Roseanne Barr sparked controversy this week for appearing to promote a far-right conspiracy theory about the Parkland shooting student-activist David Hogg. On Tuesday evening, just before the revival of her ABC sitcom "Roseanne" premiered, Barr tweeted the words "NAZI SALUTE" in response to a Twitter user who tagged Hogg in a tweet. She later deleted her tweet.
Barr, a vocal Trump supporter with a history of promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, seemed to be referencing a far-right conspiracy theory that Hogg raised a Nazi salute at a March for Our Lives rally on Saturday. As Mic noted, a number of Twitter users, including Chrissy Teigen, criticized Barr for the tweet, while some called out ABC for giving Barr a platform with her revived sitcom.
Barr has previously used her Twitter page to promote debunked far-right conspiracies including Pizzagate and the conspiracy of a "cover-up" in the death of former Democratic National Convention staffer Seth Rich. ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. SEE ALSO: Roseanne Barr has a history of supporting Trump — and promoting right-wing conspiracy theories Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why 555 is always used for phone numbers on TV and in movies from http://www.businessinsider.com/roseanne-barr-under-fire-for-nazi-salute-tweet-conspiracy-theory-parkland-student-david-hogg-2018-3
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In letters to the court, Serafin, a US citizen born in San Diego, outlined his upbringing among some of Mexico's most powerful drug traffickers, describing his proximity to the violence that surrounds narco life. Serafin's mother, Leticia Ortize Hernandez, and his father knew each other from growing up outside of Culiacan, the capital of Mexico's Sinaloa state. They encountered each other again in 1988 in Mexicali, a city on the US border in Baja California state, and she fell in love with Zambada, who was 15 years older and already a rising figure in the drug trade. After Serafin was born, Benjamin Arellano Felix and Amado Carrillo Fuentes, both kingpins, became his godfathers, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. But war soon broke out between the Arellano Felix Organization and the Sinaloa cartel over control of Tijuana. Serafin and his mother retreated to Culiacan, looking for safety, but the violence followed them.
The day he turned 2 years old, a car bomb detonated outside his birthday party. "From that day on, our lives were never the same," his mother said, according to court records seen by The Union-Tribune. "The same men that not long before stood up for our children in church and promised to raise them to be good Catholics were now trying to kill them." When Serafin was 9, gunmen stormed a Mazatlan hotel room that he and his mother had recently left, killing his grandparents, uncle, and aunt. Sinaloa cartel rivals eventually killed his mother's family, and she soon started moving her children from home to home and keeping Serafin out of school. They were accompanied by armed guards sent by his father. "From 1992 to the year 2000 the days were difficult and bloody and a stupid senseless war where many families were destroyed and with a lot of pain in their hearts," his mother said, according to The Union-Tribune. Serafin, his mother, and his sister moved back and forth between Arizona and Sinaloa over the next few years. The war with the Arellano Felix Organization eased in the early 2000s, as the AFO lost ground. But a new conflict emerged in the late 2000s, when the Beltran Leyva Organization broke away and took up arms against its erstwhile Sinaloa allies. Serafin later attended the Universidad Autonoma de Sinaloa, where, out of the shadow of narco culture, classmates said he took to school and soccer. He took classes in agronomy, but his stint away from the drug trade soon ended. "Unfortunately, I returned to Culiacán Sinaloa and I say unfortunately because in that city there is nothing more than the drug trade," Serafin told the judge in a letter. In 2010, he married a girl from another family involved in trafficking, and they soon had two children. In November 2013, he was picked up on a warrant as he crossed the border into Nagoles, Arizona. In September 2014, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import more than 100 kilograms of cocaine and more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana to the US and agreed to forfeit $250,000 in drug profits, which has already been turned over, according to The Union-Tribune.
