By RYAN WILKINSON 

     BALTIMORE (CN) - The armed man who was shot to death this week after taking hostages in the Discovery Communications building had staged a bizarre protest at the building before. In February 2008, James Lee paid homeless people to carry protest signs, and promised the most money to the people who shouted the loudest, according to a police report.  

By ROBERT KAHN 

     It was 99 degrees as I hit the road, streets empty and still. No one stood in the quavering heat; no one lay in a back yard or weeded a garden. No dogs, no cats, no humans, no birds, no clouds.
     It was the last day of August and if I rode 10 miles it'd give me 400 miles for the month. So I hit the road in the heat, because of something that happened to me a quarter of a century ago. It's an interesting story.
     I was coaching track on an Indian reservation, 60 miles from town, 75 miles from the town the other way. I'd been there for six years.
     One of my runners told me his story. He'd dropped out of high school in town, and had gone to live on a pot plantation. I'll call him Benny.
     Benny could knock off a half mile in 2:05 without really training for it, and though that's not a world-class time, it's pretty fast, as you'll know if you've ever tried it.
     "I was living in a little shack," Benny said. "There was pot in the rafters, pot in buckets under the bed, pot in the kitchen, pot in the yard."
     He could smoke all he wanted and he got paid money, too. But the thrill wore off.
     "I was sitting there one day, smoking pot, surrounded by pot, and I said to myself, 'How am I going to get out of here?' So I said, 'I'm going to run my way out."
     That's what he did. He got into shape, moved back to the rez and re-enrolled in high school. He was knocking off miles in 4:35 and half miles in a little over 2 minutes flat. And we hadn't even started speed work yet.
     Benny was a smart kid - smart at studies, smart about running, just smart. His only problem at the moment was whether to qualify for state in the half-mile and the mile or the mile and the 2-mile.
     Then the high school athletic director told me to see him in his office.
     Benny's old coach had called from town. Benny was ineligible. The last grades he'd got before he dropped out a year ago were four Fs.
     There was no trickery involved. We'd never checked to see if he was eligible. I couldn't imagine Benny getting an F in anything.
     It was the day before a big meet. I sent the team home and told them to run 3 miles easy. I told Benny to come see me at my apartment in the teacher housing.
     He came over and I told him he couldn't run on the team anymore. He had to give back all the medals he'd won. He couldn't run in districts or state.
     "Oh, wow," he said. "I have to take a walk and think about this."
     He left my house and walked out onto the desert. I felt really bad.
     Benny knocked on the door about 5 minutes later and came in and sat down.
     "OK, here's what I've got to do," he said. "I've got to get a couple of long-range goals, a couple of medium-range goals, and a couple of short-term goals."
     I sat there stunned as this 17-year-old kid told me what sort of goals he needed.
     "My God," I thought, "this kid is more mature than I am."
     Like most kids I taught on the rez, Benny didn't have much money or stuff, and he didn't talk much unless he knew what he was talking about, so when he did talk he was worth listening to.
     Benny was right. We can't be happy - well, maybe you could, but I can't - without some sort of goals, no matter how little or how silly they may be. So on the last day of August, 99 degrees, I rode my bicycle for 10 miles because it would knock off a little goal that I didn't even have until I saw I could do it. It made me feel good for a little while.
     The reason I bring this up is that there's so much unhappiness in our country today. People are angry and resentful. They are spewing bile and venom, whining, mewling and puking in public everywhere you turn.
     A lot of these people - the ones we hear from too often - are not even out of work. They're rich and famous and powerful. They don't have problems. They're just miserable people spreading their misery around. They whine and mewl and puke and kvetch about "tyranny" and "socialism" and "family" and "God."
     They should grow up. Take a walk. Set some goals for themselves beyond being crybabies. And if they don't know what they are talking about they should shut up.

By AVERY FELLOW 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - President Obama responded Friday to the nation's steady high unemployment rate, which is hovering at 9.6 percent, by urging Congress to pass a small business jobs bill as soon as it returns from its summer break. Obama says the bill will ease up credit for small businesses and spur job creation.

By KARINA BROWN 

     PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) - Six men have settled lawsuits against the Boy Scouts of America that claimed the group failed to protect them from sexual abuse at the hands of a former Scout leader.

By AVERY FELLOW 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke called for a more concrete end to the era of "too big to fail" institutions during a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing Thursday, saying a promise by the Obama administration that the government will not bail out large Wall Street firms in the future is not enough.

