in cases involving officer shootings.Though dollar figures are not mentioned, the nine are seeking damages for lost pay, overtime and other benefits in the wake of a Nov. 29, 2012, high-speed car chase during which 13 officers fired 137 rounds at two unarmed black civilians in a school parking lot.Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, each shot more than 20 times, were killed. The city has settled a suit by the families, who will receive $3 million.The federal lawsuit by police in some ways is the flip side of the ongoing debate involving p

A New York grand jury Wednesday opted not to indict a white policeman in the killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man whose last words — “I can’t breathe” — became a rallying cry for protesters who blamed his death on racial profiling and police abuse.The decision, coming nine days after a Missouri grand jury declined to charge a white officer in the death of Michael Brown, drew swift reactions that reflected the passions that have increasingly surrounded such cases across the country.New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other officials, anxious to avoid the violence that erupted in Ferguson after Officer Darren Wilson walked free, urged calm as activists called for demonstrators to converge at Times Square, Rockefeller Center and other landmarks.De Blasio, whose wife is black, invoked their teenage son, Dante, and said his heart went out to Garner’s family.“This is a subject that is never far from my family’s minds,” De Blasio said. “I’ve had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers h

Same-sex marriages may begin in Florida in early January after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Wednesday declined to further stay a lower court ruling that overturned the state's ban on gay weddings.The appellate ruling would permit same-sex couples to tie the knot after the stay expires at the end of the day on Jan. 5, 2015.State officials can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gay marriage is legal in 35 states, not counting Florida.While gay marriage advocates have had the upper hand in the courts in the past year, a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court on Nov. 6 became the first to uphold gay marriage bans.That decision, by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, created a split within the courts, increasing the chances the Supreme Court will rule on the issue.“I don’t see what they can do at this point to stop it," said Don Price Johnston of Miami, who was involved in one of several Florida cases in which judges have struck down the ban, approved by Florida voters in 2008.The appellate

One of the puzzles of a newly released survey about Christmas in the United States was the striking finding that Americans' belief in the historical accuracy of the Christmas story -- the virgin birth, the angelic proclamation to the shepherds, the star of Bethlehem, and the wise men from the East -- has fallen by nearly 20 percentage points during the last decade. In a PSRA/Newsweek poll in December 2004, two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans affirmed their belief that the Christmas story is historically accurate, compared to 24 percent who said they believed it is a theological story written to affirm faith in Jesus Christ. In the December 2013 PRRI/RNS Religion News Survey, the percentage of Americans affirming the historical accuracy of the Christmas story fell to less than half (49 percent), with 4-in-10 (40 percent) saying they believe it is a theological story written to affirm Christian faith.Upon further examination, the declining belief in the historical accuracy of the Christmas story tracks other r