In letters to the court, Serafin expressed remorse. "In this drug business one hurts a lot of people and I your honor regret having been the cause of causing so much damage to many people with the drug business," he wrote. "I have learned here in this place that drugs destroy many lives." "I lived in a golden cage with luxuries that were useless," he said of his childhood. In court, he apologized for his crime and said he wanted to move on and raise his children "in the best way possible." It's not clear why it took so long for Serafin to be sentenced, but the judge cited his "genuine remorse," the lack of violence in his background, and the outpouring of support from people in his life as reasons for the relatively light term. With the time he has already served, he could be out by September, his lawyer told The Union-Tribune. 'Life ... where you don't see what's going on right next door'
Serafin lived in the shadow of Sinaloa's drug trade, and many others in the state find themselves in inescapable proximity to the narco world and its dangers — though they experience that threat in different ways. "I think the students that we had were students who do well in school and who have trained themselves not to look and not to see the violence that's going on all around them, and that's something I think that people in the US don't understand," Everard Meade, a professor at the University of San Diego, told Business Insider in December, describing attendees at an event he held with students from Sinaloa the previous month. "Sinaloa's a wealthy state, and it has really strong institutions," said Meade, who is also the director of USD's Trans Border Institute and frequently travels to Sinaloa. "So where it ranks 30th out of 30 in the Mexico Peace Index in negative peace, or in violence, if you look at positive peace measures — like the institutions of things that actually work — it ranks 10th, and it ranks 10th because it's a wealthy state with a lot of resources and strong institutions." Such resources give many in Sinaloa — mostly the middle class and up — the opportunity to excel academically and professionally, even as their day-to-day lives play out alongside some of the country's most intense drug-related violence. "There's a cross section of society in Sinaloa that takes advantage of those institutions and trains their kinds how to do the same thing, and if you do well in school and you don't go off this narrow path, you can get a good job there, you can get opportunities to go abroad," Meade said. "You can do all these things where you can define a successful life in ways where you don't see what's going on right next door, in the neighborhood right next door or what happens three hours before you pulled into the mall parking lot and at the restaurant across the street." "All these things that have to do with the violence in Sinaloa, people are really good at training themselves not to see it, and there's a class of people — and I'm not just talking about super-rich people. I'm talking about a lot of middle-class people — who really try to train themselves not to see," he added. Such separation is not always possible, Meade said, because at a certain level, the violence becomes unavoidable for all. The state went through such a period in spring 2017, when internal feuding between cartel factions — one led by a former senior cartel member and his son, another by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's sons and "El Mayo" Zambada — spilled out into the open. "All of a sudden, everybody was back to reality. 'Oh my god, this can affect me. Violence has gotten bad enough that I can't actually turn away from it,'" Meade told Business Insider. "And that definitely happened this spring, and it was this shared sense of anxiety, trepidation, and also uncertainty." Periods of such violence in Mexico have been well publicized since 2006, when the Mexican government ramped up its campaign against drugs and organized crime. But, Meade said, the cumulative effect on Mexicans — especially in places like Sinaloa, where drug-related violence has been present for much longer — is often overlooked. "We have a lot data on places that go through a short-term crisis, and the data shows that people are really resilient ... but there's a couple of important limits on that," he said. "It can't go on for more than a few years, and people have to know that there's an end in sight. And that's the thing we've got with the drug war. Now we're past 10 years, and people have no idea if there's an end in sight and what the end would even look like." "What we've got in Mexico right now is a generation that's coming of age that can't remember what it was like before the drug war." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: What El Chapo is really like — according to the wife of one his closest henchman from http://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-sinaloa-cartel-boss-el-mayo-zambada-son-grew-up-golden-cage-2018-3
On Wednesday, Bumble filed a lawsuit against Tinder's parent company, Match Group, alleging that Tinder has plans to copy Bumble's signature feature. Bumble, which was founded by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe in 2014, requires that women engage first with their male matches. In February, Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg confirmed that Tinder would soon introduce the same feature on its app. "Tinder has lost significant ground and market share to Bumble, a fact that Tinder’s owner, Match, is keenly aware of," the lawsuit alleges. "This is why Tinder recently announced that it intends to copy Bumble’s core women-make-the-first-move feature.'' This isn't the first lawsuit involving Bumble, Tinder, and Match Group. Earlier this month, Match Group filed a suit against Bumble, alleging that Bumble had copied core components of Tinder's design including its double-blind opt in, and swipe right to like and left to dislike functionalities. To complicate matters more, there's been reports that Match Group has been hoping to acquire Bumble, and that the lawsuit it filed against Bumble was an alleged attempt to pressure Bumble into selling the company. Last week, Bumble responded to Match Group's original lawsuit by placing a full-page ad in the New York Times, which said Match Group was attempting to buy, copy, and intimidate Bumble. Bumble's 22-page lawsuit against Match Group alludes to the convoluted negotiations between the two companies. "Knowing its lawsuit would immediately kill its negotiations with Bumble, Match deviously asked for, and received, Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A neuroscientist explains why reality may just be a hallucination from http://www.businessinsider.com/bumble-sues-tinder-parent-company-match-group-2018-3 Decision taken with ‘heavy hearts’ Criminal barristers across England and Wales will refuse new publicly-funded cases in protest against government cuts to legal aid. The decision comes after Criminal Bar Association (CBA) members voted overwhelming in favour of mass walkouts from 1 April (Easter Sunday). In a survey organised by the CBA, 2,081 of the 2,317 barristers who voted said they were in favour of direct action. That’s 90%. The impending walkout is in direct response to the government’s changes to the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme (AGFS), which barristers say will result in further cuts to their income.
