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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai raised the prospect Thursday of holding presidential elections a year early to lessen the strain that could be caused by foreign combat troops leaving Afghanistan at the same time he ends more than a decade as leader of a nation at war....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ann Romney says raising five sons was a full-time job and that her husband, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, considered it more important than his role as family breadwinner....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ann Romney says raising five sons was a full-time job and that her husband, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, considered it more important than his role as family breadwinner....

Defendant’s post-conviction claim that defense counsel was ineffective for not pursuing a motion to suppress was fatally defective for not alleging prejudice. Would she have gone to trial and not pled? Zanchez v. State, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 5557 (Fla. 2d DCA April 11, 2012).*

But upon further examination of her motion, we note that Ms. Zanchez has failed to allege that there is a reasonable probability that but for counsel's errors, she would not have pleaded guilty but would have insisted on going to trial. See Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985); Nelson, 996 So. 2d at 952. Thus Ms. Zanchez's motion completely omits an allegation of prejudice flowing from her attorney's alleged deficient performance.

The juvenile was detained pending “investigation” for loitering, and there was no reasonable suspicion for a patdown. The officer "testified that she routinely searches suspects prior to placing them in her vehicle as a safety precaution." D.S. v. State, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 5461 (Fla. 3d DCA April 11, 2012).*

A gap in the record on whether the independent source doctrine would support the search in question required remand. The case arose from a grow operation that the police visited without warrants. Outbuildings were searched off the curtilage and in open fields, but the court can’t decide the question. United States v. Noriega, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 7309 (11th Cir. April 11, 2012).*

A village in Colombia is making ready a present for the US President's visit to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas - a little donkey called Demo.

Author JK Rowling announces her first adult novel will be called The Casual Vacancy.

LONDON (AP) -- London's Metropolitan Police said Thursday it is investigating whether conversations on its Anti-Terrorist Hotline had been recorded by hackers....

What did those who worked on board look like?

STARKE, Fla. (AP) -- David Alan Gore was set to be executed Thursday nearly 29 years after murdering 17-year-old Lynn Elliott, whose attempted escape ended a string of rapes and murders that shook the quiet coastal town of Vero Beach....

A forced blood draw in a DUI case was barred by statute. The state’s reliance on State v. Krause, 484 N.W.2d 347 (Wis. Ct. App. 1992) (permitting blood draw from hogtied suspect) and Schmerber is inapposite. People v. Farris, 2012 Ill. App. LEXIS 265, 2012 IL App (3d) 100199 (April 10, 2012):

[**P21] In addition to Krause and Schmerber, the State cites to several cases which stand for the proposition that forced blood draws are objectively reasonable and can pass constitutional muster under the fourth amendment. See State v. Clary, 2 P.3d 1255, 1256 (Ariz. App. Ct. 2000); Carleton v. Superior Court, 216 Cal. Rptr. 890 (Cal. Ct. App. 1985); State v. Worthington, 65 P.3d 211 (Idaho Ct. App. 2002); State v. Lanier, 452 N.W.2d 144 (S.D. 1990). However, we find each of these cases to be irrelevant to the question before us, which is whether the trial court correctly held that a forced blood draw was not permitted under the Vehicle Code. The trial court, relying upon our supreme court's holding in Jones, held that force is not permitted under the statute. Specifically, the trial court relied upon the Jones court's "clarification" that it was "not suggest[ing] that a DUI arrestee's lack of a right to refuse chemical testing under section 11-501.2(c)(2) permits law enforcement officers to use physical force in obtaining blood, urine, and breath samples." Jones, 214 Ill. 2d at 201.

Donna Brazile says Mitt Romney's relentlessly negative campaign in the primaries will come back to haunt him

Defendant was accused of twice getting out of his car and battering his girlfriend. When police arrived, they had a reliable report that defendant might be armed because the threatened to shoot a bystander witness, and that justified a search of his car under the automobile exception. Commonwealth v. Gouse, 2012 Mass. LEXIS 255 (April 10, 2012).*

Defendant’s driving back and forth three times in five minutes in front of a construction site at 1a.m. where anhydrous ammonia was stored was reasonable suspicion. “No one was supposed to be at the construction site at that hour. Officers can consider the lateness of the hour in determining whether criminal activity was afoot.” State v. Morgan, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 478 (April 10, 2012).*

Defendant jumped out a hotel room window in flight from the police, and this was an abandonment of the room. He also abandoned a pair of socks on the roof the hotel. State v. Jackson, 2012 Conn. LEXIS 128 (April 1, 2012):

The defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room or in the personal effects that he left there after he jumped out of the hotel window, and even if he had not manifested a subjective intent to abandon the hotel room, the New York City police officers' initial entry into the hotel room was justified under the emergency exception to the warrant requirement because they reasonably could have believed that there might be other persons in the hotel room who were injured or who needed assistance and, therefore, they were not required to obtain a search warrant before seizing the defendant's clothes for safekeeping pursuant to their community caretaking function; furthermore, the mere transfer of the items from the New York City police to the New Haven police did not violate the defendant's fourth amendment rights, the transfer having involved no additional intrusion into the defendant's privacy and the subsequent forensic testing of the defendant's pants and belt having been performed pursuant to a search warrant.

British Airways owner IAG says its deal to buy BMI from Lufthansa for £172.5m could result in the loss of up to 1,200 jobs.

LONDON (AP) -- She may not be able to match the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series, but J.K. Rowling has high hopes for "The Casual Vacancy," her first novel for adults. The title was announced Thursday by Little, Brown & Co. along with a brief plot synopsis for the book....

Following a 10-hour debate, legislators in the US state of Connecticut vote to abolish the death penalty

Big Buck's wins for the 17th successive time in the Liverpool Hurdle on the opening day of the Aintree Grand National meeting.

A friend of murdered gangland figure Kevin Carroll arrived at the scene of his shooting before police, a court has heard.

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- Prosecutors face steep hurdles to win a second-degree murder conviction against neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, experts say....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- State lawmakers are calling for greater oversight of campus police departments after investigators blasted administrators and officers at the University of California, Davis, for pepper-spraying demonstrators - a police action that drew widespread criticism after a video went viral....