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NEW YORK — A federal prosecutor has announced criminal charges and a $40.5 million settlement related to an investigation of a construction company involved in New York City projects including the New York Mets' stadium and the 9/11 Memorial.

Court papers in Brooklyn show Lend Lease U.S. Construction, a division ...

LOS ANGELES — A veterans group can restore a memorial cross in the Mojave Desert under a court settlement that ends a decade-old legal battle, the National Park Service said Tuesday.

A federal judge approved the lawsuit settlement Monday, permitting the Park Service to turn over a remote hilltop area ...

SALT LAKE CITY — The 20-pound spiked boulder was rigged to swing at head-level with just a trip of a thin wire — a militarylike booby trap set on a popular Utah canyon trail.

Any unsuspecting hiker exploring the makeshift shelter, just a half-mile from a busy trailhead, could have ...

WASHINGTON — A new case of mad cow disease has surfaced in a dairy cow in California, but the animal was not bound for the nation's food supply and posed no danger, the Agriculture Department said Tuesday.

John Clifford, the department's chief veterinary officer, said the cow from central California ...

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Justice Department, citing "insurmountable legal and evidentiary barriers," won't reopen its investigation into the deadly 1970 shootings by Ohio National Guardsmen during a Vietnam War protest at Kent State University.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez discussed the obstacles in a letter to Alan Canfora, a wounded ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge has approved a land-swap settlement of a lawsuit over a remote site in the Mojave National Preserve where war memorial crosses have been erected for decades.

The settlement, announced Tuesday, calls for the site at Sunrise Rock to be turned over to a ...

Update (8:53 PM): All States essentially called for Romney as he notches easy wins across the board. Ann Romney gives a great introduction to Mitt and shows she is leaps and bounds the best first lady candidate the Republicans have had in decades. Why she is a sure game-changer this year. Romney delivers a strong pro-economic message, while the Obama campaign continues bored and tired "Republicans hate women; Republicans hate Dogs; Republicans hate immigrants" attacks. Romney speach summed up: "It's the economy. And we are not stupid."

Update (8:30 PM): It may be early in the counting process, but Newt Gingrich is doing worse in the Rhode Island Republican Primary (6.5% of the vote) than "Uncommitted" (9.5% of the vote) is doing against Obama in the Democratic primary. The mighty Ron Paul is easily outperforming Gingrich in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But both states have already been called for Romney, who leads with 60%+ of the vote in each.

Not too long ago, Tuesday's were the greatest days in politics. Tuesday, Jan. 3 2012 kicked off the GOP primary as Rick Santorum surprised the field by winning the "first in the nation" caucus. Romney rebounded a Tuesday later by taking a win in New Hampshire, the "first in the nation primary." Then there was Florida, on Tuesday the 31st, as Newt was dealt a devastating blow by the Romney campaign in the "first in the penalized by the RNC primary." You get the point (all without even mentioning "Super Tuesday."

Today a handful of states voted in the GOP Primary, including biggies New York and Pennsylvania along with Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island. But there is no polling, no build-up, no breathless "this is a must-win state for fill-in-the-blank" columns. The attack ads have dissipated. It's game over. (No, no, no. Not technically, but yes. It is.)

So, here is a "Where are They Now" and follow up to all of the great contenders of the 2012 GOP Primary that gave us almost a year of excitement.

Newt Gingrich: The closest contender after the closest contender to Romney, Newt is millions in debt but has vowed to battle all the way to Tampa. Newt misses the days of being carpet-bombed by Mitt Romney and eviscerated by SuperPAC's and is currently "insulted" that camp Romney is ignoring him altogether. If he asks nicely, Restore Our Future might throw a web attack ad his way. For the eternally optimistic Newtons, here's a bit about his Delaware efforts.

Rick Santorum: On the "yes I dropped out but pay attention to me anyway" front, Santorum will be appearing on CNN tonight (Piers Morgan, 9:30 PM!) to probably not endorse Mitt Romney. While Santorum was definitely the luckiest of the anti-Romney candidates (peaking right before Iowa), I'm not so sure of the long-term attachment of the people who supported him.

Ron Paul: I'm not sure he has conceded the 1988 election yet, but no future GOP primary will be the same without Ron Paul. This has without a doubt been his most successful run yet. Paul is currently in Texas, soaking in the broad support and accolades of college students (half of whom will turn around and vote for Obama in November). But at least he is having fun and his campaign isn't in debt. (Oh, and now he passes the torch to Rand, who will launch presidential bids for the next 4 decades.)

Mitt Romney: After insulting Newt Gingrich by only attacking President Obama, Romney will be delivering an insultingly-titled speech in New Hampshire tonight named "A Better America Begins Today." Doesn't he know he hasn't won the primary yet? All 57 states haven't voted yet, and Newt is guaranteed to finish top-3 in the rest of them. (I kid, I kid.)

And now that a year of obsessing over the GOP nomination is complete, the process for obsessing over the vice presidential nominee selection can now being. Here' to a solid 4 months of that.

