The United States military imposed a curfew on Friday on all of its nearly 50,000 uniformed personnel stationed in Japan, as it tried to respond to public outrage over the suspected rape of a woman in Okinawa by two American sailors. The case struck a nerve in Okinawa, with its uncomfortable echoes of the 1995 gang rape of a schoolgirl by three American servicemen. That crime prompted huge demonstrations that for a time seemed to threaten the entire American military presence on the island.

Under California’s three strikes, a person convicted of a felony who has two or more prior convictions for certain offenses must be sentenced to at least 25 years to life in state prison, even if the third offense is nonviolent. Critics have argued it is the harshest sentencing law in the United States. Life sentences have been handed down for stealing a pair of pants, shoplifting, forging a check and breaking into a soup kitchen.

Shane Bauer was one of three Americans detained in 2009 while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdish region near the Iranian border. He and Josh Fattal were held for 26 months, and Sarah Shourd — now Bauer’s wife — was held for 13 months, much of it in solitary confinement. Seven months after being freed from prison in Iran, Bauer began investigating solitary confinement in the United States. Now, in his first major article since his release for Mother Jones magazine, Bauer finds California prisoners are being held for years in isolation based on allegations they are connected to prison gangs.

(CNSNews.com) - The number of suicides among U.S. Army active duty and reserve personnel in 2012 is higher than the total combined military fatalities from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan over the same timeframe.

“Every suicide in our ranks is a tragic loss for the Army family, adversely affecting the readiness of our Army,” Lt. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg, deputy chief of staff for manpower and personnel, said in a Department of Defense release.

"more than half of the 62 (VOTER ID) bills were sponsored by members or conference attendees of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...Pennsylvania’s law, which is counted among that group, was sponsored by Republican State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, an ALEC member...“We knew the Indiana law was upheld by the Supreme Court,” he (METCALFE) said. “I’m not sure how much ALEC influenced Indiana law.” ALEC has nearly 2,000 state legislator members who pay $100 in dues every two years.

Man gets life in prison after repenting for his crime. A Kansas man turned himself in to authorities saying he knowingly committed oral sex on a 4 month old baby. The predator laws in Kansas are some of the strictest in the nation and mandate a life sentence. While the crime is deplorable, should the sentence be lessened because the man admitted his crime to a priest and turned himself in willingly to police?

A year and a half ago, we wrote about some Italian seismologists who were being tried for manslaughter after a risk assessment they wrote up, in which they concluded that a series of small earthquakes along a faultline wasn't that serious, and the risk of a big earthquake was not that high. About a week later, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck, destroying a bunch of buildings and killing over 300 people.

60 minutes mentions jury nullification occurring in Colorado.

If you heard that Archie Cavanaugh was facing over $110,000 in fines and a decade in jail, you'd probably assume that he was a hardened criminal, trafficking children across the Alaskan tundra, or that maybe he'd smoked a joint. Nope, he was being sought by the US Fish & Wildlife "Service" for his artwork: traditional headdresses of his people bearing the feathers of birds that spend their summers in Alaska. The sale of these feathers is a federal crime, even if they're taken from a bird that had died of natural causes.

Insane Clown Posse and its fans might feel as if they’re in the cross-hairs once again.
At the urging of Royal Oak police, the Detroit rap group’s scheduled Oct. 31 concert has been canceled by the Royal Oak Music Theater. “The cancellation of the show by the Royal Oak Music Theatre is further evidence that the Juggalos are being harmed by the FBI’s designation of Juggalos as a gang,” said attorney Howard Hertz