Republican leaders are calling for a prosecutor to enforce obscenity laws to remove hundreds of books from schools in the Colorado Springs area, Kyle Clark reports for NBC 9 News. The call for a criminal investigation and possible charges marks a turn in the culture war issue championed by Republicans. The petition, signed by multiple current and former Republican leaders and conservative organizations, called for legal penalties against people promoting or possessing “obscene material.” Attempts to ban books are ongoing in several Colorado school districts.   ..read more

Drug overdoses are killing young Americans in unprecedented numbers, with the monthly total rising from 31 in July 2019 to 87 in May 2021, the period with the most recent data, Ty Schepis reports for The Conversation. When the CDC examined data for Americans 10 to 19 years old, it found that, as is the case for adults, most adolescents dying from drug overdoses are male. However, the share of girls among these fatalities is larger than the share of women. More than twice as many boys who are tweens or teens are dying of a drug overdose for every girl in that age group. The share of fatal overd ..read more

Legal experts from Boston University School of Law and Northeastern University intend to study the medical underpinnings of the lung float test, a dubious forensic test that has helped send some women to prison for murder though the women insisted they had stillbirths, and determine whether it should be used in court, Duaa Eldeib reports for ProPublica. Several medical examiners said the test is unreliable, it had been used in at least 11 cases since 2013 in which women were charged criminally, and it has helped to put nine of those women behind bars. The test has been around for centuries and ..read more

In the first half of 2023, New York City paid more than $50 million in lawsuits alleging misconduct by members of the NYPD and is on track to exceed $100 million by the end of the year, Akela Lacy reports for The Intercept. The $100 million figure does not include lawsuits settled by the city prior to litigation, which reached $30 million in the first nine months of this year. Pre-litigation settlements from July 2022 through September of this year totaled $50 million, bringing the total payouts in such suits since July 2022 to nearly $280 million ..read more

Fulton county prosecutors say that they do not intend to offer plea deals to Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, preferring instead to force them to trial, Hugo Lowell reports for The Guardian. Meanwhile, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has opened plea talks or has left open the possibility of talks with the remaining co-defendants in the hope that they ultimately decide to become cooperating witnesses against the former president. The decision has not been communicated formally and could still change, for instance, if pro ..read more

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg is moving to vacate the conviction of two men found guilty of murders in the 1990s near a Harlem police precinct known for corruption, Edward Helmore reports for The Guardian. Wayne Gardine and Jabar Walker were convicted of separate murders in 1996 and 1998. Gardine was released on parole in 2022 and Walker was released from prison on Monday after serving 25 years of two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison. The two men now join the list of New Yorkers, overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic, who have been exonerated after decades in prison ..read more

To dig himself out of bankruptcy, Alex Jones must consent to a proposal from family members of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims that may force him to pay them at least $85 million over the next decade, Jonathan Randles reports for Bloomberg Law. The 10-year repayment plan would require Jones to pay the families $8.5 million per year plus 50 percent of any income over $9 million per year. Jones and Infowars’ parent company filed Chapter 11 last year to withstand defamation lawsuits brought by the Sandy Hook families. If Jones rejects the deal, he would need to sell property and oth ..read more

A Sacramento-area doctor has been jailed on a charge of possessing child pornography following an undercover FBI operation, Sam Stantoon reports for the Sacramento Bee. Dr. Khursheed Haider, a pulmonologist, was arrested following an investigation that began in Honolulu of suspects believed to be trading files online that contained child sexual abuse materials. Haider was charged by criminal complaint with a single count of possession of child pornography, which could result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine. After his initial court appearance last week, Haider is sche ..read more

Police in Burlington, Vermont have arrested a man in connection with the shooting of three Palestinian college students and are investigating the shooting as a possibly “hate-motivated” crime, Abigail Hauslohner and Hannah Allam report for the Washington Post. Police arrested Jason J. Eaton on Sunday and, after a judge granted a search warrant for his residence, collected evidence that gave investigators and prosecutors probable cause to believe that he perpetrated the shooting. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a civil rights advocacy group, said it believed the students ..read more

More than 3,000 civil sex-abuse lawsuits have been filed since a one-time window opened in New York State, with a final wave of suits being filed against politicians, celebrities and institutions before the window closed on Thanksgiving, Hurubie Meko reports for the New York Times. At least 479 suits contain charges of abuse at Rikers Island. The number of cases filed in State Supreme Court alone rose from 803 on Oct. 31 to 1,397 as of Nov. 22. The focus is now shifting to new legislation that could create another window for lawsuits or make permanent the ability to file civil lawsuits for sex ..read more