Sarah Palin broke the law.

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor while trying to have her ex- brother-in-law, then a state trooper, fired. The special investigation panel made the decision late Friday. Chief Investigator Stephen said Palin violated a state ethics law that clearly prohibits Alaska officials from using their position or influence for their personal gain. At the center of the inquiry was Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he says he didn’t give in to pressure from Palin to fire a state trooper after a bitter split with her sister. I feel vindicated,” Monegan said yesterday. “It sounds like they’ve validated my belief and opinions.And that tells me I’m not totally out in leftfield.” Palin says Monegan was fired because of a budget dispute. “In order to violate the ethics law, there has to be some personal gain, usually financial” Palin attorney ThomasVan Flein argued. The law, however, reads “any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that (public) trust.”  

White trooper says he had to run over a Black suspect.

A White South Carolina state trooper accused of deliberately running down a Black suspect with his cruiser says the crash was “an unavoidable accident.” (See the video for yourself) As for bragging later that he hit the suspect on purpose, Lance Corporal Steven Garren says he regrets doing that, The Associated Press reports. Garren is facing federal charges of depriving suspect Marvin Grant of his civil rights. In a video of the collision, Garren is heard telling a deputy he was “trying to hit”  his suspect. He says while he did make the statement, it wasn’t true and that it was “dumb” and “stupid” to do so, AP reports. Garren’s trial is the first of two federal civil rights cases to come from a spate of police videos that showed questionable tactics by South Carolina troopers (see here). The videos have drawn scrutiny from the NAACP and the state’s Legislative Black Caucus, which helped bring the tapes to the public’s attention.

Trial for Civil Rights Era suspect is delayed. James Bonard Fowler, the White Alabama trooper who will stand trial for killing a Black man at a civil rights rally a half century ago must wait another month or so before facing his accusers. The trial, originally scheduled for Sept. 11, will be held on Oct 20. Fowler allegedly shot Jimmie Lee Jackson in cold blood in Marion, Ala., in 1965 following civil rights demonstration. Fowler, who was indicted last year, says the shooting was self-defense.

Abercrombie is sued over a Muslim head scarf. Arguing that Abercrombie & Fitch violated the civil rights of a Muslim job applicant by denying her application because of her head scarf, a Muslim civil rights group has sued the popular clothing outlet. According to the lawsuit, filed at the Oklahoma City branch of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the district manager for the clothing store at Woodland Hills Mall told a young woman in late June that her hijab, a head scarf worn observant Muslim women, did not fit the Abercrombie image. “Employers have a clear legal duty to accommodate the religious practices of their workers,” said Razi Hashmi, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Oklahoma, which helped the girl file the complaint. “To deny someone employment because of apparent religious bias goes against long-standing American traditions of tolerance and inclusion.” The council declined to release the name of the plaintiff; she is younger than 18. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 stipulates that employers must attempt to accommodate the religious practices of an employee unless doing so would create an undue hardship for the employer.