In a statement issued today, CBA chair Angela Rafferty QC said: “The system is desperate, as are we… We are informing our members today that you should consider not taking any work under representation orders from 1 April 2018, the implementation date of the reforms.” Rafferty, a tenant of London’s Red Lion Chambers, continued:
A number of top sets have already indicated their support for action, including Garden Court Chambers, 25 Bedford Row and Doughty Street Chambers. Legal Cheek understands the action will not affect cases currently underway in the courts. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time lawyers have felt the need to down tools in protest to changes made to our fragile justice system. In 2014 and 2015, solicitors and barristers stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the then Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling’s plans to cut the legal aid budget by £220 million per year by 2018. The post ‘The system is desperate, as are we’: Criminal barristers to REFUSE new work in protest to legal aid cuts appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/03/the-system-is-desperate-as-are-we-criminal-barristers-to-refuse-new-work-in-protest-to-legal-aid-cuts/ A clutter of results impossible to compare As the April deadline for gender pay gap reporting fast approaches, the inclusion of partners in law firms’ releases has, suddenly, become the norm. When data began to trickle through from the first few City outfits back in January, partner pay was firmly off the agenda. This is because the law compelling major firms to release their pay stats, the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, specifies employee data. Law firm partners are not employed, so don’t need to be included. So they weren’t, at first, until people began to question whether this was fair when major retailers and other companies were posting pay gaps inclusive of their mega-earning directors. The Big Four, after facing similar pressure, published their partner figures, too. Concern on this was voiced by the likes of Inga Beale, the chief executive of Lloyd’s of London. She questioned why the reporting requirements provided “a carve-out” for partners, who are the most senior, most well paid and the most male-dominated of all lawyers. The vice president and soon-to-be president of the Law Society, Christina Blacklaws, also came out in favour of partner-inclusive pay data, suggesting that this could be used more effectively than employee-only data. Bowing to pressure, a number of firms who had previously released their pay stats excluding partners have now revised their positions. Travers Smith‘s mean pay gap has now quadrupled from 14.8% to 60.5% since it included its partner ranks, the firm having said it felt “appropriate to provide full disclosure of the gender pay gap”. Pinsent Masons, as previously reported, did something similar. Other firms that have released their reports more recently, like Simmons & Simmons, have included the figures for their highest earners straight off the bat. Its gender pay gap for partners alone is 14.8% mean and 28.8% median, while its employee figure is 26.1% mean and 27.9% median. Eversheds Sutherland has also recently published its gender pay stats, including figures for partners. The newly-merged firm says its female equity partners earn (mean) 10.3% less than their male counterparts (or 8% median); its gender pay gap across its employees is 23.2% mean and 25.4% median. As for Dentons, the world’s largest firm by lawyer headcount, its female partners earn, mean, 23% less than its male partners, and 22% median. The global outfit’s employee-wide gender pay gap was 22% mean and 34% median. Over at HFW, the mean figure its female partners are paid per hour is 8.7% lower than the comparable figure for men, while the median is 28.2%. Data excluding partners shows a mean pay gap of 17.4% and a median of 30.9%. These recent statistics may, you might think, quell the concern expressed by the likes of Beale. But note that all of these firms — plus earlier releasers like Irwin Mitchell and Reed Smith — have included partner stats adjunct to their employee data rather than offering one figure with all their workforce included. Is offering two gender pay gaps, one for employees and one for partners, any less of “a carve-out” than not including the latter at all? Other firms have taken the decision to include all of their partner and employee data in one figure. Proponents of this approach include Travers Smith, mentioned above, as well as Clifford Chance, Norton Rose Fulbright and Pinsent Masons. But even within this gang, there’s differences in how the figures are calculated (this to do with whether bonuses are looked at separately from average hourly rate). Then there’s the swathe of firms who haven’t included partners at all, i.e. almost everyone that released data early on. Kirkland & Ellis — which only published its stats today — makes no mentions of its partnership in its 33.2% mean and 68.2% median gender pay gap. The raison d’être of mandatory reporting is to develop an evidence base from which steps can be taken to reduce the gender pay gap. How easy one can do so using cluttered results produced by a myriad of calculations remains to be seen. The post The partner problem means law firm gender pay gap stats are pretty useless appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/03/the-partner-problem-means-law-firm-gender-pay-gap-stats-are-pretty-useless/ Also warned not to reveal holiday plans Judges should think twice before posting photographs