WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co and affiliate Kia Motors Corp will pay a $100 million penalty for selling cars with worse fuel economy than the companies had claimed in what U.S. authorities termed the largest such accord to date.

Monday's settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice and the California Air Resources Board resolves an investigation of the South Korean carmakers' 2012 overstatement of fuel economy ratings.

"This will send an important message to automakers around the world that they must comply with the law,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.

Under the civil accord, which involved the sale of 1.2 million cars and SUVs, the companies will also spend around $50 million to prevent future violations and forfeit emissions credits estimated to be worth over $200 million, U.S. authorities said.

The greenhouse gas emissions that the forfeited credits would have allowed are equal to the emissions from powering more than 433,000 homes for a year, the EPA said.

"Businesses that play by the rules shouldn't have to compete with those breaking the law," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in announcing the settlement.

McCarthy said Hyundai and Kia had committed the most egregious violation of the reporting standards, but she declined to say whether other violators may also be fined.

In November 2012, Hyundai and Kia conceded they overstated fuel economy by at least a mile per gallon on vehicles after the EPA found errors for 13 Hyundai and Kia models from the 2011 to 2013 model years.

Hyundai announced Monday that it would adjust the cars' reported fuel economy by 1 to 2 miles per gallon.

Hyundai and Kia both increased their shares of the U.S. new-vehicle market in the past decade, particularly during the economic downturn of 2008 to 2010 when consumers sought out fuel-efficient and relatively low-priced vehicles.

"We are pleased to put this behind us," said Hyundai U.S. chief David Zuchowski. The company added that it believes its process for testing vehicle fuel economy meets U.S. guidelines, and the overstatement was a result of a data processing error.

Kia said its priority "remains making things right for our customers through our fair and transparent reimbursement program."

In December, both automakers agreed to pay a total of $395 million to settle lawsuits filed by owners of cars affected by the overstatements. Hyundai's share of that was $210 million.

Hyundai's U.S. chief at the time, John Krafcik, stepped down after his contract expired at the end of 2013.

The Justice Department did not comment on whether any Hyundai or Kia employees would be criminally charged.

Environmental groups cheered the settlement.

"Consumers will receive a tangible benefit because the carmakers were overstating their gas mileage and cheating not only the general public but also car buyers," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha and Julia Edwards in Washington and Ben Klayman in Detroit, editing by Ros Krasny, Susan Heavey and Peter Galloway)

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A UK research team has studied the actions of killers who from 2008-2013 in some way engaged with their victims on Facebook before murdering them.

The Birmingham City University team, led by Dr. Elizabeth Yardley and Professor David Wilson from the Centre of Applied Criminology, investigated 48 cases of murder and came up with a list of six identifiable “Facebook killers”.

“We had been coming across references to ‘Facebook Murder’ in the media over the past few years but there had been no research in this area,” Dr. Yardley said.

“We wanted to see whether homicides in which Facebook was reported to have been involved were any different to other homicides and found that on the whole they are not – victims knew their killers in most cases, and the crimes echoed what we already know about this type of crime.”

The results are still fascinating, if a little unnerving. First, here’s a few other findings the team made in regard to what killers who use Facebook have in common:

• The majority of murders occurred in the UK (54.2%), followed by the US (31.3%) and Australia (8.3%).
• From the period studied, the vast majority of homicides took place in 201 (29.2%) and 2011 (25%)
• January was the most active month (12.5% of homicides), while none were recorded in June.
• The most popular method was stabbing (34.9%), followed by shooting (19%) and bludgeoning (12.7%).
• 90.2% of the perpetrators were male, and 43.9% of them were aged 21-30. 61.8% of the victims were female.
• Not a lot of the cases involved people who’d met online. The vast majority (81.4%) had some form of relationship before Facebook was utilised in the crime.
• The most likely reason an interaction led to murder was anger at content. 27.1% of homicides occurred after the perpetrator reacted to a post, such as the victim changing their relationship status to “Single”.
• An alarming 12.5% announced their intention to kill on Facebook before making good on their threat.

While the data appears to show a downtrend in homicides involving Facebook since 2011, the team said it was important to note that their study was based on cases that reported use of Facebook.

“It could be that as social media become domesticated and socialised into everyday life, their presence in homicide cases becomes less unusual and, hence, is not reported,” they wrote.

The team then identified the types of killers. Here they are in order of prevalence:

The Reactor – 27.1%

Characteristics: Reacts to content posted by attacking the victim offline, either immediately after seeing the content, or sitting back for a while and thinking about it.

Example: UK man Wayne Forrester killed his wife Emma after she posted they’d separated and she wanted to meet other men.

The Informer – 22.9%

Characteristics: Will tell their Facebook network they’re about to commit homicide or have already done so.

