A Cook County judge dismissed charges against 92 Occupy protesters arrested in a Chicago park last October, ruling that the city’s overnight park curfew violated the First Amendment and was being enforced selectively.

It seems as if we are in a time of unprecedented struggle over the meaning of women's bodies and sexuality. Controversy is swirling about an American University professor who breast-fed a baby in class; topless photos of Kate Middleton have been released; and a Time magazine cover showing a mother breast-feeding her toddler sparked even more tittering in May. It is not just the breast that is contested: Pussy Riot, the punk band, was sentenced to two years in a Russian prison after a staged performance in which they did high kicks that showed too much of their bodies.

Sixteen members of a breakaway Amish community in rural eastern Ohio, including its leader, were convicted of federal hate crimes Thursday for the forcible cutting of Amish men's beards and Amish women's hair. Sam Mullet Sr. and the 15 followers were found guilty of conspiracy to violate federal hate-crime law in connection with what authorities said were the religiously motivated attacks on several fellow Amish people last year. The verdicts were read in U.S. District Court in Cleveland following several days of jury deliberation and a trial that began in late August, a U.S.

THE CITY-OWNED lot, neighbors say, was in deplorable shape, thick with weeds and trash. So when a business owner cleaned it up last month, spending more than $20,000 and removing, by his count, more than 40 tons of debris, Point Breeze residents went out of their way to pass 20th and Annin streets to see the changes. "This was a lot of garbage," Elaine McGrath said as she took in the carefully tended plantings and wooden benches. "Now it's gorgeous. I'm excited." But not everyone is happy with the alterations - namely, the lot's owner, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.

A Philadelphia mom is peeved that police gave her a $50 ticket after her 2-year-old son peed against a street light post. After eating at a Johnny Rockets diner five blocks from their home in a high-rise, the family went across the street to a clothing store. Robboy said two of her children told her they needed to go to the bathroom, but the store operators wouldn’t let them use their restroom. They headed back to the diner, but the 2-year-old couldn’t hold it. “I told him to go over to a grassy patch and make pee,” Robboy told NBCPhiladelphia.com.

Just after midnight Saturday morning, authorities descended on the Cerritos home of the man believed to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked protests and rioting in the Muslim world. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies escorted a man believed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to an awaiting car.

A man arrived at a municipal court this week and attempted to pay a $137 traffic violation ticket with 137 origami pigs fashioned with dollar bills and boxed in two Dunkin Donut trays.

A city clerk refused to accept his creative payment method however, and forced him to unfold each every one of his painstakingly made creations.

The unidentified man, who goes by the name of Bacon Mouse on YouTube, posted a recording of the exchange and explained his motives in a description of the video.

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued a Utah city in federal court over a "free-speech zone" ordinance, saying the Orwellian-named measure unconstitutionally requires a permit for almost any form of public expression. "Under this ordinance, you would arguably have to apply for a permit to engage in nearly any speech in the city," he said.

Because he was standing approximately 10 feet away from his front door, Lynn had "no reasonable expectation of privacy" and made no attempt to conceal his penis or buttocks, the police report said.

THOUSANDS of students in an east China city are being forced to work at a Foxconn plant after classes were suspended at the beginning of the new semester, it has been revealed. Students from Huai'an in Jiangsu Province were driven to a factory in the city run by Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Company after the plant couldn't find sufficient workers for the production of Apple's much-anticipated iPhone 5, they said in online posts.