By NICK DIVITO 

     PHOENIX (CN) - The Department of Justice sued the Maricopa County sheriff, claiming Joe Arpaio failed to hand over documents during the Justice Department's investigation of Arpaio's immigration enforcement operations. Prosecutors said it is the first time in 30 years that a state agency has refused to cooperate with a federal investigation. The Justice Department said it sued after "exhausting all cooperative measures to gain access to [the sheriff department's] documents and facilities," since its investigation began in 2009.  

By MARIA DINZEO 

     SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - California's Judicial Council is gearing up for battle over whether the state agency in charge of the courts has the power to finance a controversial $1.3 billion technology project by taking some of the money from a fund dedicated to cash-strapped trial courts. The council voted 17-1 last week to approve a budget change proposal that would increase the agency's spending power to include a draw on the Trial Court Trust Fund.

By JAMIE ROSS 

     SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) - An attorney says he was forced to quit his job after a law firm docked his pay because he refused to go to a seminar where he feared he would be "stripped naked, not allowed to leave, be required to discuss details of his sex life, handle a wooden dildo, and potentially allow other men to touch his genitals." The lawyer claims his supervising attorney told him that the New Warrior Training seminar would help him "have closer, stronger, and better relationships with men."  

By JACQUELINE J. HOLNESS 

     ATLANTA (CN) - A woman claims her former boss at an Atlanta rehab facility is a sexual predator and foot fetishist who uses his job "to leverage himself into unwanted sexual situations with female employees." She claims the boss "would always think of ways to touch her feet," that he bought "lotions and was trying to rub them on (her) feet," that he bought "nail polish and continuously asked her if he could paint her toenails," that he made her "spray him with tanning lotion while he was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts," and that he came over and mowed her lawn, though her husband didn't like it.  

By CAMERON LANGFORD 

     SAN ANTONIO (CN) - An Army contractor in Afghanistan demoted and fired a construction manager because he refused to collect corrupt payments for work the firm had not done, the man says. Robert D. Johnson sued Technologists Inc. in Bexar County Court.  

By CHIE AKIBA 

     LOS ANGELES (CN) - A woman claims that former prostitute turned-bestselling author Jillian Lauren defamed her on "Good Morning America," by showing a photo of the two women together to promote Lauren's book, "Some Girls: My Life in a Harem." Stacy Strouse-Johnson claims that "the clear implication ... is that plaintiff was herself a member of a harem, and just like Lauren, acted as a high-priced prostitute for the Prince of Brunei."

By BARBARA LEONARD 

     WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (CN) - A Queens insurance agent claims Random House defamed him in a memoir about a gambler with a criminal record. Douglas Heimowitz claims that he is "the only individual in the United States bearing the name Douglas Heimowitz," but that the hero of "Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling" shares his name and some of his characteristics - and has other, unsavory characteristics, which the real Heimowitz does not.  

      LOS ANGELES (CN) - Hollywood mogul David Molner set up companies "purportedly ... to make loans to entities in the entertainment business," but "conspired with his cronies" to use them "as a personal piggy bank," loaning more than $50 million "to insider entities that they never had any intention to collect upon," investors claim in Superior Court. They also sued Molner's company, Screen Capital International, and Aramid Capital Partners.

     DAYTON, Ohio (CN) - A woman claims the director of the Dayton office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had sex with her when she was 16. She claims that Raleigh Tramwell also masturbated frequently in her presence, had her videotape him receiving oral sex from another woman, directed and appeared in other pornographic videotapes, including one in which Tramwell "engaged in sexual activity with a mother and her daughter," and that he defamed her on TV and in print after she reported his sexual harassment. 

By DAN MCCUE 

      SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A RICO class action claims operators of Web sites billed as "the world's sexiest adult dating community" use "fake user profiles" to lure men into paying for its "fraudulent service." The class says the two men who run the "Internet empire," Alan Henning and Thomas Jones, both live in California. 

By NICK MCCANN 

     SPOKANE, Wash. (CN) - A Gonzaga University student says that when she reported she was raped by a fellow student, school officials "questioned her in an insensitive, accusatory, and inappropriate manner," refused to protect her from the man, and said they could not hold a disciplinary hearing for him because she "had gone outside of the University system" to seek a protective order from the Superior Court.  

By RYAN ABBOTT 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - Teach for America, the nonprofit group that works as a sort of domestic Peace Corps, claims the District of Columbia refuses to pay it $200,000 for 42 special education teachers that DC schools asked for, and received, for the past school year.  