Example: Colorado, US man Merrick McKoy took his two-year-old daughter from his ex-partner, posted pictures of them together on Facebook, then shot her and himself, leaving one message: ‘I told u I can’t live without u lol u thought I was joking now me n Mia out this b****.’

The Antagonist – 16.7%

Characteristics: Is involved in hostile exchanges on social networks which escalate to physical violence, which can include arming themselves.

Example: An unnamed 15-year-old in London who stabbed 18-year-old Salum Kombo to death in the street after trading insults on Facebook.

The Fantasist – 12.5%

Characteristics: Indulges in some form of fantasy online, then uses homicide to either maintain the fantasy or prevent it becoming known.

Example: Canadian Mark Twitchell killed Johnny Altinger in a rented garage set up as a ‘kill room’, inspired by fictional TV serial killer, Dexter. Twitchell detailed his preparations for a killing spree after setting up a fake Facebook account pretending to be Dexter.

The Predator – 12.5%

Characteristics: Creates a fake profile in order to lure and meet a victim offline. Uses victim’s information as a way to gain their trust.

Example: Australian Christopher Dannevig killed Nona Belomesoff after learning of her interest in animals from her profile before luring her to Smith Creek Reserve, claiming to be arranging a training camp for a wildlife rescue group.

The Impostor – 8.3%

Characteristics: Pretends to be somebody else, sometimes in order to conceal their crime, or to gain access to a victim’s profile details.

Example: UK man Andrew Lindo killed his partner Marie Stewart in 2010 and posted updates to her Facebook page claiming that she had left him and gone abroad to the Canary Islands.

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The man who's accused of killing his girlfriend and posting pictures of her body online has been arrested in Portland, Oregon according to NBC News.

His name is David Michael Kalac from Washington State. As NBC reports, Kalac is thought to have strangled his girlfriend late Monday or Tuesday night. Portland police spotted his car around midnight on Wednesday.

Kalac has been charged with second-degree murder involving domestic violence.

The twist to this murder case is the discovery of photos posted online from a person claiming to be the killer on the website 4Chan, according to NBC News. There was also a message that read "Turns out it's way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks in the movies."

4Chan is, of course, the website where the big nude celebrity photo leaks landed in a series of scandals towards the end of the summer.

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Phil Rudd, the drummer for the legendary rock band AC/DC, is being charged in New Zealand with attempting to procure murder, according to the Associated Press.

The AP said he made a short court appearance Thursday before being released on bail. He has also been charged with threatening to kill and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana. He is scheduled to make his next court appearance on Nov. 27.

The publication Stuff in New Zealand reports that he allegedly tried to have two men killed and that the judge suppressed the names of the men and the supposed hitman.

AC/DC was inducted into the Rock 'N Roll Hall Of Fame in 2003.

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Authorities say a man in Florida attempted to steal a chainsaw by shoving it down his pants. Store employees chased down the man and detained him until the police arrived. He was charged with grand theft. 

Produced by Devan Joseph. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

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This post was originally published on Priceonomics, the authors of a new book called Everything Is Bullshit.

Every year the National Insurance Crime Bureau releases a list of the cars that have been most reported stolen in the United States.

These aren’t exactly luxury vehicles. If a flashy paint job and bank-breaking sticker price doesn’t make for the most-stolen car, what does? It has to do with what cars are easy to steal, and what thieves can sell easily for a good price. From our article “Why Thieves Steal Soap”:

As Frank Scafidi of the NICB explains, part of the explanation is that there are simply “gazillions” of these cars on the road and their lack of newer anti theft technology makes them easier to steal. But the real reason thieves target them is for their lucrative parts.

“Investigations often lead us to chop shops,” he tells us, “Supporting the reality that those cars are stolen for parts.” Since so many people need their old Camry or Honda Accord fixed, there is a robust market for spare parts, and many chop shops will happily fence stolen parts.

Honda Accords were the overall most-stolen car in United States in 2013, but that wasn’t the case everywhere. This makes sense, because different cars are popular in different states.

In a few states, thieves made off with more Honda Civics, or with more non-Honda sedans in Rhode Island, Vermont, and Michigan. Thefts of Chevy and Ford pickup trucks -- the third and fourth most stolen cars of 2013 -- predominated in large chunks of the country. And in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Maryland, the most stolen vehicle was the Dodge Caravan minivan.

This post was originally published on Priceonomics, the authors of a new book called Everything Is Bullshit.

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The world's eyes have turned once more to Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury decided Tuesday not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in August.

The decision sparked a night of violent unrest in Ferguson, with photos emerging of the St. Louis suburb on fire, and its protesters facing off once more with heavily armed police. More than 80 people were arrested overnight.

Brown's story is tragic to so many people because it isn't unusual. According to ProPublica, young black males like Brown are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than their white counterparts. For many inside and outside of Ferguson, it's a case emblematic of persistent racial inequality in the United States that remains unaddressed by the justice system.

