Firing Line: Tough New German Gun Laws Could Ban Paintball

To its fans, paintball may seem like a harmless enough sport, a game of skill and tactics in which teams of players shoot colored paint pellets at one another. But under controversial new gun laws and other measures being considered by the German government, games that are deemed to “simulate the killing” of your opponent — which, according to some, could include paintball — may be banned.

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The Drew Peterson Murder Case: Will Hearsay Evidence Seal His Fate?

“Testimony from the grave.” That’s what prosecutors are calling a key part of their strategy against Drew Peterson, the former Illinois police officer arrested last week on charges that he murdered the third of his four wives. It may sound like just another melodramatic turn in the tabloid tale of Peterson, who has been under a cloud of suspicion since his petite fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in the fall of 2007 after reportedly telling relatives that she wanted to leave what she described as an abusive relationship. But the prosecution’s strategy against Peterson, 55, could in fact be based on a controversial new Illinois law that allows for the admission of hearsay testimony.

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CIA says Pelosi knew about waterboarding; she says no

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is disputing a CIA account sent to Congress that raises questions about her insistence she was never told explicitly that waterboarding had been used on terrorist suspects. The CIA-prepared memo, provided to CNN by Republican sources, lists 40 briefings for members of Congress from September 2002 to March 2009. The first briefing on the list — on September 4, 2002 — was for then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss and Pelosi, then the ranking Democrat on the committee

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British man loses right to Hindu cremation

A Hindu man in Britain lost his court battle Friday for the legal right to be cremated in a traditional Hindu open-air funeral pyre. Davender Ghai, 70, a world-renowned charity advocate in Britain, argued the practice is already legal under British law, but he sought clarification in order to hold such cremations in the future. Ghai tested the law in 2006 when he lit the funeral pyre of a man in the northern English county of Northumberland.

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High court denies deportation stay for accused Nazi guard

The Supreme Court on Thursday denied a stay of deportation for alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk, who faces a war crimes prosecution in Germany. Justice John Paul Stevens without comment refused to intervene in the planned transfer from the United States.

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Madonna’s adoption appeal begins in Malawi

Madonna took her effort to adopt a 3-year-old girl before Malawi’s highest court Monday, as a man claiming to be the girl’s father said he was fighting for custody of the child. The 50-year-old singer had filed a petition to adopt Chifundo James, whose first name means “mercy” in Chichewa, the country’s national language.

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