Judge: Poker not gambling under law
Judge: Poker not gambling under law
NEW YORK
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that poker is more a game of skill than chance and cannot be prosecuted under a law created to stop organized-crime families from making millions of dollars from gambling.
The decision by Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn was embraced by advocates of card games pushing to legalize Internet poker in the United States. The judge relied extensively on the findings of a defense expert who analyzed online poker games.
The ruling tossed out a jury’s July conviction of a man charged with conspiring to operate an illegal underground poker club, a business featuring Texas Hold’em games run in a warehouse where he also sold electric bicycles.
Rep defies GOP leaders, stays in race
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.
Rep. Todd Akin defied the nation’s top Republicans on Tuesday and forged ahead with his besieged Senate bid, declaring the party was overreacting to his comments that women’s bodies can prevent pregnancies in cases of “legitimate rape” and by insisting he abandon his campaign.
Akin pledged to carry on with his quest to unseat Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. But his bid faced tall obstacles: a lack of money, a lack of party support and no assurance that his apologies would be enough to heal a self-inflicted political wound.
Tropical Storm Isaac on convention radar
MIAMI
Forecasters cast a wary eye Tuesday on Tropical Storm Isaac, which was looming in the Atlantic Ocean and poses a potential threat to Florida during next week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa.
It’s much too early to say with any certainty whether it will gain hurricane strength or make a beeline for Tampa, on Florida’s west coast. But it’s the type of weather that convention organizers knew was a possibility during the peak of hurricane season — and they have backup plans in place in a worst-case scenario.
It’s been 90 years since a major hurricane made a direct hit on Tampa.
Texas can cut funds for women’s clinics
AUSTIN, Texas
A federal appeals court ruled late Tuesday that Texas can cut off funding for Planned Parenthood clinics that provide health services to low-income women before a trial over a new law that bans state money from going to organizations tied to abortion providers.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans lifted a federal judge’s temporary injunction that called for the funding to continue pending an October trial on Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the law.
Tweets describe friends’ last moments
ELLICOTT CITY, Md.
They were seemingly ordinary tweets from two friends hanging out on a railroad bridge in their hometown, enjoying one last summer night together before heading back to college.
“Drinking on top of the Ellicott City sign,” read one. “Looking down on old ec,” read another. Accompanying photos showed their view from the bridge and their bare feet, one with painted blue toenails, dangling over the edge.
Minutes after the messages were sent, a CSX freight train loaded with coal barreled down the tracks and derailed, killing the 19-year-old women and toppling railcars and coal on the streets below.
Investigators were trying to figure out what caused the derailment. Witnesses heard squealing brakes and a thunderous crash around midnight Monday.
Associated Press