Earlier this month, prominent activist and scholar Angela Davis pointed out that despite having a black head of state, the US is far from being "postracial:" 

Trayvon Martin in Florida and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, are only the most widely known of the countless numbers of black people killed by police or vigilantes during the Obama administration. And they, in turn, represent an unbroken stream of racist violence, both official and extra-legal, from slave patrols and the Ku Klux Klan, to contemporary profiling practices and present-day vigilantes.

She goes on to point out that the international response to Ferguson "suggests a growing consciousness regarding the persistence of US racism at a time when it is supposed to be on the decline."

But the huge response hasn't stopped Brown's story — that of a law enforcement officer using deadly force against a black youth — from being repeated. Over the weekend, a Cleveland police officer fatally shot Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy carrying a BB gun.

Writing for the Toast about the decision, author Roxane Gay eloquently summed up the exhaustion powering the outrage over Brown, Rice, Martin, and the long list of young black men whose killings have gone unpunished:

Another young black man was murdered. It is hard to make sense of how many times I have had to type these words, mourning young black life. I am tired of having to type these words. I will have to type them again, far sooner than I would like.

While the Ferguson story is about race, it's also about guns. Like Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis before him, Mike Brown was an unarmed young man, perceived as a threat without a weapon.

Wilson said Brown looked "aggressive" and that the 18-year-old "looked like a demon" during their confrontation. Wilson testified that he wasn't carrying a non-lethal taser at the time because he finds them uncomfortable to wear; instead he was armed with mace and a handgun. He also told the grand jury that Brown appeared to reach into his waistband as he charged him.

Back in August, Adam Winkler, a professor of law at UCLA, argued that "the problems of racial harassment and police militarization are exacerbated by the fact that America has a heavily-armed civilian population."

According to The Washington Post, the US has the world's highest gun ownership rate and tops other developed countries when it comes to firearm-related murders per capita.

"Because there are so many guns out there, police officers are trained to live in fear of the very people they are supposed to protect and serve," Winkler wrote in The Huffington Post. He pointed out that gun control could help address the problem, because "restricting unusually high-powered weaponry reduces the need for the police to have even more powerful weapons for protection," but said it would be only part of the solution.

Here are two charts to help you understand where America stands in relation to other developed nations when it comes to gun violence.

Source: UNODC, compiled by Washington Post

In the chart above, we see the number of guns in each country per 100 people on the left in blue. On the right, in red, we see how many homicide deaths are caused by firearms in that country, per 100,000 people.

The data used here came from The Post, which compiled numbers from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2009 and 2010, the years that had the most complete data sets. The Post also used data from the Small Arms Survey from 2007, the last year they carried out the survey. It's important to note how tough it is to actually estimate how many guns there are in a nation. As the Small Arms Survey notes: 

Differences in national gun culture — each country's unique combination of historic and current sources of supply, laws and attitudes towards firearms ownership — often have distinct effects on the classification, ownership, and perception of firearms, and this complicates the calculation of international figures.  

Source: UNODC, 2013 Homicides Report

The chart above shows the weapons of choice for homicides in different parts of the world. The data here comes from the UNODC's 2013 Homicide Report. With 60 percent of homicides committed using a firearm, the United States is a large contributor to the high firearm percentage in the Americas.

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In keeping with recent efforts to ramp up action against environmental crime, INTERPOL has highlighted nine fugitives for breaking laws related to illegal logging, poaching and the wildlife trade, illegal fishing, and waste dumping, among other crimes.

There is Nicolaas Antonius Cornelis Maria Duindam, who is wanted for smuggling wildlife from Brazil; Feisal Mohamed Ali, the alleged leader of an elephant poaching gang; and Sergey Darminov who is wanted for making hundreds of millions of dollars off of illegal crab fishing.

"We believe that the capture of these criminals on the run will contribute to the dismantlement of transnational organized crime groups who have turned environmental exploitation into a professional business with lucrative revenues," said Stefano Carvelli, Head of INTERPOL’s Fugitive Investigative Support unit.

This is the first time that INTERPOL, the world's biggest international police organization, has gone after individuals specifically for environmental crimes.

"Even the smallest detail, which you might think is insignificant, has the potential to break a case wide open when combined with other evidence the police already have," said Ioannis Kokkinis, Criminal Intelligence Officer with INTERPOL's Fugitive Investigative Support.

The release of the nine most wanted is a part of Operation Infra (International Fugitive Round Up and Arrest) Terra, which launched in October. This is an initiative to apprehend 139 fugitives linked to environmental crimes around the world.