By JOE HARRIS 

      KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) - A woman claims Kansas City police arrested the wrong man during her baby daughter's funeral. Shauna Renno says she cried and begged officers to allow her to bury her daughter in peace, but they refused, saying her daughter "was better off dead with parents like them." Renno says the cops arrested her late daughter's father, though they were seeking the girl's uncle. 

By JOE HARRIS 

     KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) - A Missouri appeals court refused to block a law that imposes tougher regulations on the state's adult-oriented businesses. As of Aug. 28, strip clubs and adult video stores must close at midnight and full nudity and video-viewing booths are not allowed behind closed doors.

By JOE HARRIS 

     CLAYTON, Mo. (CN) - The Missouri Bar has recommended that voters oust a St. Louis County judge in the November election. The recommendation against Associate Circuit Judge Judy Draper came after a Bar survey of attorneys.

     MIAMI (CN) - Losing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene wants $500 million from two Florida newspapers that he says cost him votes by publishing false stories and editorials implicating him in a mortgage fraud case. The billionaire, who lost in his primary run, sued The St. Petersburg Times, The Miami Herald and reporters and editors in Miami-Dade County Court. 

By ADAM KLASFELD 

     MANHATTAN (CN) - In a hearing before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli warned that the transition from lever-pull to electronic voting machines will cause "electoral chaos" in the primaries, and that all it will take to "fix" an election is a flash drive that anyone can buy at Staples. Ciampoli said a person with a flash drive would need "approximately 5 minutes of access" to fix an election.

By NICK DIVITO 

     (CN) - An amateur artist who created the original Flying B logo for the Baltimore Ravens won his copyright battle with the team after the 4th Circuit ruled that his copyright was violated by the commercial use of his image in highlight reels.  

By JOSEPH CELENTINO 

     (CN) - Chicago can arrest individuals who fail to disperse when ordered to do so by an officer after the 7th Circuit reversed a federal court's injunction preventing the enforcement of a disorderly conduct ordinance.  

By JEFF D. GORMAN 

     (CN) - The Federal Circuit upheld pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly's permanent injunction against generic versions of its osteoporosis drug. 

By MATT REYNOLDS 

     (CN) - A Mississippi appeals court has thrown out the defamation and libel claims of a former news anchor who lost her job after she was arrested for cocaine possession. 

By JOSEPH CELENTINO 

      (CN) - New York nightclubs can continue to charge lower covers to women on "Ladies' Nights" because they are private entities, the 2nd Circuit ruled. 

By MATT REYNOLDS 

      (CN) - An appeals court has rejected a class action by Green County, Ky., voters who claimed their absentee ballots were unlawfully struck from the results of a general election. The voters claimed that a Kentucky state trial court violated their voting rights when it voided ballots cast in the 2006 election for the office of Green County clerk. 

By JEFF D. GORMAN 

     (CN) - A teenager's rights were not violated when his grandmother sent him to rehab for marijuana dependence, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled. 

By JEFF D. GORMAN 

     (CN) - A Texas power company is not liable for the injuries suffered by a man who hit a power line while riding on top of a moving house. 

By ELIZABETH BANICKI 

     (CN) - The 9th Circuit overturned the conviction of a member of the "No More Deaths" border aid organization, ruling that the group's practice of placing bottles of water in the desert along immigrant paths does not constitute littering.  

By JOSEPH CELENTINO 

     (CN) - The 7th Circuit ruled that a Roman Catholic group at the University of Wisconsin at Madison can receive funding for religious activities.  

By JEFF D. GORMAN 

     (CN) - A Chihuahua caught in a divorce battle was correctly awarded to the wife, a Texas appeals court ruled.  

By MATT REYNOLDS 

      (CN) - A former government official who "got more than he bargained for" when he accused the town of Cicero, Ill, of firing him to chill his free speech scored a partial victory after the 7th Circuit ruled that the town's counterclaims for breach of fiduciary will not stand. 

By NICK DIVITO 

     (CN) - California's prison system does a poor job of caring for developmentally disabled inmates, a federal judge ruled in rejecting the system's attempts to wriggle out of court oversight.  

By MATT REYNOLDS 

     (CN) - The Federal Circuit has ruled in favor of electronics giant Philips in a dispute over patents for recordable compact discs. 

By JEFF D. GORMAN 


     (CN) - E*Trade was not unjustly enriched by its misappropriation of another company's trade secrets because it lost money using them, a California appeals court ruled.  

By MATT REYNOLDS 

     (CN) - The 7th Circuit rejected a Rastafarian's argument that a security firm discriminated against him when it told him it would only hire him if he cut his dreadlocks off.  

