After the holidays, Divorce Day looms

Danielle Braff Chicago Tribune

The Christmas season isn’t always the happiest time of the year for couples, according to a recent survey by the law firm Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, which found that divorce filings jump by nearly one-third following the holidays.

First comes Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and New Year’s. And then there’s Divorce Day: the Monday after Christmas break, when the flood of divorce emails clogs attorney inboxes, said James McLaren, partner with McLaren & Lee, in South Carolina, and former president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

“It always happens the first Monday that we’re back in the office, back after the holiday,” McLaren said.

Over at the U.K. law firm Slater and Gordon, they’re already preparing to deal with the influx of divorce requests.

They normally experience double the number of inquiries the first few days of the new year, but some years, they’ve seen a threefold increase. It’s most acute over the first few days of January, but the spike remains high throughout the entire month, said Amanda McAlister, head of family law at the firm.

It’s become such a significant time to divorce that the firm recently studied the reasons behind the trend.

Forty percent of married couples had problems in 2014, with 10 percent having severe issues, according to the study, which polled married Brits right before Christmas.

Twenty-five percent said the holiday break could possibly make or break their marriage, according to the survey, and 10 percent said they were definitely going to decide whether to go forward with their marriage depending on how well the holiday went.

Read Full – http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/sc-christmas-divorces-family-1213-20161208-story.html

Sumner Redstone paid millions to mistresses and others who gave him ‘sexual favors,’ legal filing says

That must have been a hell of a flight.

Media titan Sumner Redstone gave out many millions of dollars to multiple women — mistresses, a flight attendant and that attendant’s sister — according to legal documents filed Monday by his 45-year-old ex-girlfriend.

The CBS corporate jet flight attendant alone got $18 million — and her sister, whom Redstone allegedly bedded, received a cool $6 million from the randy billionaire, court filings claim.

The explosive allegations by former Redstone paramour Sydney Holland were accompanied by a warning that she “may be forced” to seek testimony from the 93-year-old mogul’s celebrity friends as well as from executives from Viacom and CBS, whose shares he controls, to substantiate her salacious claims.

Redstone’s legal team, in an emailed statement to CNBC, said, “Ms. Holland’s cross-complaint is a work of fiction punctuated by not-so-subtle threats of extortion and an overwhelming stench of greed.”

In her Los Angeles Superior Court filing, Holland said Redstone “gave tens of millions of dollars to various other women — who he had no intention of marrying and was not in love with — at the time he was engaged to marry” Holland.

Full Article – http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/12/redstone-allegedly-paid-millions-to-mistresses-and-others-while-getting-sexual-favors.html

MAFIA MADNESS: 400,000 BOTTLES OF ITALIAN SPARKLING WINE DUMPED

Produced by / @nickolaushines
Updated on December 12, 2016.

Some 400,000 bottles worth of sparkling Italian wine will never see the bottle this year. An unidentified crew of miscreants with a mysterious motive snuck onto the grounds of the historic Italian winery Conte Vistarino and emptied steel tanks filled with Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, and other white wines from the 2016 harvest. The staff came to work the morning after the act of vandalism to find $530,000 worth of grape juice and skins on the floor.

The perpetrators didn’t damage any other equipment or steal anything from the winery though, which leaves some to speculate that this act was committed out of spite, The Telegraph writes.

“If you have no idea why, you don’t sleep at night,” Ottavia Giorgi di Vistarino, the countess who manages the winery, told The Telegraph. “The team is shaken, but we won’t let it stop us. We’ll just have to roll up our sleeves and get back to work.”

Italian wine producers, not just Conte Vistarino, have been having a rough couple of years. Mafia members have infiltrated parts of the wine business and are bringing a mafia sensibility to the wine business, a 60 Minutes piece revealed in early 2016. Mafia-tainted olive oil, wine, and cheese — all of which fall under the term “Agromafia,” 60 Minutes reports — is a $16 billion-a-year business. In terms of wine, the Agromafia is notorious for mixing a lesser quality wine with a famous brand and selling it as the famous brand.

Read Full – http://vinepair.com/booze-news/italian-wine-drained/

Venezuela closes border with Colombia ‘to destroy mafia’

Venezuela has closed its border with Colombia for 72 hours in the latest measure to combat smuggling gangs.

President Nicolas Maduro says the “mafia” operating in border areas is causing huge damage to the economy.

Many items subsidised by Venezuela’s socialist government, including diesel and petrol, are sold at a huge profit over the border in Colombia.

On Sunday, he announced that the country’s highest denomination bank note would be taken out of circulation.

‘Destroy the mafia’

President Maduro said the move would stop gangs hoarding the currency.

“Let’s destroy the mafia before the mafias destroy our country and our economy,” he said on national television.

“This measure was inevitable, it was necessary,” he added. “The mafias will go bust.”

Venezuela last closed most border crossings with Colombia in August 2015. The border was partially reopened a year later.

In 2015, the Colombian government complained that it had not been consulted or informed.

Full Read – http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38297927

Best Criminal Defense Lawyers In Biloxi, MS

Here is a list of the top rated and best criminal defense lawyers in Biloxi, MS. These criminal defense attorneys in Biloxi, Mississippi that we have listed below may also practice other areas of law besides criminal defense as some of the Biloxi lawyers practice personal injury for example. Our best lawyers of Biloxi list below is strictly on their criminal defense reviews and felony court case records. We have located and found the best defense lawyers of Biloxi based upon their reviews on Biloxi Yelp, AVVO, Super Lawyers, as well as the US News report about lawyers in Biloxi, MS.  If you are searching to find the best rated criminal defense attorneys in Biloxi, you have come to the correct place. These are the top lawyers in Biloxi, MS. When hiring a Biloxi, Mississippi criminal defense attorney, you should evaluate the experience and fee structure of the Biloxi attorney. Some offer a free consultation to discuss your case.

Here are the top rated defense lawyers in Biloxi, Mississippi

  1. Corban Gunn
  2. W. Fred Hornsby aka Dub Hornsby
  3. Mark V. Watts
  4. Steven Eckert
  5. Rufus Alldredge
  6. Tim Holleman, Dean Holleman, Patrick Guild
  7. Adam Miller
  8. Stephen Maggio
  9. Dianne Herman Ellis, Dawn Smith
  10. Albert Lionel Necaise

If you have any questions about hiring a Biloxi defense lawyers give Wise Laws a call at 800-270-8184 as they currently work with some of these top 10 lawyers.