The Nine Most Wanted:

• Adriano Giacobone / Italian / Illegal disposal of waste
• Ahmed Kamran / Pakistani / Illegal smuggling of live wild animals
• Ariel Bustamante Sanchez / Mexican / Illegal fishing
• Ben Simasiku / Zambian / Ivory smuggling
• Bhekumusa Mawillis Shiba / South African? / Rhino poaching
• Feisal Mohamed Ali / Kenyan / Ivory smuggling
• Nicolaas Antonius Cornelis Maria Duindam / Dutch / Wildlife trafficking
• Sergey Darminov / Russian and German / Illegal crab fishing
• Sudiman Sunoto / Indonesian / Illegal logging

SEE ALSO: Here's How Climate Change Has Altered Life On Earth In The Past 20 Years

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About 100 human brains, preserved in glass bottles and formaldehyde, are missing from the University of Texas in Austin.

Officials suspect that students could have stolen them as a prank or to use as morbid Christmas ornaments, reports USA Today, but they have no leads.

The missing brains comprise half of the university’s collection.

"We think somebody may have taken the brains, but we don't know at all for sure," psychology professor and co-curator of the collection, Tim Schallert, told the Austin American-Statesman.

Though the university was required to remove any data that might identify whom the brain came from, it's believed that one of the missing brains belonged to notorious killer and University of Texas alumnus Charles Whitman. Whitman shot 46 people and killed 16 in a horrific massacre on the university’s campus in 1966.

The University of Texas originally came to possess the brains after the Austin State Hospital transferred them to the school 28 years ago under a "temporary possession" agreement. However, because the school's psychology lab had room for only 100 brains, the remaining 100 were moved to the basement of the school’s Animal Resources Center.

The university has launched an investigation to determine the circumstances of the brain collection's disappearance, and it has issued a statement saying it is "committed to treating the brain specimens with respect."

The remaining brains on campus have been moved to a new building and are being closely monitored by faculty. 

UPDATE: The brains have been found at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Timothy Schallert, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of Texas in Austin, told the Los Angeles Times: "They have the brains. They read a media report of the missing brains and they called to say, ''We got those brains!'" 

NOW WATCH: Here's What Happens To Your Body If You Stop Eating

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Thieves have managed to make away with a set of five modified Range Rovers Sports that were to appear in the upcoming James Bond film.

According to Wirtshaft Woche, the movie cars along with four other vehicles — including a Range Rover Evoque — were stolen from a parking lot at Jaguar Land Rover's training facility in Neuss, Germany. In total the stolen Range Rovers are valued at an estimated €800,000, or roughly $985,000. Since the October thefts, the movie cars have been replaced and no production delays were reported.

The German publication reports that new European Union regulations that require automakers share vehicle diagnostic data may have contributed to the Range Rover thefts. The article claims that the availability of such information may make the vehicles more susceptible to outside hacking. 

According to Spiegel, the Range Rovers were awaiting transport to the Alps, where we assume they will take part in stunts. The thieves in this case may come to regret their decision. Multiple publications report that the movie cars were modified for specific stunt purposes, with features such as easy-shatter front windshields and collapsible front suspensions

"Bond 24," as the film is currently being called, is set to start filming later this month.  The film's cast and official title will be revealed in a ceremony next week.

With or without the Ranger Rovers, we can't wait to see this movie!

SEE ALSO: The 10 Hottest Maseratis Of All Time

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hundreds of law enforcement officers raided homes in East Los Angeles on Wednesday, searching for gang members with ties to the Mexican Mafia who have been indicted on federal racketeering charges.

The indictment names 38 suspected members of the Big Hazard gang who are accused of crimes ranging from drug dealing to robbery to murder.

The raids led by the FBI and Los Angeles police nabbed 28 of those named in the indictment, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

Seven others were already in custody, and one was killed in a shooting over the weekend that remains under investigation.

The US attorney's office scheduled a news conference to discuss the charges and the search for evidence related to the gang.

The indictment names four unindicted co-conspirators it says are Hazard gang members serving life sentences in prison and are "made members" of the Mexican Mafia who issued orders from behind bars. The Mexican Mafia controls drug dealing and crimes by Latino gangs inside and outside of prison, and gang members dealt methamphetamine, crack cocaine and heroin, the indictment said. The gang collected "taxes" from other dealers and also sold guns.

Believed to have about 350 members, the Big Hazard gang is headquartered in the Ramona Gardens housing project and got its start in the 1940s, the indictment said. It took its name from nearby Hazard Park.

SEE ALSO: Nearly eight years into the drug war, these are Mexico's 7 most notorious cartels

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Scot Young, the property developer who died on Monday after falling out of his house onto the spiked metal railings outside owed millions of pounds to the Russian and Turkish mafia, according to The Telegraph

The paper also says that two years ago gangsters hung him out of a window in a hotel in Dorchester as a warning.

In another murky development, it has been revealed that Young's wife hired a private detective just a few weeks ago, in order to push her former husband to split his wealth.

According to the Daily Mail, another friend of Young believes his death is similar to the death of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch and Young's former business partner who was found hanged in March last year.

