As he travels about the city, assuring Chicagoans that he is one of them, Rahm Emanuel must be asking himself why he just didn't leave his house vacant when he went off to work in the White House. Or rent it to a buddy or a relative.

That's because a cornerstone of an expected legal challenge to his status as a Chicagoan — a challenge that, if successful, would knock him off the February ballot and out of the city's mayor's race — is that when Emanuel rented his house he broke the rule that a candidate must live in the city a full year before the election.

"He doesn't have a house. ... He's not a resident if (he's) renting the house," said Burt Odelson, a Chicago election attorney who said he's filing a challenge against Emanuel with the city's Board of Election Commissioners as early as Friday on behalf of several "objectors" who he would not name.

Emanuel has tried to diffuse any question over his residency since the day he said goodbye to President Barack Obama at the White House, telling Obama that he looked forward to returning to "our hometown" and even throwing in a reference to the Chicago Bears.

Since then, he's made his family's history in Chicago part of his narrative, from his grandfather who arrived here from Europe to his own children, the fourth generation of his family to call the city home. He's talked of his father's Chicago medical practice and his uncle who retired as a police sergeant after working in a part of the city that Emanuel represented in Congress.

In recent weeks, Emanuel and his staff have ramped up efforts to do away with the issue. His staff posted newspaper editorials and a letter of their own explaining why Emanuel is a resident on his campaign website, ChicagoforRahm.com. In a campaign television commercial, Emanuel shakes hands with residents and city workers while stressing he's a Chicago guy, coming home to run for mayor.

The voice of Charles Thomas O'Reilly is the last one about 140 people Texas death row inmates have heard over the past six years.

O'Reilly has been the warden of the state prison simply called the Huntsville Unit, where he presided over more lethal injections than any other warden. O'Reilly retired Monday after more than 33 years with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

He said he leaves with no reservations, no nightmares, having "always been a proponent of capital punishment."

He said that before the lethal drugs were administered, he would ask inmates if they wanted to make a statement. He said he tried to avoid using the words "last" or "final."

Divorces are as common as plastic surgery in Hollywood, but the divorce trial between Frank and Jamie McCourt that begins Monday has a chance to be the most titillating drama in this city since Lindsay Lohan's late-night capers.
This trial could determine the fate of the Los Angeles Dodgers and, ultimately, who will own the storied franchise.

It's possible that once the 11-day trial is over, with legal fees estimated to approach $20 million, neither will be able to afford the franchise, forcing a sale. Commissioner Bud Selig says he won't talk about the trial until it concludes, but Thomas Ostertag, general counsel of Major League Baseball, is expected to testify.

The trial does not hinge on child custody issues, divvying up their seven homes, extramarital affairs, or excessive use of their in-home makeup and hair stylists.

This trial is solely about whether the Dodgers franchise and its assets belong solely to Frank McCourt, or whether Jamie is entitled to half of the franchise, valued between $750 million and $1.5 billion.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor predicted Thursday that the nation's high court will be asked again to weigh issues of national security versus free speech because of the recently leaked classified war documents posted on the WikiLeaks website.

Sotomayor told high school and college students at the University of Denver that she couldn't answer a student question about the security questions and free speech because "that question is very likely to come before me."

The release of the WikiLeaks documents, which included names of Afghans working with American forces, has been blasted by the Pentagon. It said the publication of those documents put lives at risk, while WikiLeaks employees insisted the website provides a public service for whistleblowers.

Sotomayor said Thursday that the "incident, and others, are going to provoke legislation that's already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before (the Supreme Court)."

She added that the balance between national security and free speech is "a constant struggle in this society, between our security needs and our First Amendment rights, and one that has existed throughout our history."

Sotomayor compared the current question to the debate over allowing publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon study about the Vietnam War. The New York Times published those in 1971 after the Supreme Court declined to block their publication over the objections of the Pentagon.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a televangelist's defamation lawsuit claiming ABC's "20/20" news program used a fictionalized sermon portraying himself as a wealthy braggart out of context.

A trial court judge had earlier tossed out the lawsuit filed by the Rev. Frederick Price, ruling that the video apparently showing the founder of the Crenshaw Christian Center boast about his wealth didn't leave the audience with the wrong impression of the preacher: Price is wealthy and he does boast, going as far as calling himself a "prophet of prosperity."

But the problem for ABC is that the clip of Price it aired was actually a sermon on greed in which the preacher slips into the role of a fictional character who is wealthy but unhappy.

"I live in a 25-room mansion," television viewers saw Price preach. "I have my own $6 million yacht. I have my own private jet, and I have my own helicopter, and I have seven luxury automobiles."

Because none of that was true but was presented as fact, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the trial court to reconsider the lawsuit and determine whether Price suffered any harm to his reputation because of the clip.

Court records show that Price owns an 8,000 square-foot house worth $4.6 million, drives a Rolls Royce, wears an $8,500 watch and travels the world in a Gulfstream jet owned by the church, which he describes as a $40 million operation.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring proof of kickbacks or bribes in prosecutions involving the theft of so-called honest services left prosecutors with "little choice" but to dismiss charges against two former Westar Energy executives, the U.S. attorney's office said Monday.

"The law no longer supported our position," U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said in a statement. "We were duty-bound not to go forward with the prosecution."

Former Westar Chief Executive David Wittig and his top strategy officer, Douglas Lake, were charged in 2003 with conspiring to inflate their compensation from the Topeka-based utility and taking steps to hide their actions.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson dismissed all charges against them Friday at the request of federal prosecutors.

That prompted Jim Ludwig, Westar Energy's executive vice president, to issue a statement saying the company disagreed with the Justice Department's decision and planned to pursue civil claims in an arbitration proceeding that had been put on hold pending the criminal case. He noted investors, who had borne the damages and expenses, had not received any restitution.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyers filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the FBI, CIA and other federal intelligence agencies, accusing them of detaining and torturing an American citizen later convicted on terrorism charges in the United Arab Emirates.

The lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Southern California seeks information about the treatment of Naji Hamdan, an American of Lebanese origin who was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in August 2008.

The ACLU accuses U.S. agencies of colluding with United Arab Emirates security forces, which kept Hamdan in a secret prison in Abu Dhabi without charging him with a crime until an earlier lawsuit by the rights group prompted his transfer to an official prison.

Hamdan, 44, who now lives in Lebanon with his family, was released in October 2009 after being convicted and sentenced to time served.

The former auto parts dealer and manager of the Hawthorne Islamic Center in Southern California has said he confessed under torture and suspected that U.S. authorities played a role in his detention and prosecution.