on social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook, new judicial guidance has warned. Members of the judiciary should be “wary” of uploading images of “themselves in casual settings whether alone or with family members and/or friends”. The fresh advice, which is part of an update to the Guide to Judicial Conduct, goes on to say that social activity must be “assessed in the light of the judicial officeholder’s duty to maintain the dignity of the office”. So, presumably drunken selfies are a strict no-no. The updated guidelines also warn judges not to publish “more personal information than is necessary”, as well as “information which could result in a risk to personal safety… [such as] holiday plans”. In his foreword to the revised rule book, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Burnett, says “the rise of social media has presented new questions and concerns for which guidance is required”. Burnett continues:
But it seems the judiciary is welcoming some aspects of social media — particularly vlogging. Last year, Burnett himself took to YouTube to deliver his first public speech as the judiciary’s head honcho. Following the Chief Justice’s lead, nine High Court and Court of Appeal bigwigs starred in iPhone-shot vlogging clips just one month later. And the judiciary’s enthusiasm for all things YouTube shows no signs of waning. Earlier this month, Legal Cheek reported that nine circuit judges had starred in their own vlogging series covering topics including the challenges and rewards of the career and how judges work together. The post Insta-ban? Don’t post photos of yourself in ‘casual settings’, judges told appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/03/insta-ban-dont-post-photos-of-yourself-in-casual-settings-judges-told/ Oxford law student overcomes legal dispute with Facebook to launch contract law revision app3/29/2018 He came up with the idea while revising for exams A second-year law student at the University of Oxford has spoken to Legal Cheek about his new contract law revision app — and the legal dispute with Facebook he overcame to launch it. Max Herberg came up with the idea for LLBook while he was studying for his contract law exams in first year. He says:
The app, Herberg says, can be easily updated, saving law students precious cash on new edition textbooks. It’s also free, which helps level out the playing field across university law departments where students have access to very different resources. Setting to work on LLBook in October and launching early this year, Herberg describes the creating process as “a nice distraction” to his intense law degree. The biggest strain on his time was creating the case summaries for the app, which form the basis of the app and its quiz function. This wasn’t too hard for Herberg as he was studying for his exams at the time so writing content was useful for him. He drafted in a freelance app designer for the more technical stuff. What was perhaps more stressful for Herberg — who studies law with Spanish law at St Anne’s College, Oxford — was LLBook’s trademark application. After registering the app in October, Herberg found himself in a dispute with Facebook’s legal team over the company’s European-wide trademark of the word ‘book’. But, it all worked out in the end. The law student tells Legal Cheek he spent time in the library swotting up on IP law before he reached an amicable agreement with the social media giant over the name. LLBook has only been up and running for a few weeks but Herberg says the reaction’s been “great”. More than 250 users have started playing with the app, and he’s hoping to expand into other areas of law — like land, tort, crime and EU — and to make it available to Android users. As for what’s next for Herberg himself, “I like to keep an open mind”. While he is toying with the idea of academia (comparative private law) or going into legal practice (competition law), Herberg’s focus for now “is on helping students fully expand their knowledge”. The post Oxford law student overcomes legal dispute with Facebook to launch contract law revision app appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/03/oxford-law-student-overcomes-legal-dispute-with-facebook-to-launch-contract-law-revision-app/ The morning’s top legal affairs news stories John Worboys case: Legal implications of the judgement [BBC News] No more selfies please, m’lud! Judges are told not to post pictures online – to keep their ‘dignity’ [Mail Online] Labour warned nationalisation plans could break law [Financial Times] Suspended sentence for ‘Snapchat’ photo of judge [Irish News] Rugby rape trial: What lessons can be learned? [BBC News] Office manager’s niece entitled to maternity pay, says judge [Legal Futures] Lawyers, lawyers everywhere. And none to represent Trump [The Guardian] Rapper DMX plays judge hit track Slippin’ before being jailed for tax fraud [Sky News] Jury is shown the enormous gun arsenal of Atlanta lawyer who ‘accidentally’ shot his wife dead from the back seat of a car as they hear how he used $4million he inherited from her to settle his debts [Mail Online] Kalisher Paid Internship 2018 at the Criminal Cases Review Commission [Legal Cheek Hub] “It is brilliant to hear stories like this which focus on how tolerant law as an industry can be. The goal should always be equality and treating all people with dignity and respect.” [Legal Cheek comments] The post Morning round-up: Thursday 29 March appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/03/morning-round-up-thursday-29-march-2/