In that occasion, the death was not treated as a suicide and an open verdict was recorded. Police said Berezovsky died via hanging in his own bathroom and there were no signs of violence.

"The police need to look at this and at the death of Boris Berezovsky again," said a friend who spoke to the Daily Mail. The same paper says that Young had sold to Berezovsky a mansion for about £20 million, and  launched a massive investment in Russia dubbed "Project Moscow."

In 2006, Project Moscow ended up in a massive failure leaving Young completely broke and with debts of about £28 million, according to what he claimed in the divorce trial from his wife Michelle, the Mail reports.

In the divorce case, lasting from 2007 to 2013, Young repeatedly claimed he was not able to pay £27,500 a month as maintenance for his children and ex-wife because of his bad investments.

The couple had two daughters: Scarlet, 21, and Sasha, 19.

In November last year, the trial ruled that Young would pay £20 million to Michelle, a sum she described as "disgraceful" at the time, and later claimed she never got.

Before the sentence, Mr Justice Moor, the judge in charge of the trial, had ruled that Young lied to the court by trying to hide his wealth in order not to split it with Michelle. He was sent to jail.

While serving his six-month sentence in prison, Young started to feel he had a price on his head, according to the Mail. The paper quotes an unnamed friend saying that: "He was very worried, he said he knew someone was following him,’ says the source. ‘Many of Scot’s friends aren’t surprised that he died."

The Telegraph writes that Young's rise to stardom has always been sort of murky: leaving school at 16, Young operated in the real estate market from the 1980s, and by the middle 1990s he was one of Britain's richest man.

During the divorce trial, Michelle revealed she did not know where her husband's wealth precisely came from, and said "moving money around quietly and undetected is what my husband does. And since working for the Russians, Scot (left) has learned a lot more," as quoted by the Daily Mail.

The Telegraph reports that it is unclear whether Young still owed any Russian investors, after the tragic death of Berezovsky, his highest profile business partner.

Since the end of the trial 12 months ago Young had tried to build a new life with the American fashionista Noelle Reno, whom he met in 2006.

Reno, who writes a blog for Hello magazine and stars in the reality show Ladies of London, had always stood at his side during the divorce and prison sentence, according to the Daily Mail.

They had moved to their Montagu Square's house, which stands at the side of a flat where John Lennon once lived, just a few months ago.

Neighbours were traumatised when they found the body, impaled on the railings after a 60-feet fall from the balcony.

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The ex-wife of Scot Young, the London property magnate who died impaled on railings after falling down his balcony, had hired a private detective to pursue him for her share of his wealth just weeks before the tragedy, according to the Daily Mail. 

The paper revealed that Michelle Young had hired Simon Sutton, described as "a controversial fraud investigator".

The Mail says Young was particularly paranoid about enquiries on his wealth. He had stated that the hunt for the money was driving him crazy, and he had even demanded to be confined for treatment under the Mental Health Act.

In one of Britain's biggest divorce cases, Michelle had hired up to eight private detectives to search for her husband's assets, according to the Daily Mail. 

The case has seen several twists although Scotland Yard has said the death is not considered suspicious.

According to a friend, Young was being tracked by the Russian and Turkish mafia after some property investment deals had turned into nothing and left him broke. 

In the divorce trial, Young had repeatedly claimed he was not able to pay the maintenance fee to his former wife and daughters, although the judge in charge convicted him for contempt of court for hiding his assets from the  inquiry.

In 2013, Young spent six months in prison for that sentence. 

Although Young's friends have claimed that he would have never committed suicide, Scotland Yard is under pressure to open an inquiry after The Telegraph revealed that four of his friends and business associates have also died in mysterious circumstances in the last four years. 

The group included the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanging in his Surrey house in 2013.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer left a suicide note admitting that he had run a $5 million Ponzi scheme and called the investments "all an illusion," prosecutors said on Friday.

Charles Bennett, 56, who was rescued Nov. 3 after he jumped into the Hudson River, was arrested and charged with securities and wire fraud in Manhattan federal court.

Police officers recovered a note Bennett signed called "A Sad Ending to My Life" in which he confessed he "managed to completely squander the hard-earned money" of his family and friends, according to court documents.

"It was a Ponzi scheme pure and simple," Bennett wrote, the criminal complaint said.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also sued Bennett, saying he lured 30 investors with promises of 6 to 25 percent returns and misleading claims that a New York State governor and his then-wife were also investors.

While not named in the complaint, Silda Wall Spitzer, Eliot Spitzer's ex-wife, confirmed she once worked with Bennett at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She called the case "astonishing and heartbreaking on all counts."

Eliot Spitzer, who was governor from 2007 to 2008, called it "a horrific act by someone who pretended to have a relationship that did not exist and who lured unwitting investors into a Ponzi scheme."

