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The second time around, President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony is expected to be a much smaller affair. Still, even with smaller crowds, law enforcement personnel are going all in. The inauguration crowd for Monday’s public event is expected to be less than half the size of 2009, when an estimated 1.8 million revelers flooded the nation’s capital, reports Reuters. In addition, hotels and restaurants are reporting vacancies and the White House even slashed the number of official black-tie balls....

Online daily deals site Groupon has been sued over their advertising. A class action lawsuit alleges the site engages in illegal “bait-and-switch advertising” practices. The plaintiff in the proposed class-action case is a San Francisco tour operator who accuses Groupon of purchasing tour-related keywords in Google’s AdWords service, according to Ad Week. This may seem like an innocent move, but the tour company says that when customers click on the links to Groupon there aren’t any tour-related coupons available, reports Ad Week....

A ski lift accident in Merrimac, Wisconsin injured a dozen skiers when a ski lift started to run backwards. According to USA Today, the ski lift accident happened on Thursday evening at the Devil’s Head Resort. The ski lift was operating normally when it suddenly came to a halting stop and reversed direction. As a result, many skiers attempted to jump off the ski lift or were injured when the ski lift hit the ground near the ski lift’s base....

Once you’ve made the decision to get out of your marriage, your next question might be how long it will take to get it all over with. We’re sure you don’t need to be told that doing it right is better than doing it fast, but we also know that prolonging an already emotionally-charged situation doesn’t do anyone any favors. So how quickly can you get a divorce? Every ending marriage is unique, but there are some common factors that can expedite or delay your divorce....

It’s important to figure out how to respond to a negative review on Yelp or another website because sooner or later it will happen to you. A negative online review isn’t the end of the world but how you respond to it could be. Customers can dismiss a negative review as uncharacteristic. A disproportionate response by the business owner is harder to brush away. That doesn’t mean you should sit on your hands and just let it happen....

After all the time, money, blood, sweat, and tears you’ve spent building up your business, not protecting your trademark is almost like leaving on a week-long vacation with the front door to your home wide open. Without adequate protection for your trademark, another business can come along and profit off the goodwill you generated in the trademark, or worse, destroy the goodwill you generated. Fortunately, if you have a logo, or some other copyrightable and identifiable design that identifies your company, you may not necessarily need to register your trademark or slogan to be protected....

There is another example today of why you should “think before you tweet”. Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs is the latest casualty of Twitter backlash. He is in hot water over a series of tweets on his Twitter account where he bashes his head coach Todd Haley and also lashes out at a fellow Twitter user that goes by the user name of @jaredlaunius. The NFL has suspended Johnson for his tweets....

Buying prescription medications online may be a good way to save a nickel, but is it legal to buy these drugs online? According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), “[b]uying controlled substances online without a valid prescription” can potentially land you in prison, and it is a felony to import drugs into the country. Even buying prescription drugs from Canada and importing them into the United States is illegal under federal law....

There are a quite a few common legal terms that begin with the letter “L”: law, lawyer, lawsuit, to name a few obvious ones. One of the most important but least understood legal “L”-words, however, is legalese, the unique and sometimes difficult-to-decipher language used by lawyers, judges, and others who work in the legal industry. With our continuing series Legalese From A to Z, we run down some of the more interesting and useful bits of legalese, one letter per week....

Should the IndyCar oval be a thing of the past? And do promoters have a legal obligation to stop using such tracks? These are the questions being raised just a day after IndyCar racer Dan Wheldon was killed at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. A 15-car pile-up on the 1.5-mile oval caused his car to go flying into the air and crash. The day before, a number of drivers, including Wheldon, had expressed their concerns over such a possibility....

Some recipients of red-light camera tickets in New Jersey are set to receive compensation for their trouble after a class action lawsuit against 18 municipalities settled for $4.2 million. Included in the class action suit was the red-light camera operator, American Traffic Solutions (ATS), which the suit alleged had failed, along with the 18 New Jersey cities, to comply with the requirements of the state’s Pilot Red Light Camera Program, reports the South Jersey Times....

Reuters released a report that proclaims Johnson & Johnson (J&J) knew their talc products contained asbestos, but hid that information from regulators and the general public. Asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma and ovarian cancer, and now it seems J&J talc is linked to those as well. It appears that J&J knew for decades that its talc contained forms of asbestos, but that the company either neglected to report these findings, explained them away as statistically insignificant, or tested their product in such a way as to minimize or avoid asbestos detection....

In a corporate world where people don’t need to carry work ID badges, one company is offering to microchip its own employees for convenience, and marketing, of course. Approximately 50 employees at Three Square Market in Wisconsin are expected to volunteer to be chipped. The RFID chips, which are the size of a grain of rice, will be implanted in the skin between the thumb and forefinger. The chips will be used as employee ID badges, and will work to open doors, login to computers, and can even be used to purchase food in their onsite self-service marketplace....

A massive 100-foot sinkhole near Disney World has swallowed a Florida villa in Clermont, west of Orlando. One building was completely destroyed and 105 people were evacuated, according to the owner. Two other buildings were also evacuated, reports The Associated Press. No one was killed. Here’s what the villa owner and injured victims will have to do going forward: The injured vacationers may be able to sue the resort’s owner under the theory of premises liability....

Two small-business groups are taking opposite sides as the U.S. Supreme Court begins three days of historic hearings about President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The High Court’s decision on the Act, which many call “Obamacare,” will have a huge impact on small businesses, legal experts explain for Reuters. Currently, the law: Requires employers with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance by 2014, or pay a penalty....

For women, small business may be a chance to work in a female-friendly workplace. But for many of those women, small business is also difficult to see to fruition. Women-owned small businesses have a hard time in the market place, facing closed doors and glass ceilings. This is why many women in small business are praising the implementation of the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Program. WOSB sets aside government contracts for economically disadvantaged women-owned businesses....

Any misdiagnosis, whether falsely identifying an issue that doesn’t exist or failing to discover one that does, can be harmful. This can be especially true for hyperthyroidism, which affects millions of people per year. If not accurately diagnosed, those people may go untreated, or undergo potentially harmful treatments based on a doctor’s misreading of their symptoms. Misdiagnosis is a form of medical malpractice, and doctors that fail to properly diagnose and treat hyperthyroidism can be held liable....

Now that you and your spouse have said ‘I do,’ you might be saying to yourself, ‘I’m finally done.’ But not so fast, my newlywed friends – there are still a few marriage i’s to dot and t’s to cross. Marriage isn’t just an oral agreement between two spouses. It’s also a legal institution, and as such, you have some legal requirements to follow through on. From filing the marriage certificate to filing for a name change to filing your taxes, here are five legal actions you should take after you get married....

The IRS announced several areas it is focusing on for audits of small businesses. It’s a good reminder that the IRS is always vigilant in its oversight of small businesses and the reporting of taxes. The IRS believes that small businesses routinely under-report, and that this under-reporting is responsible for 84% of the $450 billion tax gap, reports the Examiner. Below are the seven areas the IRS said it is targeting, and where your small business needs to be extra careful:...

Employers have many options with respect to guns, and the decision to bar or welcome them into a business should not be made lightly. To make crafting your small business’ policy on firearms easier, you should be aware of your legal rights with regard to welcoming or turning away gun carriers. Fox Business reports that some business owners are even promoting events like “Second Amendment Wednesday,” attempting to lure in patrons with guns....