A UK-based photographer has filed a lawsuit at a federal court in Illinois, accusing Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Mike Pence of copyright infringement. The dispute centers around the controversial "bowl of skittles" campaign advertisement. The photographer, who happens to be a refugee himself, claims that he hasn't authorized the Trump campaign to use his work.

While the message itself has been widely debated already, few people knew that the image was used without permission. Making things even worse, the photographer in question turns out to be a refugee himself, as stated in the complaint.

“The unauthorized use of the Photograph is reprehensibly offensive to Plaintiff as he is a refugee of the Republic of Cyprus who was forced to flee his home at the age of six years old,” Kittos’ lawyer writes .

In the lawsuit the photographer asks for an injunction, hoping to prevent further copyright infringements. In addition, he wants damages for copyright infringement, as well as compensation from any profits that were made in the process.

Earlier this month, police in India detained hundreds of employees in three different call centers for allegedly proliferating a scam that involved calling unsuspecting consumers masquerading as employees with the Internal Revenue Service and threatening to arrest if the person didn’t pay up. This week, federal authorities in the U.S. followed up on the case, ending a three-year investigation by arresting dozens of people in the U.S. and India for allegedly scamming tens of thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars through the sophisticated call center scheme.

The Department of Justice, along with several other state and federal agencies, announced the joint enforcement effort Thursday, unsealing an indictment that charged a total of 61 people and entities for their alleged involvement in the transnational criminal organization.

According to the indictment [PDF] — which covers 20 individuals in the U.S. and 32 people and five call centers in India — since about 2012 the defendants used information obtained from data brokers and other sources to call potential victims impersonating officers from the IRS or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

To give the calls an air of authenticity, the organization was able to “spoof” phone numbers, making the calls appear to have really come from a federal agency. The callers would then allegedly threaten potential victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines, or deportation if they did not pay supposed taxes or penalties to the government.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has ordered the Pentagon to halt the claw back of enlistment or re-enlistment bonuses.

His decision comes in the wake of angry reaction from members of Congress who demanded he relieve the burden on the Guard members. And the White House said President Barack Obama has warned the Defense Department not to "nickel and dime" service members who were victims of fraud by overzealous recruiters.

The California National Guard told the state’s members of Congress two years ago that the Pentagon was trying to claw back reenlistment bonuses from thousands of soldiers, and even offered a proposal to mitigate the problem, but Congress took no action, according to a senior National Guard official.
On Tuesday, President Obama ordered an expedited investigation.

The 10 marijuana ballot measures are actually a mix of medical and recreational questions in eight states. But with medical marijuana already legal in 25 states, the impact of these elections on recreational marijuana is getting the most attention.

Arizona Marijuana Legalization, Proposition 205
Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act, Issue 7
Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, Issue 6
California Proposition 64, Marijuana Legalization
Florida Medical Marijuana Legalization, Amendment 2
Maine Marijuana Legalization, Question 1
Massachusetts Marijuana Legalization, Question 4
Montana Medical Marijuana Initiative, I-182
Nevada Marijuana Legalization, Question 2
North Dakota Medical Marijuana Legalization, Initiated Statutory Measure 5

With less than one month before the 2016 election, it’s no secret that anyone and everyone surrounding Donald Trump has become a target for media fodder. So if you think the negative, liberal-driven press against Senator Jeff Sessions has been more intense than usual this week, there’s a reason for that.

Following Sunday night’s presidential debate, the Alabama Senator took to the spin room to address Trump’s positions. He was frequently asked about that infamous 11-year-old Trump recording, in which the Republican nominee was caught making lewd remarks about women.

It was during an interview with the Weekly Standard, a magazine whose leaders have championed the “Never Trump” movement, that the Sessions was asked to respond to the comments. He told the publication that Trump’s language was “improper,” but should not be labeled as sexual assault. The interviewer pressed him further, prompting Sessions to answer that “it’s not clear” how an assault would occur.

Sessions has since made it abundantly evident that he does not condone Trump’s 2005 statements, nor does he believe that sexual assault is in any way excusable.
“My hesitation was based solely on confusion of the contents of the 2005 tape and the hypothetical posed by the reporter, which was asked in a chaotic post-debate environment,” Senator Sessions said in a statement. “I regret that it resulted in an inaccurate article that misrepresented my views. Of course it’s crystal clear that assault is unacceptable. I would never intentionally suggest otherwise.”

Now, a radical, far-left feminist group known as UltraViolet is promoting a petition that calls for Senator Sessions’ removal from the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. So far, the petition has gained over 40,000 signatures. It’s actually a low number compared to other outrage-based campaigns the group has waged. Other current petitions include one that urges NBC to fire entertainment host Billy Bush, while another demands federal protection for Planned Parenthood.

On July 1, Garrison Keillor said goodbye on his final broadcast of the radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion.
Fans bemoaned the loss of the avuncular host, who had for 42 years regaled them with characters like Guy Noir, cheery ads for powder-milk biscuits, and the imagined inhabitants of a fictional Midwestern town, “where all the women are strong, all the men good-looking, and all the children above-average.”

With Keillor’s retirement, Lake Wobegon may go the way of Atlantis, but that doesn’t mean the show is over. “It feels like something ends and something else is about to happen,” Keillor told his audience during his denouement. That something is 35-year-old Chris Thile, a multiple Grammy-winning mandolin prodigy and leader of the insanely talented Punch Brothers, whom Keillor has anointed as his predecessor.

Thile first made waves with Nickel Creek, the new-grass band he co-founded in his home-state of California at age 12. Since then, he has appeared dozens of times as a musical guest on Keillor’s program, collaborated with virtuosos such as Béla Fleck and Yo-Yo Ma, and in 2012 was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (a.k.a “genius grant”).

“I suspect you’ll still be hearing about powder milk biscuits, and potentially be soothed by a piece of rhubarb pie, because we just can’t help ourselves.”