The FBI arrested Bennett on Friday morning at Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital, where he was being treated following the suicide attempt.

During a court hearing Friday, prosecutor Amy Lester argued Bennett should be detained, saying he demonstrated a "great risk - some might say the ultimate risk - to avoid prosecution."

A judge instead allowed him to remain free until his hospital release after Bennett's lawyer argued he would not avoid facing the charges.

"This is a person who's suffering a great deal of regret and remorse," said Julia Gatto, Bennett's lawyer.

According to the SEC, Bennett previously worked at several law and accounting firms, including the law firm where he met the governor's ex-wife.

In 2001, Bennett started his own law practice, which he had trouble keeping afloat, the SEC said.

He began the Ponzi scheme in 2008, authorities said, telling investors he had a relationship with a fund manager and could arrange for investments in the fund.

But Bennett never invested the money and instead used it for his own benefit and to repay investors, authorities said. The suicide attempt came after investors began demanding repayment, Lester said.

(Editing by Noeleen Walder, Grant McCool and Bernard Orr)

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) asked for "political debate" and "protests" to be "put aside" on Monday following the fatal shooting of two police officers in Brooklyn over the weekend. They were shot at close range on Saturday by a Baltimore man named Ismaaiyl Brinsley who wrote posts on social media accounts vowing to kill police officers following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner earlier this year.

"We have to understand the attack on them was an attack on all of us," de Blasio said. "It was an attack on our democracy, an attack on our values. It was an attack on every single New Yorker and we have to see it as such."

De Blasio made his comments at a luncheon for supporters of the Police Athletic League after he visited with the families of both officers. He said their loved ones were "suffering an unspeakable pain."

Both Brown and Garner were African American men who were killed while being taken into custody by police officers. Neither man was armed at the time. Brown's death occurred in Ferguson, Missouri while Garner died in the New York City borough of Staten Island. Their deaths led to widespread protests, particularly after grand juries declined to indict officers involved in both incidents. 

In his speech at the luncheon, de Blasio urged further protests to be put on hold until after the officers' funerals.

"That could be for another day. Let's accompany these families on their difficult journey," said de Blasio. "Let's see them through the funerals, then debate can begin again."

Along with the national tensions, de Blasio has been focus of some recent debate due to his strained relationship with the NYPD.

The head of the city's largest police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, has made a series of comments implying the fatal attack on the officers on was linked to supportive comments the mayor made about the protests in the wake of Garner's death. When de Blasio arrived for a news conference on Saturday at the hospital where they were pronounced dead, a group of officers turned their backs on him as he entered the building. 

These recent events aren't the only source of strife between City Hall and the NYPD. De Blasio made changing the police department a cornerstone of the campaign that propelled him to the mayor's office last year. The mayor also was recently embroiled in tense contract negotiations with the police unions that headed to binding arbitration after the officers and the city were unable to reach a salary agreement. 

In his remarks on the killing of the two officers Monday afternoon, de Blasio noted "the family of the NYPD is feeling this deeply." He encouraged New Yorkers to attempt to connect with officers they see on the streets.

"Take a moment when you see a police officer to thank them, console them, because it is personal for them," de Blasio said. 

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Rep. Michael Grimm (R-New York) is expected to plead guilty on Tuesday to resolve federal tax fraud and other charges, a source familiar with the case told Reuters. 

An indictment filed against Grimm in April included 20 different charges relating to Healthalicious, a Manhattan restaurant he was a part owner of from 2007 until 2010, the year before he was elected to Congress. The indictment detailed what was described as Grimm's "schemes" including hiding over $1 million in earnings to pay lower taxes and knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants. Grimm initially denied any wrongdoing. 

Despite his legal woes, Grimm, a former FBI agent whose New York City district includes Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, was easily re-elected to a second term in November. 

The New York Daily News first reported on Grimm's guilty plea and said he "is expected to argue that he can continue to hold his House seat despite his guilty plea" if he is able to avoid jail time.

If Grimm does fight to keep his seat, House Republican leaders will need to decide whether to try to force him out. Grimm's re-election campaign was one of the most hotly-contested in the country as he is the only Republican House member within the confines of New York City.  

Court records show a plea hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn federal court.

Grimm has also been under investigation by federal authorities since at least 2012 for various allegations involving his campaign fundraising. In January, a woman was charged with funnelling $10,000 into Grimm's war chest illegally through straw donors. Last August, an aide to a high profile Israeli rabbi who raised six figure sums for Grimm from the rabbi's followers pleaded guilty to visa fraud.

In addition to his legal problems, Grimm made headlines in January when he was videotaped threatening to throw a reporter off a balcony. The reporter, NY1's Michael Scotto, had asked Grimm about the probe into his fundraising. 

Grimm's lawyer declined to comment on this story. A spokeswoman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch also declined to comment. Grimm's House office did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. 

