Charges have been dropped against a New York pair after tests showed that the 2 kilograms of cocaine they were said to possess was shown to be homemade soap. Annadel Cruz, 26, and her passenger, Alexander Bernstein, spent almost a month in jail after being pulled over on an interstate in Pennsylvania for driving 5…

The controversy surrounding the interpreter who used bogus sign language at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service is not quite yet over. Thamsanqa Jantjie was allegedly part of a group of people who burned two men to death after they were caught with a stolen television, the Associated Press reports. According to a relative of Jantjie’s and…

The Texas county judge who sentenced 16-year-old “affluenza” sufferer Ethan Couch to one year of rehabilitation and 10 years of probation after he killed four people in a drunk-driving accident apparently has a tendency to hand down lenient sentences.  According to News8, last year Tarrant County Judge Jean Boyd pushed for rehab in the case of…

Arlington, Va., Sheriff’s Deputy Craig Patterson was found guilty in the May death of Julian Dawkins, a shuttle driver for PBS’s Newshour program, the Washington Post reports. According to the news site, the jury was tasked with deciding whether Patterson, who was off-duty at the time, responded as a law-enforcement agent when the 22-year-old drunkenly…

The man who caused a scandal with his fake sign language during Nelson Mandela’s memorial service was hiding more than anyone thought. The interpreter has faced charges of murder, rape, theft, breaking and entering, malicious damage to property and kidnapping, eNCA.com reports. The court file for the 2003 murder case was found “mysteriously empty,” so…

The Daily Show comedians Jon Stewart and Jessica Williams had a field day with Fox News and one of its anchors, Megyn Kelly, over remarks she made about Santa and Jesus being historically and inarguably white. Stewart kicked off the segment reminding viewers that the real St. Nicholas was indeed from Greece, as Kelly and…

Prosecutors have decided not to retry a man who was convicted more than 30 years ago for a rape he says he did not commit, the Associated Press reports. Stanley Wrice, now 59, was officially exonerated on Wednesday and the case completely closed when Cook County Judge Richard Walsh concluded Thursday, “The case is dismissed.”…

A rare manuscript discovered years ago in Rochester, N.Y., is believed to be the first recovered memoir written by a black prisoner, the New York Times reported. The memoir, dated 1858, was authenticated by Yale University to put in its Beineke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.  “The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict, or…