Photo: Bryan Mullenix, Getty Images

Also Known as Tuesday (Where Are They Now?) originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 at 17:46:51.

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NEW ORLEANS — A BP engineer intentionally deleted more than 300 text messages that said the company's efforts to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill were failing, and that the amount of oil leaking was far more than what the company reported, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

In the ...

SAVANNAH, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri teenager accused of pouring gasoline on a 10-year-old and setting the child on fire has been charged with first-degree assault.

Seventeen-year-old Joseph D. Gardner was charged Monday in Andrew County Court. The St. Joseph News-Press reported that the 10-year-old child suffered first- and second-degree ...

cnet.com: Wireless providers side with cops over users on location privacy by Declan McCullagh:

The trade association representing AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint opposes a California proposal for search warrants to track mobile devices, claiming it will cause "confusion."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes fell in March by the largest amount in more than a year, indicating that the U.S. housing market remains under strain despite some modest signs of improvement.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that sales dropped 7.1 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted ...

SANFORD, Fla. — While George Zimmerman is free on bail, the police chief criticized for not charging him after Trayvon Martin's slaying remains under scrutiny, as city commissioners want to wait for the results of a federal investigation to decide if they will accept Chief Bill Lee's resignation.

It could ...

DETROIT (AP) — Vance Terrell offered encouraging words to his pregnant sister during visits to a western Michigan hospital. It didn't matter that she couldn't see or hear him and would never hold her twin sons.

Christine Bolden, 26, was already brain dead from aneurysms, but doctors kept her on ...

Petitions to watch | Conference of April 27, 2012:

Virginia v. Banks
Docket: 11-1071
Issue(s): Whether the Fourth Amendment requires suppression of a pistol in a coat belonging to a suspect properly arrested for a felony, when the officers took control of the coat solely for the purpose of giving it to the suspect to protect him from the elements, and when the trial court expressly found that the officers acted in good faith, and that the search of the coat was conducted for the officers’ safety and not for the purpose of obtaining evidence of criminal activity.

Have a dozen issue appellate argument this afternoon in a murder case.

The legislature did not clearly overrule the common law that a homeowner may resist an unlawful entry into his home. Defendant was charged with obstruction after struggling with police officers who entered his house. The state carries the burden of showing that the officers entered legally. People v. Moreno, 2012 Mich. LEXIS 463 (April 20, 2012):

In this case, we review whether defendant was properly charged with resisting and obstructing a police officer under MCL 750.81d after defendant struggled with officers who had entered his home unlawfully. To resolve this issue, we must address whether MCL 750.81d abrogates the common-law right to resist illegal police conduct, including unlawful arrests and unlawful entries into constitutionally protected areas. We conclude that the statute did not abrogate this right.

While the Legislature has the authority to modify the common law, it must do so by speaking in "no uncertain terms." Neither the language of MCL 750.81d nor the legislative history of this statute indicates with certainty that the Legislature intended to abrogate the common-law right to resist unlawful arrests or other invasions of private rights. We cannot presume that the Legislature intended to abrogate this right. Therefore, we overrule People v Ventura, 262 Mich App 370, 686 NW2d 748 (2004), to the extent that it held that the Legislature affirmatively chose to modify the traditional common-law rule that a person may resist an unlawful arrest. Because the Court of Appeals in this case relied on Ventura and extended its holding to the context of illegal entries of the home, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand this matter to the trial court. On remand, we instruct the trial court to grant defendant's motion to quash the charges on the basis of its ruling that the officers' conduct was unlawful.

. . .

In this case, the Court of Appeals held that "[t]he fact that defendant refused entry to the officers unless they obtained a search warrant is indicative of defendant's knowledge of their status as police officers and that they were engaged in the performance of their official duties." There is no question that defendant knew that the men at his door were police officers. However, the officers wanted to enter defendant's home without a warrant, and one of the officers physically prevented defendant from closing the door to his home. Accordingly, defendant's refusal to allow the officers into his home is not conclusive of whether defendant had reasonable cause to know that the officers were "engaged in the performance of their official duties." Consistently with the common-law rule, we conclude that the prosecution must establish that the officers' actions were lawful.

. . .

IV. CONCLUSION

While the Legislature has the authority to modify the common law, it must do so by speaking in "no uncertain terms." Neither the language of MCL 750.81d nor the legislative history of this statute indicates with certainty that the Legislature intended to abrogate the common-law right to resist unlawful arrests or other unlawful invasions of private rights. We cannot presume that the Legislature intended to abrogate this right. Therefore, we overrule Ventura to the extent that it held that the Legislature affirmatively chose to modify the traditional common-law rule that a person may resist an unlawful arrest.

There is a lot to be said for making the police think twice before a spurious entry into somebody's house, and that's what the common law does.

WASHINGTON — A group of high-tech tycoons wants to mine nearby asteroids, hoping to turn science fiction into real profits.

The mega-million dollar plan is to use commercially built robotic ships to squeeze rocket fuel and valuable minerals like platinum and gold out of the lifeless rocks that routinely whiz ...