COURT

It’s now as plain as the beard on Lincoln’s chin. The Republican Party that Honest Abe helped to found – that is, in its current Limbaughian form -- does not give a hoot about American global security. All it wants to do is remove Barack Obama from the White House, and it does not care if its actions – that is, its inaction – wrecks the painstakingly constructed goodwill between the U.S. and Russia and pushes the entire world back toward the shadow of possible nuclear annihilation.

Alan Newton, a 49-year-old black man from the South Bronx, who spent over two decades in prison for a sexual assault he did not commit, has been awarded nearly $18.6 million in damages by a jury in New York City.

Myanmar's Junta backed government has granted a visa to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's son. Thirty-three-year-old Kim Aris is expected in Yangon on Tuesday and Suu Kyi herself is likely to receive him at the airport. This will be for the first time in 10 years that Kim would get to see his mother.

The bankruptcy trustee for Scott Rothstein's defunct law firm has reached a tentative settlement with American Express, the card that was used to fuel Rothstein's and his wife's luxurious lifestyle, that will help the victims of the high-profile lawyer's $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme recoup some of their losses.