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China prepares to put its first woman into space

Clicking on search engines for instant answers risks making learning too shallow, says the head of an independent girls school charity.

Construction of world's biggest optical telescope has been approved by member states of the European Southern Observatory (Eso).

Kurt Nimmo | Property rights are the cornerstone of liberty.

GROVE CITY, Ohio (AP) -- A central Ohio man killed his ex-wife outside an apartment when she arrived to pick up their two children, and their 13-year-old son called an emergency dispatcher to report the stabbing, police said....

GROVE CITY, Ohio — A central Ohio man killed his ex-wife outside an apartment when she arrived to pick up their two children, and their 13-year-old son called an emergency dispatcher to report the stabbing, police said.

The boy called 911 after the slaying Sunday morning in Grove City, just ...

MOSCOW (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Russians flooded Moscow's tree-lined boulevards Tuesday in the first massive protest against President Vladimir Putin's rule since his inauguration in May - a rally that came even as police interrogated key opposition leaders....

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican is stressing the need for American nuns to faithfully promote age-old church teaching following a high-level meeting over Rome's recent crackdown on the largest umbrella group of U.S. sisters....

The judicially-created exclusionary rule is not applicable in a civil, administrative driver's license revocation or suspension proceeding. Miller v. Toler, 2012 W. Va. LEXIS 293 (June 6, 2012).*

Defendant’s truck was under surveillance near the border with Mexico for 72 hours, and officers suspected drugs in an auxiliary fuel tank, which had become common at the time. All the factors involving this vehicle pointed to reasonable suspicion because of the suspicious activities with the truck of proximity to the border. The officers suspected that the vehicle could have been driven across the river at a shallow point. United States v. Mark, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 11751 (5th Cir. June 11, 2012).*

On the totality, the officer had reasonable suspicion that defendant was carrying drugs in his car. [Note the court mentions consent was denied, but this is not mentioned later as a factor in reasonable suspicion.] State v. Smith, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 776 (Mo. App. June 11, 2012)*:

Here, Appellant was first legitimately stopped for two traffic violations. Already knowing that Appellant had just left a residence known for drug activity, Officer Buske first made contact with Appellant and was struck by Appellant's nervousness, sweating, and shaking. Further, he recognized Appellant from dealing with him on previous occasions and knew of his history of drug use and criminal activity. It was at this point that Officer Buske requested to search Appellant's vehicle and Appellant denied that request such that Officer Buske made the decision to request a police dog to sniff the vehicle which was done in an expeditious manner.

The finances of the UK's final-salary pension schemes reached a new high in May, according to the Pension Protection Fund.

An Old Bailey jury is shown mobile phone video footage of a London teenager allegedly murdering 14-year-old Leroy James.

Three police officers in Londonderry have been disciplined for arresting a couple on their wedding day, after wrongly suspecting they were involved in a sham marriage.

LONDON (AP) -- One thing is often said about Queen Elizabeth II's oldest granddaughter, Zara Phillips: she thrives under pressure. It's about to be a very useful skill....

Uefa is to investigate alleged racist chanting during the Euro 2012 matches between Spain and Italy and Russia v Czech Republic.

MADRID (AP) -- Investors continue to find more questions than answers in Spain's decision to seek help for its ailing bank sector and tap a (EURO)100 billion ($125 billion) euro area bailout fund....

Defendant’s conduct was suspicious enough to permit the officers to conduct a protective weapons sweep of his car for weapons, even though he was in the patrol car at the time. Long specifically permitted it. State v. Broughton, 2012 Ohio 2526, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 2227 (10th Dist. June 7, 2012).*

Defendant’s hiding his hand during a traffic stop that would have made the officer fear he was going for a gun made it reasonable for the officer to pull his weapon and order defendant out. United States v. Bost, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80523 (E.D. Tenn. May 3, 2012).*

The search warrant was for “53 West James Circle,” which ostensibly was a duplex, but further investigation had revealed that the duplex was being converted into one unit with one driveway, one water meter, finally learning that it had “a mother-in-law suite” accessible from the common area inside. The search warrant was valid and particular. Conrad v. State, 2012 Ga. App. LEXIS 507 (June 8, 2012).*

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are hoping that late campaign appearances by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will help push her hand-picked successor to victory in a special congressional election in Arizona....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are hoping that late campaign appearances by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will help push her hand-picked successor to victory in a special congressional election in Arizona....

Strip searches of everybody at the jail, even those not going into general population, might be unreasonable even under Florence which left that question open, but, for civil liability, the question is “clearly established law,” and it’s not. Wamble v. County of Jones, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79969 (S.D. Miss. June 8, 2012)*:

In the wake of Florence, the central question is whether Merrill violated clearly established law by allegedly participating in the search of Wamble. Merrill argues that he could not have violated clearly established law because the Florence Court left "open the possibility of exceptions" to the blanket rule that newly arrested persons may be strip-searched without reasonable suspicion if they are going to be booked into the general population of a detention facility. Florence, 132 S. Ct. at 1523 (Roberts, J., concurring).

When there is an "open question" as to whether certain conduct is unconstitutional, the law cannot be considered clearly established. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 535 (1985) (holding that defendant was entitled to qualified immunity because "[t]he decisive fact is not that Mitchell's position turned out to be incorrect, but that the question was open at the time he acted"); Shepard v. Ripperger, 57 Fed. App'x 270, 272 (8th Cir.2003) ("Because the legality of refusing to identify oneself to police is an open question, it is not clearly established law for the purpose of denying qualified immunity." (citations omitted)); Polk v. District of Columbia, 121 F. Supp. 2d 56, 70 -71 (D.D.C.,2000) ("In both Davis v. Scherer and Mitchell v. Forsyth, the Supreme Court's holdings that the law was not clearly established turned on the fact that there was an 'open question' whether the Constitution outlawed the conduct at issue." (citations omitted)).

Thus, "[g]iven the Supreme Court's express reservation of the question of whether" detainees who are not going to be held overnight in a cell with other inmates may be strip-searched without a reasonable suspicion, the "contours" of Wamble's right to be free from unreasonable searches are "not sufficiently clear that the unlawfulness" of the search to which he was subjected would be "apparent" to all reasonable officials.

CHICAGO (AP) -- There are many theories about what has caused a recent spike in Chicago's homicide rate, including a splintering of established drug gangs, the warm winter and high unemployment in some neighborhoods that seem a world away from the city's beaches, lush parks and skyscrapers....