Breaking News: Gov. to Drop All Charges Against Ted Stevens
AG Eric Holder has announced that he is dropping all the charges against Stevens, who was convicted last year on corruption charges. Click here for the Washington Post's story; here for the AP's. Click here, here and here for LB posts on the situation.
WSJ Law Blog April 1, 2009

International Herald Tribune Site Merged with New York Times
For readers who access the online version of the International Herald Tribune via this link, be advised that it was merged within the scope of the greater New York Times site, and is now titled and linked as follows: International Herald Tribune The Global Edition of The New York Times.
"Welcome to the new Global Edition. Combining the international reporting of The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, the Global Edition provides readers with a 24/7 flow of geopolitical, business, sports and fashion coverage from a distinctly global perspective."

The Tampa Tribune is among the first of some 180 newspapers launching co-branded real estate Web sites with Zillow, a Seattle-based online real estate listing site. The new sites will allow visitors to use Zillow’s search functionality to fine estimated home values, recently sold homes, homes for sale, open house listings and other local market data using a home address, neighborhood or locality. The sites also will provide access to Zillow’s real estate community content through Zillow Advice, as well as mortgage rates from Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. The co-branded Web sites are an extension of the Zillow Newspaper Consortium that was formed in November 2007 with 11 major newspaper publishers that allows newspaper sales teams to sell featured listings and advertising inventory on Zillow.com to local real estate advertisers.
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2009/03/30/daily32.html

More Cameras Installed Throughout the Country to Catch Speeders
WSJ: "Protests over [traffic] cameras aren't new, but they appear to be rising in tandem with the effort to install more. Suppliers estimate that there are now slightly over 3,000 red-light and speed cameras in operation in the U.S., up from about 2,500 a year ago. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that at the end of last year, 345 U.S. jurisdictions were using red-light cameras, up from 243 in 2007 and 155 in 2006. One traffic-cam seller, Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions Inc., recently reported it had installed its 1,000th camera, with 500 more under contract in 140 cities and towns. Rival Redflex Holdings Ltd. says it had 1,494 cameras in operation in 21 states at the end of 2008, and expects to top 1,700 by the end of this year."

In 9-0 decision, justices rule that 1993 apology by U.S. for 'illegal overthrow' of Hawaii's monarchy 100 years earlier does not give native Hawaiians claim to 1.2 million acres.
The United States may have apologized in 1993 for the "illegal overthrow" of Hawaii's native monarch a century earlier, but that congressional expression of regret did not give native Hawaiians a legal claim to state lands, the Supreme Court ruled on March 31.
The 9-0 decision leaves it to the state of Hawaii to decide how to manage the 1.2 million acres in dispute. In 1893, a group of American businessmen, with the aid of the U.S. armed forces, took power, replaced the Hawaiian monarch and sought annexation by the U.S. government. Five years later, President McKinley signed an order that annexed Hawaii as a U.S. territory. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-supreme-court-hawaii1-2009apr01,0,5524659.story

One bank has at least one fewer headache to deal with. In a closely watched case, a federal judge in Manhattan, Lawrence McKenna, dismissed a suit brought by investors against UBS alleging the bank had misled them when it sold them auction-rate securities. Click here for the ruling, here for coverage from the NYT; here for Bloomberg's story.
WSJ Law Blog March 31, 2009

Before trying to obtain a patent, search the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Web site to make sure your idea or an idea like yours hasn’t been already patented.
http://patft.uspto.gov/

About Inventors http://inventors.about.com/
Example : Gutenberg and the printing press
The earliest dated printed book known is the "Diamond Sutra", printed in China in 868 CE. However, it is suspected that book printing may have occurred long before this date.
In 1041, movable clay type was first invented in China. Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith and businessman from the mining town of Mainz in southern Germany, borrowed money to invent a technology that changed the world of printing. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable/moveable wooden or metal letters in 1436 (completed by 1440). http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Gutenberg.htm

The small ranching community of Marfa, Texas is located on a Chihuahuan Desert plateau in the Trans-Pecos area. Supported mostly by ranching, and more recently by tourism, it is surrounded by vast mountains and is Texas' highest incorporated city.
Marfa is known primarily for its famous Marfa Mystery Lights and as the location for the shooting of the classic movie "Giant," with Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Dennis Hopper and James Dean. http://www.desertusa.com/Cities/tx/marfa.html
Travelers come to this wide, still corner of West Texas for its art—three museums and nine galleries perched beneath wide blue skies. Wallace Shawn came down for the opening of one of his plays, and some of rock 'n' roll's biggest names—Yo La Tengo, Wilco, Sonic Youth—have played here. "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" were filmed here. http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-0308-tr-marfa-frontmar08,0,7760956.story

MORE REAL NAMES
Ehrich Weiss (Harry Houdini) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/timeline/index.html
Bernard Schwartz (Tony Curtis) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000348/bio
Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff (Doris Day) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000013/bio

On April 1, 2004 Google released Gmail to the public. Many people thought it was a joke: It offered a whole gigabyte of storage, which was exponentially greater than what was offered by other free e-mail services at the time. Gmail has played a number of memorable pranks on April Fools' Day. Last year, users signing into their Gmail account on April Fools' Day saw a banner announcing "New! Gmail Custom Time," which supposedly allowed users to pre-date some of their outgoing e-mail messages. On April 1, 2006, Google announced a new dating service, called Google Romance. They said, "When you think about it, love is just another search problem." The Writer’s Almanac