On Wednesday, Cohen's attorney, David Schwartz, suggested that Trump was not aware of the nondisclosure agreement that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, signed in October 2016. The agreement was meant to prevent Clifford from commenting on her alleged affair with Trump, in exchange for a $130,000 payment. Schwartz suggested that, in orchestrating the agreement, Cohen had acted independently in the matter. "Because he's that close to him, he had great latitude to handle these matters," Schwartz said of Cohen in a CNN interview. "Michael was the 'fixer,'" Schwartz said. "It could be anything. There were a ton of matters that took place that Michael fixed. And Donald Trump wasn't involved in every single matter." But Schwartz said that Trump leaned on Cohen for many things. "It could be any business problem," Schwartz said. "And believe me, Michael Cohen got calls at three in the morning, Michael and I would be at dinner, the boss would be calling him all the time. So there were always problems. In any business there's always a problem." Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti scrutinized Schwartz's argument on Twitter after the CNN segment aired, saying the attorney's claim that Trump was unaware of the Stormy Daniels agreement could actually be good news for the actress. It would mean that "there was no contract between Trump and Daniels, and Daniels can release the materials," Mariotti argued on Twitter. "Why would he admit this on national television," Mariotti asked. Cohen's lawyer also addressed a line on the "hush agreement," that listed the initials, "DD," which stood for "David Dennison," Trump's alleged pseudonym. The line was left blank. "That's evidence in of itself that he didn't go to Donald Trump," Schwartz said of Cohen. "Because the line was blank. He left the line blank." Mariotti disagreed with that assessment: "Under the terms of the agreement itself, only 'DD' can enforce it," he said in another tweet. "If Cohen's position is that Trump is not DD, then unless someone else comes forward as 'DD,' it is unenforceable and Stormy Daniels can release the materials." He went on: "It appears that Michael Cohen managed to hire a lawyer who is even more incompetent than himself. Cohen's lawyer is a complete train wreck in this interview." Cliffords is suing Trump to toss the nondisclosure agreement that prevented her from publicly talking about the alleged affair in detail. Both Cohen and the White House have denied her accusations. SEE ALSO: Stormy Daniels reportedly kept a dress she wore while seeing Trump Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Harvard professor Steven Pinker explains the disturbing truth behind Trump's 2 favorite phrases from http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-cohens-lawyer-admits-nondisclosure-agreement-donald-trump-interview-2018-3 A self-driving car was ticketed in San Francisco but GM-owned Cruise says it did nothing wrong (GM)3/28/2018
A self-driving car owned by General Motors was ticketed in San Francisco Monday after not yielding to pedestrian on a crosswalk, the San Francisco Police Department confirmed to Business Insider. KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, first reported the incident. The pedestrian involved was not harmed. The ticket comes as scrutiny of self-driving cars is on the rise, following a deadly accident in Tempe, Arizona one week ago involving one of Uber's self-driving vehicles. The incident has reignited the debate over how safe self-driving cars are during testing. Giselle Linnane, a SFPD spokeswoman, told Business Insider on Wednesday that the GM vehicle was pulled over in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood earlier this week after an officer saw the car cut off a woman walking on a crosswalk. Cruise, a self-driving car startup acquired by GM in 2016, disputes the ticket according to KPIX, and says its own data shows the pedestrian was far enough way from the vehicle. According to Cruise data, KPIX reported, the pedestrian was 10.8 feet away from the vehicle while in self-driving mode. Cruise did not respond to request for comment from Business Insider. "We don't look at or work with that data," Linnane said. "It's whatever the officer observed at the scene and from his observation, there was a violation." The human test driver, who was in the car at the time and ultimately received the citation, is not at fault and did everything right, Cruise told KPIX. It is unclear if Cruise will attempt to legally fight the ticket. “Safety is our priority in testing our self-driving vehicles. California law requires the vehicle to yield the right of way to pedestrians, allowing them to proceed undisturbed and unhurried without fear of interference of their safe passage through an intersection. Our data indicates that’s what happened here," a Cruise spokesperson told KPIX. This isn't the first time a self-driving car has been pulled over by police. In 2015, a Google self-driving car was pulled over in Mountain View for driving too slow. SEE ALSO: Disturbing footage shows the moments before the fatal Uber self-driving-car crash Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: I quit cable for DirecTV Now and it's saving me over $1,000 a year — here's how I did it from http://www.businessinsider.com/gm-cruise-self-driving-car-ticket-not-yielding-pedestrian-2018-3 |
AuthorHi I am Alana Smith 35 years old living in New York. I am working as an assistant in local law office. I like to share legal news with people to educate them. Archives
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