AP - A mother whose three children were found starving after being shut away in a Dallas hotel bathroom for as long as nine months changed her plea to guilty Friday, bringing her trial to a sudden end.

AP - Nearly a fifth of Colorado's medical marijuana dispensary operators could be forced out of business in coming weeks because of new state rules barring some convicted felons from the pot business, federal drug authorities say.

AP - William Rast, the fashion line by Justin Timberlake and his childhood friend Trace Ayala, has a new partner: Target.

Verizon's transfer of millions of DSL and landline customers to Frontier Communications has gone smoothly so far, if a lack of complaints in our Frontier forum are any indication. Unsurprisingly we're seeing more difficulty in markets Verizon neglected for years (like West Virginia). Frontier's trying their best to stay ahead of the problem(s), but appears to be running into complaints by union workers about the fact they're requiring mandatory overtime to address Verizon's neglected infrastructure and repair backlog:

While the two administrations certainly have their differences, the Obama administration is following the Bush administration's lead on a number of fronts -- specifically in terms of surveillance and privacy in the digital age. According to the Washington Post, the Obama camp is working to make it easier for the FBI to compel your ISP to turn over your online activity records without a court order "if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation:"

AP - A Virginia woman who used sex and money to persuade two men to kill her husband and her stepson to collect a $250,000 life insurance policy was scheduled Thursday to be executed in two months, which would be the first U.S. execution of a woman in five years.

Rubbish - priests always cover their knees

The Vatican's stripey knickerbocker-clad Swiss Guards have launched a crack down on scantily-clad tourists in and around the Holy See.…