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President Obama signed a new hate crimes bill into law Wednesday, extending new federal protections to include people who are victims of violent crimes because of their sexual orientation, gender or because they are disabled. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act is part of newly expanded hate crimes legislation. Federal hate crimes laws already punish attacks motivated by race, religion or ethnicity and will now include attacks motivated by someone’s gender or the fact that the victim is gay, lesbian, transgender or disabled....

A new poll shows that CA voters are split over whether to legalize pot. The Public Policy Institute of California surveyed voters and found that 49% think marijuana use should be made legal, 48% do not and 3% do not know, Los Angeles Times reports. As previously discussed, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 would allow cities and counties to adopt their own laws to allow marijuana to be grown and sold, and the localities could impose taxes on any aspect of marijuana production and sales....

By now, most hiring firms and HR departments know to comb social media for prospective hires, or at least do a cursory Google search. But that might not cover all of your bases. The Albuquerque Police Department may have learned that the hard way. After the department was ordered to reform its “culture of aggression” within the police ranks, its new hire to head dispatch and provide real-time crime analytics had been sued for using excessive force while conducting a traffic stop as a New Jersey state trooper....

Did you buy a pair of Skechers Shape-up toning shoes? If so, get ready for a refund. The shoe company has agreed to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which accused the company of making false claims about its Resistance Runner, Toners and Tone-up shoes. The company claimed, with the help of Kim Kardashian, that wearing the convex-soled shoes would help people lose weight and strengthen muscles better than normal fitness shoes....

Ending a business, or one particular venture, can often be a smart business decision. Sometimes an entrepreneur needs to cut their losses and move on to the next project. When a business owner reaches that point, they may be wondering about how to get back the dollars they invested into their business. If your business has any assets the answer may just be liquidation. If you are thinking about liquidating your business, or just a few business assets, below are a few tips to consider....

As National Geographic recently chronicled, fermented drinks and alcohol have been a part of human culture since there was a human culture. Booze, in all its myriad incarnations has become so entwined in our daily and nightly lives that we rewrote the Constitution (twice!) over it. Alcohol has even infiltrated the workplace, from Don Draper’s office bar cart in Mad Men to kegerators at startups. Clearly the hard stuff is here to stay, so how do you keep your small business safe from legal liability for inebriated employees?...

Not everyone can retire when they want to. And these days, the workforce is getting older than ever. You may have noticed an increase in older applicants for positions at your small business. And while it may make business sense to you to hire a younger candidate, discriminating based on age (whether in hiring, firing, or promotion) is illegal under federal law. So how can you avoid age discrimination claims against your small business?...

Can a one-handed man be a TSA agent? According to Michael Costantino, 32, the answer is “no.” The one-handed boxer from New York applied to become a TSA agent, but was rejected because of his disability. Now, he is alleging a claim of discrimination against the TSA. Costantino is alleging that the TSA violated discrimination laws. He passed a test where potential screeners were asked to pick out weapons on the X-ray images, cleared a background check and a job interview, reports The Washington Post....

Under federal law, you must pass a background check to purchase a firearm from registered dealers. But there are a couple exceptions to that rule. First, online guns sales and those that take place at gun shows didn’t always require a background check. And second, if a background check took longer than three days, the dealer could sell the gun anyway. The House attempted to close both loopholes last week, with bipartisan legislation mandating universal background checks and extending the background check review period from three to ten days....

Wage theft is on the rise as the recession continues. What exactly is wage theft? Wage theft is the illegal underpayment or nonpayment of workers’ wages. Yet according to the AP, wage theft has been getting worse. It has especially affected immigrant workers who fear getting reported to immigrations authorities even if they are in the U.S. legally. AP quotes Mr. Fabian Gutierrez as saying, “All of us took abuse. We were disrespected....

TV anchors generally tell the news rather than making the news but Jennifer Livingston’s statements about being bullied have made headlines. Livingston called the letter ‘bullying’ in her statement but some have argued that isn’t accurate. While the letter is certainly hurtful, bullying is a loaded term. October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month and as bullying has become a larger problem legislatures have worked to creates statutes that define bullying....

Why pay for HBO when you can pirate Game of Thrones? Why buy Taylor Swift’s “1989” when someone on BitTorrent is offering it for free? Why pay to go to a theater for “Avengers” when you’ll probably be able to download it the day after it comes out, if not sooner? We’re all trying to pinch pennies these days, but illegally downloading copyright material may hit your wallet a little harder than just paying the purchase price....

Before he was a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, also Ivanka Trump’s husband, ran Kushner Companies, his father’s real estate development and lending company. Earlier this month, his sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, invoked Jared’s name when imploring Chinese investors to “invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.” But can investors really buy their way into a visa? And should your business be targeting such investors? Immigration Investment The program Kushner Meyer was referencing is called an EB-5 or Investor Visa....

Recycling plastic bags in line with the law seems to be very locally focused. Californians and New Yorkers may watch the plastic bag scene from “American Beauty” and wonder why this litter is being tolerated. So what’s the law say about recycling plastic bags? Bag Bans, Store Take-Back Programs The most extreme cities have opted to ban plastic bags entirely, prohibiting retailers from giving away their merchandise in plastic bags. In California, these bans have been tested and upheld by the state’s highest court, meaning that bans on plastic bags in Los Angeles and San Francisco are likely here to stay....

As has been covered extensively on this blog, many states have moved to legalized medical marijuana. Recently, the city of Los Angeles has made moves to control and limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries that have sprung up. While national acceptance of medical marijuana has consistently grown, and now enjoys the support of 73% of Americans, the opinion regarding the full legalization of the drug still has the country divided....

No good deed goes unpunished. That’s what a Virginia dinner cruise line must be thinking, after it was hit by a lawsuit from one of it’s passengers for, ironically, a no-slip-and-fall. While playing cornhole on an area of the ship with no-slip flooring, a passenger fell. He claimed the special flooring made it impossible for him to properly shift his weight while stepping to throw a beanbag. Cruise ship operators are liable for injuries that happen on their ship, regardless of whether their actions were intentional or negligent, if a “reasonably careful ship operator” should have known something on their ship would cause an injury....

It’s 2014. Do you know what your business’ intellectual property is doing? If you didn’t answer with an emphatic “Yes!” (or worse yet, had to stop and think about what exactly intellectual property is), then you may be a prime candidate for an IP audit. What exactly is an IP audit, and what can it potentially do for your business? Here’s what business owners need to know: An IP audit is careful and complete review of your company’s intellectual property assets, as Corporate Compliance Insights explains....

An exploding toilet lawsuit seeks to flush out at least $5 million from the makers of the Flushmate III, an allegedly defective product that’s caused more than a dozen injuries. Among the worst of the reported injuries, a 26-year-old man claims he was sitting on his toilet when it unexpectedly exploded. “I required dozens of stitches for an extremely deep wound because of the exploding porcelain,” the man reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission....

We have written about how bleak the economy looks for finance and small business. While there are definitely some dark clouds hovering over small business loan opportunities, there are some bright spots in terms of small business grants. Small business grants afford you the opportunity to grow your business with funding that you don’t have to pay back. It is typically given by the federal government, state governments, and by private corporations....

The Justice Department has announced it will extend more federal benefits to gay married couples, even in states which do not recognize same-sex marriage. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke about expanding gay marriage rights at a Human Rights Campaign gala in New York over the weekend. A Justice Department memo issued Monday recounted Holder’s HRC address, and affirmed that the DOJ will “recognize that same-sex spouses of individuals involved in civil and criminal cases should have the same legal rights as all other married couples....