(Reuters reporting by Nate Raymond; Reuters editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

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A source familiar with the situation confirmed to Business Insider on Monday that staff members who work for Rep. Michael Grimm (R-New York) have been informed he plans to resign from Congress after he pleaded guilty to a tax fraud charge last Tuesday.

The news was first reported by the Daily News, which said Grimm made the decision after speaking with House Speaker John Boehner.

After he pleaded guilty Grimm, who represents Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, spoke to reporters outside the courthouse and vowed he would not resign.

"As long as I am able to serve, I will serve," he said. 

Though Grimm insisted he would "get back to work" there was speculation Boehner might pressure him to leave his seat. 

The charges against Grimm all related to Healthalicious, a Manhattan restaurant he was a part owner of from 2007 until 2010. An indictment filed against him in April detailed 20 different charges including allegations he hid over $1 million in earnings to pay lower taxes and knowingly hired undocumented immigrants. Grimm, initially denied any wrongdoing, plead guilty to one felony count of filing false tax returns.

Grimm's departure from Congress means that there will be a hotly-contested special election to pick his replacement. He is the only Republican representing New York City in Congress and Democrats have made taking his seat a top priority. 

In addition to the tax fraud case, Grimm is facing a federal investigation into his campaign fundraising. Despite his legal woes, Grimm easily won re-election last month. He maintains many supporters in his district, including the source who spoke to Business Insider. 

"It's a loss for Staten Island and Brooklyn," they said of his departure. 

UPDATE (11:59 p.m.): Grimm released a statement confirming his intent to resign late Monday evening. 

"After much thought and prayer, I have made the very difficult decision to step down from Congress effective January 5th, 2015," said Grimm. "This decision is made with a heavy heart, as I have enjoyed a very special relationship and closeness with my constituents, whom I care about deeply."

Grimm claimed he made the choice to step down because he does not believe he can be "100% effective" going forward.

"The events which led to this day did not break my spirit, nor the will of the voters. However, I do not believe that I can continue to be 100% effective in the next Congress, and therefore, out of respect for the Office and the people I so proudly represent, it is time for me to start the next chapter of my life," said Grimm.

Grimm concluded by thanking his supporters.

"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the hardworking families on both sides of the Verrazano, and I am sincerely grateful for the love and support that I have received from so many over the past few difficult months. I have seen first-hand how extraordinary the people of this district are--their values, their love of community, and their care for each other in the best and worst of times--it is humbling. I am grateful, and I will always keep them in my prayers," Grimm said.

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A man from Leeds in West Yorkshire has been released on bail after allegedly posting on social media a video that ends with him burning a copy of the Qu'ran.

The 19-year-old was arrested on Dec. 27 after people raised concerns for his safety, the Yorkshire Standard reports. Apparently the man ripped apart an English translation of the Islamic holy religious text with his teeth, put it in the toilet, and then burnt it.

The paper says he was arrested by Leeds police in Beeston in connection with an offensive video posted on a social media website and was later released on bail. It is thought the footage has been taken down and the suspect has not been named. He was arrested on suspicion of a racially or religiously aggravated public order offence. 

Members of the public alerted the Yorkshire Standard about the video, which was reportedly shared at least 1,000 times and had more than 100 comments. Some were said to be death threats. 

The law about burning a holy text such as the Qu'ran isn't clear cut in the UK. In the US it is entirely legal. Accorss the pond, it's a punishable offence under Britain's Racial and Religious Hatred act 2006. There remains an issue of freedom of speech and ownership of material, but ultimately people could be prosecuted when there is a demonstrable advocacy of hate crime laws. 

In 2011, Business Insider wrote about British National Party candidate Sion Owens, who filmed himself burning a copy of the Qu'ran. The clip was leaked to the Guardian and the man was subsequently arrested. 

Then, the Home Office stated: 

"The government absolutely condemns the burning of the Qur'an. It is fundamentally offensive to the values of our pluralist and tolerant society. We equally condemn any attempts to create divisions between communities and are committed to ensuring that everyone has the freedom to live their lives free from fear of targeted hostility or harassment on the grounds of a particular characteristic, such as religion."

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A funny thing happened in New York City last week: Cops stopped arresting people. Not altogether, of course—that would be anarchy.

But since last Monday, the number of arrests in America's largest city plummeted by two-thirds compared to the previous year.

The decline is a conscious slowdown by New York's police force to protest City Hall's perceived lack of support for law enforcement.

NYPD officers and union leaders have been at odds with Mayor Bill de Blasio in the wake of the Eric Garner case and the killings of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos this month. In their latest move, officers have begun a "virtual work stoppage" throughout the city by making fewer low-level arrests and issuing fewer citations.

The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, New York's largest police union, urged its members not to make arrests "unless absolutely necessary," according to the New YorkPost's report.

