World News

The sister of the Louisiana congressman pleaded guilty this week in helping to conceal a crime. Brenda Jefferson pleaded guilty to a misprision of a felony.

Prosecutors say she received about $90,000 for clerical work for three family members accused of defrauding a federal government program. She is a sister of Rep. William Jefferson, a nine-term Louisiana Democrat, who was indicted last year on unrelated bribery charges. He has denied wrongdoing and is awaiting a trial.

A man in Colorado has been ordered by the courts to pay a $6 million fine in legal fees and damages for spamming hundreds of thousands of MySpace users. Scott Richter has to first pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in legal fees.

A British buyer bought a 17th century painting called “Rembrandt Laughing” for $4.5 million at an English auction house back in October. The painting was a self portrait of the artist Rembrandt and was appraised and confirmed by experts in the field.

At that time William Noortman from Noortman Master Paintings specializes in Flemish and Dutch artists and told the auction house that it was worth at least $40 million. “I’m very surprised it didn’t make more at auction,” he said. What was first appraised at $40 million and bought for $4.5 million turned out to be only $3,100. The painting was in fact a complete knockoff.

A pilot was killed on Wednesday after the plane the twin cargo engine plane that he was flying crashed at the Barnstable Municipal Airport during takeoff. He was the only one aboard the plane – which belonged to Wiggins Airways.

It crashed 500 feet down the runway. Officials temporarily closed down the airport after the crash while federal investigators tried to determine exactly what happened and what caused it to crash.

Same sex couples have wasted no time planning their weddings, getting their marriage certificates, and exchanging their vows. 58 counties in California have already started to hand out licenses after the state’s highest court approved gay marriage.

San Diego County, typically a Republican stronghold, added four walk-up windows and assigned 78 employees to issue marriage licenses, up from the usual 19. It issued 230 licenses on Tuesday, breaking its previous single-day record of 176 on Valentine’s Day 2005.

In 2007 scientists were able to discover new species and plant life. However, they said that only 10 of them were unique enough to mention here and to be labeled on their top-10 list.

Every year the International Institute for Species Exploration at the Arizona State University makes a Top 10 New Species list that shows off and describes what they have discovered from the previous year.

The wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders Javon Walker is planning on being released from the hospital today after being beaten, robbed, and knocked unconscious in Las Vegas after partying all night. Police said that large amounts of cash and some jewelry were stolen from him and he suffered “significant injuries”.

Taliban militants have destroyed bridges and are planting mines in many villages that they control right outside of Kandahar. Kandahar is Afghanistan’s largest city in the southern region. It is believed that the Taliban are preparing for battle.

More than 700 families, estimated to be about 4,000 people, have fled the Arghandab district, 16 kilometers or 10 miles, northwest of Kandahar, said Sardar Mohammad, a police officer manning a checkpoint on the east side of the Arghandab River. The police on Tuesday stopped and searched every person passing on the road.

Iowa has suffered much over the past few weeks. The flood waters have been so high and have traveled through many towns destroying everything in its path. People who once had jobs and a wonderful home to live in now have nothing.

The flood waters are finally receding in some of the cities that were hit the hardest (Iowa City and Cedar Rapids). The governor stated that 36,000 people are not homeless and are weighed down by the physical and emotional distress that they are under.

The Missouri woman that was accused of taking part in the MySpace hoax that caused a 13 year old girl to commit suicide has managed to avoid facing state charges – but now she is facing federal charges.

Lori Drew, 49, a neighbor of the dead teen, was to make an appearance in federal court here Monday, accused of one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress. The charges were filed in California where MySpace is based. MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp.