Stephen Heller was charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with felony access to computer data, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property. He pleaded not guilty.

“It’s a devastating allegation for a whistle-blower,” said Blair Berk, Heller’s attorney. “Certainly, someone who saw those documents could have reasonably believed that thousands of voters were going to be potentially disenfranchised in upcoming elections.”

The charges arise from Heller’s alleged disclosure two years ago of legal papers from the Los Angeles office of international law firm Jones Day, which represented Diebold at the time. Heller was under contract as a word processor at Jones Day.

The documents included legal memos from one Jones Day attorney to another regarding allegations by activists that Diebold had used uncertified voting systems in Alameda County elections beginning in 2002.

In the memos, a Jones Day attorney opined that using uncertified voting systems violated California election law and that if Diebold had employed an uncertified system, Alameda County could sue the company for breaching its $12.7-million contract.

The documents also revealed that Diebold’s attorneys were exploring whether the California secretary of state had the authority to investigate the company for alleged election law violations.

The Oakland Tribune published the legal memos on its website in April 2004. By then, the issue of whether Diebold used uncertified systems was already receiving widespread attention, because many of its systems failed during the March 2004 primary. As a result, poll workers had to turn away some early voters in San Diego County, and Alameda County voters had to use paper ballots.

A subsequent report by the secretary of state’s office found that Diebold had marketed and sold its systems before gaining federal qualification and had installed uncertified software on election machines in 17 counties.

…

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, refused to call Heller a “whistle-blower.”

“We call him a defendant,” she said. “He’s accused of breaking the law…. If we feel that the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt in our minds that a crime has been committed, it’s our job as a criminal prosecutor to file a case.”

Although state law protects whistle-blowers from retaliation by their employers, they can still be criminally prosecuted, said Tom Devine, legal director at the Washington, D.C.-based Government Accountability Project.

It was only when the midwife handed them over for her to hold that she noticed the difference between them.

Remee, who weighed 5lb 15oz, was blonde and fair skinned. Her sister Kian, born a minute later weighing 6lb, was black.

‘Our two gorgeous little girls’

“It was a shock when I realised that my twins were two different colours,” said Kylie, 19. “But it doesn’t matter to us – they are just our two gorgeous little girls.”

The amazing conception happened after two eggs were fertilised at the same time in the womb.

Both Kylie and her partner Remi Horder, 17, are of mixed race. Their mothers are both white and their fathers are black.

According to the Multiple Births Foundation, baby Kian must have inherited the black genes from both sides of the family, whilst Remee inherited the white ones.

…

The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one.

Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to seven different genes working together.

If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin.

Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm. When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race.

But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour. If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white. And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black.

For a mixed-race couple, the odds of either of these scenarios is around 100 to one. But both scenarios can occur at the same time if the woman conceives non-identical twins, another 100 to one chance.

This involves two eggs being fertilised by two sperm at the same time, which also has odds of around 100 to one.

If a sperm containing all-white genes fuses with a similar egg and a sperm coding for purely black skin fuses with a similar egg, two babies of dramatically different colours will be born.

A Letcher County woman suffered a horrible injury early Thursday when her arm was severed in a car crash on the Mountain Parkway in Clark County.

Jacqueline Dotson and her six-year-old daughter had to be cut out of their vehicle after the accident in which Dotson veered into the median and over-corrected, rolling her truck over the guardrail and landing upside down after flipping several times.

And now I have really bad news for them: Jackson has been cut off and kicked out by Prince Abdullah, son of the King of Bahrain. He is no longer, I repeat, not doing it anymore — not funding Jackson, his kids and nanny in an extended stay in Bahrain.

The first clue that this was the case was Jackson’s traveling last week from Bahrain to Germany, and then on to Italy — on commercial flights in business class. There was no more private plane.

But now I’m told that the prince has been informed by his family, the al-Khalifa clan, that Jackson is no longer welcome to unlimited generosity from the Bahraini royals.

…

Compounding this now dire situation is a sharp, harsh reality: Jackson’s $270 million worth of loans owned by Fortress Investments are due on Feb. 20.

Fortress had given Jackson a 60-day extension, which began on Dec. 20, to resolve his problems with it, but nothing’s happened. Now Fortress will either foreclose on Feb. 20 or make a deal with Sony Music.

The stores shutterings come as part of a legal settlement between Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and its Houston franchisee Lone Star Doughnuts Ltd.

The franchisee had sued Krispy Kreme, claiming the donut chain pressured Lone Star to open new stores and threatened to declare a default if the franchisee refused, according to court documents. It also claimed Krispy Kreme forced Lone Star to buy unnecessary equipment and marked up cost of goods and supplies, the documents show.

Lone Star officials weren’t immediately available for comment.

The six area Lone Star Doughnut stores will cease to operate as Krispy Kreme on March 8.

The Rev. Greg Brumit, who disapproved of the increased traffic in the neighborhood as well as the skimpy outfits, said no more protests were planned.

“We’ve done all we can do. We’ll just leave the rest to the Lord,” said Brumit, pastor of Kendrick Lane Baptist Church. “They’re welcome to come down the street to our church.”

Last fall, Brumit was among dozens of ministers who wrote a letter to city and county officials, saying Hooters should not come to Waco.

…

Company officials say they are not surprised by the protests because the restaurant blatantly uses sex appeal, but “believes the Hooters girl is as socially acceptable as a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model or Radio City Rockette,” according to the Hooters Web site.

“Some towns are a little skeptical at first, but then we get involved because we want to be part of the community, and we know that’s part of our success,” said Scott Wilkinson, executive vice president of Texas Wings, the Dallas-based franchise of Hooters of America.

…

In November, Jackson stirred controversy in the United Arab Emirates by entering the ladies room in a shopping mall. His publicist said Jackson, who arrived in Dubai as the guest of a champion rally driver, did not understand the Arabic sign on the door and left the bathroom when he realized his mistake.