[The slowdown] has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.

Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent—from 4,831 to 300.

Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.

Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau—which are part of the overall number—dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.

Although safety is cited as the reason for the police union's move, political considerations are central. "This is not a slowdown for slowdown’s sake," a police source told the Post. "Cops are concerned, after the reaction from City Hall on the Garner case, about de Blasio not backing them." The NYPD slowdown also comes amid protracted contract negotiations between police unions and the mayor's office.

The Post, which enthusiastically championed the NYPD during this year's turmoil, portrayed this slowdown in near-apocalyptic terms—an early headline for the article above even read "Crime wave engulfs New York following execution of cops." But the police union's phrasing—officers shouldn't make arrests "unless absolutely necessary"—begs the question: How many unnecessary arrests was the NYPD making before now?

Policing quality doesn't necessarily increase with policing quantity, as New York's experience with stop-and-frisk demonstrated. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg asserted that the controversial tactic of warrantless street searches "keeps New York City safe." De Blasio ended the program soon after succeeding him, citing its discriminatory impact on black and Hispanic residents.

Stop-and-frisk incidents plunged from 685,724 stops in 2011 to just 38,456 in the first three-quarters of 2014 as a result. If stop-and-frisk had caused the ongoing decline in New York's crime rate, its near-absence would logically halt or even reverse that trend. But the city seems to be doing just fine without it: Crime rates are currently at two-decade lows, with homicide down 7 percent and robberies down 14 percent since 2013.

The slowdown also challenges the fundamental tenets of broken-windows policing, a controversial strategy championed by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. According to the theory, which first came to prominence in a 1982 article in The Atlantic, "quality-of-life" crimes like vandalism and vagrancy help normalize criminal behavior in neighborhoods and precede more violent offenses. Tackling these low-level offenses therefore helps prevent future ones. The theory's critics dispute its effectiveness and contend that broken-windows policing simply criminalizes the young, the poor, and the homeless.

Public drinking and urination may be unseemly, but they're hardly threats to life, liberty, or public order. (The Post also noted a decline in drug arrests, but their comparison of 2013 and 2014 rates is misleading. The mayor's office announced in November that police would stop making arrests for low-level marijuana possession and issue tickets instead. Even before the slowdown began, marijuana-related arrests had declined by 61 percent.) If the NYPD can safely cut arrests by two-thirds, why haven't they done it before?

The human implications of this question are immense. Fewer arrests for minor crimes logically means fewer people behind bars for minor crimes. Poorer would-be defendants benefit the most; three-quarters of those sitting in New York jails are only there because they can't afford bail. Fewer New Yorkers will also be sent to Rikers Island, where endemic brutality against inmates has led to resignations, arrests, and an imminent federal civil-rights intervention over the past six months. A brush with the American criminal-justice system can be toxic for someone's socioeconomic and physical health.

The NYPD might benefit from fewer unnecessary arrests, too. Tensions between the mayor and the police unions originally intensified after a grand jury failed to indict a NYPD officer for the chokehold death of Eric Garner during an arrest earlier this year. Garner's arrest wasn't for murder or arson or bank robbery, but on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes—hardly the most serious of crimes. Maybe the NYPD's new "absolutely necessary" standard for arrests would have produced a less tragic outcome for Garner then. Maybe it will for future Eric Garners too.

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The number of murders in New York City dropped to a record low for 2014.

However, the New York City of the 1970s looked very different from the safe and gentrified metropolis we know today. The Bowery, now lined with luxury apartments, housed much of the city's illicit activities, while drug dealers and prostitutes worked openly from Park Slope to Times Square.

Industrial decline, economic stagnation, and white flight led to the dramatic downturn for America's largest city.

In 1976, 2,383 arrests were made for prostitution citywide. Of these, 1,165 were girls between the ages of 15 and 20.

Two members of NYPD's "Pimp Squad" arrest an alleged prostitute in Times Square.

Source: Publication of New York Women in Criminal Justice in collaboration with the Prostitution Task Force

There were an estimated 40,000 prostitutes in New York City in the '70s, many with sad stories. This picture shows a hotel where a 15-year-old prostitute died in 1975.

The Hotel Belmore in Manhattan marked the end of Karen Baxter's life. A 15-year-old runaway from Cambridge, Mass., she resorted to prostitution to survive New York City until one of her customers choked her with a metal chain in 1975. The photo was taken five days after her murder. 

Source: Publication of New York Women in Criminal Justice in tangent with the Prostitution Task Force

Authorities were of little help. In this picture, Sydney Biddle Barrows, the "Mayflower Madam," celebrates with champagne after pleading guilty to promoting prostitution in return for a $5,000 fine and no prison sentence.

Barrows ran Cachet, a high-end escort service from 1979 to 1984.

Source: Publication of New York Women in Criminal Justice in collaboration with the Prostitution Task Force