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In 16 states, teen birthrates tumbled by at least 20 percent in recent years, the federal government said in a report. Large declines such as these helped push the nation's teen birthrate to a new low in 2010.

It's a "pretty amazing" set of trends, said Brady E. Hamilton, senior ...

TULSA, Okla. — Two Oklahoma men suspected in a shooting rampage that left three people dead and terrorized Tulsa's black community appeared in court Monday and had bond set at more than $9 million each.

Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32, appeared via closed-circuit television from jail. Both are ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A grand jury will not look into the Trayvon Martin case, a special prosecutor said Monday, leaving the decision of whether to charge the teen's shooter in her hands alone and eliminating the possibility of a first-degree murder charge in a racially charged case that has garnered ...

PHILADELPHIA — Two firefighters who were battling a massive blaze at an abandoned warehouse Monday were killed when an adjacent furniture store they were inspecting collapsed, burying them in a pile of debris, authorities said.

It took about two hours to extract the bodies of Lt. Robert Neary, 60, and ...

PITTSBURGH — Dozens of bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh, including at least four Monday, have prompted professors to start holding classes outside and forced security officials to implement new building access measures.

The threats began in mid-February, at first targeting a landmark building at the center of campus. ...

LOS ANGELES — The mysterious deaths of millions of bats in the United States and Canada over the past several years were caused by a fungus that hitchhiked from Europe, scientists reported Monday.

Experts had suspected that an invasive species was to blame for the die-off from "white nose syndrome." ...

CHICAGO — A judge and lawyers began questioning dozens of potential jurors Monday at the Chicago trial of the man accused of killing singer and Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew.

Selecting 12 jurors and six alternates able to set aside sympathy for the Hollywood star and assess ...

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. (AP) — Three adults were killed early Monday at an in-home day care in a suburb northwest of Minneapolis, and a nearby college was locked down as police searched for a suspect who fled on a bicycle.

Police released few details about the deaths in Brooklyn Park. ...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A massive fire at an abandoned warehouse claimed the lives of two Philadelphia firefighters after a wall collapsed inside an adjacent building where the two men were trying to halt the fire's progress, officials said Monday.

Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said three other firefighters were injured in ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — A grand jury will not look into the Trayvon Martin case, a special prosecutor said Monday, leaving the decision of whether to charge the teen's shooter in her hands alone and eliminating the possibility of a first-degree murder charge.

That prosecutor, Angela Corey, said her decision had ...

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Two Oklahoma men suspected in a shooting rampage that left three people dead and terrorized Tulsa's black community appeared in court Monday and had bond set at more than $9 million each.

Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32, appeared via closed-circuit television from jail. Both ...

WASHINGTON — It has been so warm in the United States this year, especially in March, that national records were not just broken, they were deep-fried.

Temperatures in the lower 48 states were 8.6 degrees above normal for March and 6 degrees higher than average for the first three months ...

CHICAGO (AP) — A judge will question would-be jurors as jury selection begins in earnest Monday at the Chicago trial of the man accused of murdering singer and Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew.

Selecting 12 jurors and six alternates able to set aside sympathy for the Hollywood ...

Salon.com: U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border by Glenn Greenwald:

One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files. No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why.

Plaintiff was civilly committed as a sex offender, and his 161 audio DVDs and CDs were seized to see if they were sexually explicit. It took months to do the review. Because there had been no prior case on it, the officials involved were entitled to qualified immunity. As for the merits, he has a right to the discs, but the institution has an institutional security need to evaluate them for sexually explicit materials. Ahlers v. Rabinowitz, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 7035 (2d Cir. April 6, 2012).

This Circuit has not articulated the standard by which to analyze censorship of mail in the civil commitment context. "Restrictions on prisoners' mail are justified only if they 'further[] one or more of the substantial governmental interests of security, order, and rehabilitation ... [and] must be no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved.'" Davis v. Goord, 320 F.3d 346, 351 (2d Cir. 2003) (alterations in original) (quoting Washington, 782 F.2d at 1139). With regard to legal mail, "an isolated incident of mail tampering is usually insufficient to establish a constitutional violation. Rather, the inmate must show that prison officials 'regularly and unjustifiably interfered with the incoming legal mail.'" Id. (citations omitted) (quoting Cancel v. Goord, No. 00 CIV 2042 LMM, 2001 WL 303713, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 29, 2001)). In the context of civil commitment, this formula is easily adapted. A patient must show regular and unjustifiable interference with incoming legal mail; the actions of facility staff in restricting civilly committed individuals' access to legal mail are justified if they advance or protect the state's interest in security, order, or treatment and the restrictions imposed are no greater than necessary to advance the governmental interest involved.

My top Top Eight Conservatives for 2012 are now ready for review. From spreading the conservative message to defeating Obama, all of these people have an important role to play this year, should they accept the challenge.

The list includes both Sarah Palin and, yes, Ron Paul. Who did I leave off of the list? Let me know here.

#1 Sarah Palin: Sure she didn't run for president, but Sarah Palin remains one of the most electrifying conservatives in the country. In 2008, she delivered one of the best speeches in Republican National Convention history. She is hard-hitting, strong, and effective. If you need proof, look no further than how much liberals despise her and aim to destroy her years after her last run for office. As the Democrats aim to make the 2012 elections about a bizarre "Republicans hate women" argument, the conservative movement needs Sarah Palin to be active in destroying this false narrative.

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Top Eight Conservatives for 2012 originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Monday, April 9th, 2012 at 10:22:05.

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