By SONYA ANGELICA DIEHN 

     (CN) - A federal regulation to slash production of ozone-depleting chemicals cannot be made retroactive, the D.C. Circuit ruled. 

By JOSEPH CELENTINO 

     (CN) - Six years of litigation has left Shell Oil Co. with a $700,000 bill to owners of a store on land that was contaminated by a leaky gas storage tank in Anderson, Ind.  

By JOSEPH CELENTINO 

     (CN) - Billboard advertisements in St. Paul, Minn., will continue to "pop out" at residents after the 8th Circuit ruled that an ordinance restricting their use is unenforceable.  

By NICK MCCANN 

     (CN) - A former consultant involved in the KPMG tax shelter fraud, called "the largest criminal tax case in American history" was fined $3 million too much, the 2nd Circuit ruled. 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Department of Veterans Affairs now has limited authority to stop collections on certain VA benefit debts after the debtor dies, if the death is related to war.  

By TRAVIS SANFORD 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - Businesses with at least $60 million in assets and transactions per year no longer will have to report certain transactions between U.S. parent companies that are banks, bank holding companies, or financial holding companies and their bank foreign affiliates, according to a proposed change to the Commerce Department's quarterly survey of U.S. direct investment abroad. 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Department of the Navy allows an attorney practicing under the Judge Advocate General to disclose a client's condition when the attorney reasonably believes that a client has diminished capacity and is at risk of substantial physical harm to him or herself unless immediate action is taken, according to a new Navy regulation. 

By TRAVIS SANFORD 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Federal Trade Commission has proposed revisions to three key information documents that credit ratings agencies and credit providers must give to consumers.  
By AVERY FELLOW 

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent in August, the Labor Department reported Friday, revealing a sluggish economic recovery. The unemployment rate has hovered around 9.5 to 9.7 percent from May through August.

By MATTHEW HELLER 

     The Georgia Court of Appeals has rejected the reactionary views of a judge who ruled that a foster parent could not adopt a child because her out-of-wedlock relationship with a man was "immoral." more

By TRAVIS SANFORD 


     WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is giving the shovelnose sturgeon the same protections as the endangered pallid sturgeon in rivers and streams where the species coexist, because the pallid fish are being collected along with their similar-looking shovelnosed cousins.  


      Pepsico used War's 1975 song, "Why Can't We Be Friends?" in its Pepsi Max commercials without permission, the band claims in Los Angeles Superior Court.


     The Penguin Group claims sportswriter Adrian Wojnarowski failed to deliver a book about the late North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano. It wants back the $140,000 it paid from his $400,000 advance, in Manhattan Federal Court.


     Lexington Insurance claims Automated Pet Care Products' "Litter Robot" started a house fire that cost the insurer $325,000, in New Orleans Federal Court. 

     A woman claims injections of Allergan's Botox gave her autoimmune encephalitis, in Chesterfield County Court, Va. 

     Stephen Goldfield, a hedge fund manager, made $14 million trading on inside information about AstraZaneca's acquisition of MedImmune, and his co-defendant James W. Self Jr., a pharmaceutical executive, gave him the illegal tips, the SEC claims in Philadelphia Federal Court. 

     Boiron USA claims its "Children's Coldcalm" pellets will provide relief from colds and sore throats, but "the product is nothing more than a sugar tablet," a class action claims in Orange County Court, Calif. 

     A woman claims St. Vincent New Hope, which provides services for disabled people, violated her civil rights by firing her because she refused to drive a client to the Church of the Nazarene, whose beliefs and practices made her "uncomfortable." She sued in Indianapolis Federal Court. 

     A woman claims Twister Display's and Delta Manufacturing's ED2 dunk tank dropped her into the water every time anyone threw a ball at all at her employer's "team building" exercise, dunking her 40 times, and the seat collapsed each time she grabbed it, giving her serious injuries that required surgery, in Tulsa County Court. 


     Vianda LLC and CVS Caremark sell "Enzyte" for "natural male enhancement," at $40 a pack, without warning it can cause heart arrhythmia and sudden death, a class action claims in Orange County Court, Calif. 

     Volkswagen falsely advertises that its Jettas come with "standard hands-free Bluetooth mobile connectivity calling systems," a class action claims in Los Angeles Federal Court. The class claims the system actually requires costly rewiring. 

      The Sandy Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa sued the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, demanding tribal recognition, in Minneapolis Federal Court. 

     Andrew Surabian claims Daniel Adams, Fish Weir Filmworks, and Cape Filmworks owe him $320,000 for loans and work on the movie, "The Lightkeepers," in Worcester County Court, Mass.