The convictions last week of two of Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s former campaign aides have scrambled local politics in the nation’s capital, dimming Gray’s influence and brightening the political prospects of some other city leaders. Read full article > >

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Mayoral ambitions surfacing early in D.C.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — He was either a masterful manipulator or he was masterfully manipulated. John Edwards couldn’t be both when it came to Andrew Young, the campaign lackey who isn’t so unimportant anymore. Even after four weeks of courtroom tension, after 31 witnesses and reams of exhibits, it is the curiously cozy, then brutally nasty relationship between these two men that gives shape and weight to one of the most unusual political corruption cases ever to occupy a docket. Read full article > >

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Closing arguments in John Edwards case focus on former aide

A former Major League Baseball strength coach testified Tuesday that he only reluctantly told federal authorities about Roger Clemens ’s alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs and did not initially intend to hand over evidence that prosecutors say tests have linked to the baseball legend . Read full article > >

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Strength coach McNamee says he helped Clemens use drugs

See something? Say something. And please, be precise. It was just after 10 a.m. Wednesday when a Loop Fan, driving in from Virginia across the Memorial Bridge , noticed a red VW bug, blinkers flashing, stopped just about halfway across the bridge. Read full article > >

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In the Loop: A communications gap to bridge between D.C. and Arlington

Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte testified in federal court on Wednesday that he was only 50 percent sure about Roger Clemens telling him that he had used human growth hormone.

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Pettitte Testifies He May Have Misunderstood Clemens on H.G.H. Use

The Crips leader approached the 16-year-old on the Metro, federal prosecutors allege, told her she was pretty and broached an offer he and his associates would make to high school girls across the area: She could make a lot of money by having sex with men. Read full article > >

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5 Va. men, alleged Crips members, charged in teen prostitution ring

Even an alleged drug dealer on trial in federal court cannot resist promoting himself on Twitter or Facebook. In tweets and Facebook postings from a smartphone apparently smuggled into the D.C. jail, the accused drug kingpin has regularly updated friends and followers about his life and times, opining about his “beef” with the government and engaging in 140-character conversations filled with slang and expletives about life on the street and behind bars. Read full article > >

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Tweeting from the slammer: Alleged drug dealer, on trial, sends shout-outs from D.C. jail

The U.S. government has the right to order the killing of American citizens overseas if they are senior al-Qaeda leaders who pose an imminent terrorist threat and cannot reasonably be captured, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday. Read full article > >

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Holder: U.S. can lawfully target American citizens

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The military commissions system here may be taking on its most unlikely role, and one certain to cause consternation across the political spectrum: the least worst place for some defendants facing terrorism charges. Read full article > >

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Plea deal in terror suspect’s military trial sparks debate

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who attempted to bring down a U.S. commercial flight on Christmas Day 2009 by detonating a bomb hidden in his underwear, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday in federal court in Detroit. Read full article > >

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Attempted bomber of Detroit-bound plane gets life in prison

Rabbi Menachem Youlus, who told stories of traveling to Europe and beyond to search for Torahs that were lost during the Holocaust, said in Federal Court that he had made up those tales.

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Rabbi Menachem Youlus Says He Lied About Saving Torahs

Is John W. Hinckley Jr., the gunman who in 1981 nearly killed President Reagan and wounded three other men, ready for more freedom from the psychiatric hospital where he has been held for three decades? A series of hearings starting Wednesday in the District’s federal court will determine just that. Since being found not guilty in the shooting by reason of insanity in 1982, Hinckley has spent most of his time confined at St. Elizabeths Hospital. In recent years, however, he has been granted more privileges and liberty, especially when it comes to visits to his mother’s luxury community in Williamsburg. Read full article > >

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More freedom for John Hinckley Jr. to be debated

A federal court judge ruled that officials at a California high school had a legal right to send home students wearing shirts showing the American flag on Cinco de Mayo because there was a reasonable fear that the images could lead to violence. Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware of San Francisco ruled last week that it was not a violation of the freedom of speech for students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill to be ordered to turn their shirts with the American flag inside out or go home on May 5, 2010, the San Francisco Chronicle reported .Two students were sent home. Read full article > >

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Court: School can ban American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo

NEW YORK — A notorious Russian arms dealer accused of evading authorities for years while fueling violence in war zones around the globe was convicted Wednesday in swift fashion in a U.S. courtroom on charges he conspired to sell weaponry to South American terrorists. Viktor Bout, known as the Merchant of Death, looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as a jury forewoman read guilty verdicts on each of four conspiracy counts — a conviction that could result in a life sentence. Jurors had deliberated only six hours over two days in federal court in Manhattan. Read full article > >

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NY jury convicts Russian arms dealer of trying to sell heavy weapons to Colombian terror group

Several high-ranking Maryland government officials have testified in federal court in recent weeks that they had no idea that Sen. Ulysses Currie was being paid by a grocery chain that stood to benefit from his high-level intervention. Yet, some of the same witnesses suggested that the efforts of the once-powerful Prince George’s Democrat had little, if any, influence on the outcome of proposed development deals, traffic light requests and other projects supported by Shoppers Food Warehouse. Read full article > >

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Defense to begin in bribery trial of Md. Sen. Ulysses Currie