Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested At JFK

The CEO of Bitinstant was arrested at JFK airport Sunday and charged with money laundering, according to Business Insider. Charlie Shrem, 24, of New York, New York, along with a co-conspirator, is accused of trading more than $1 million in bitcoins to Silk Road users, who then used the bitcoins to purchase illicit items, including drugs.

Shrem, who is also vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, and Robert Faiella, an alleged underground Bitcoin exhanger, are among the widening circle of arrests in the case, according to Forbes Magazine. Bitcoin payment processor BitInstant was Shrem's startup and had received $1.5 million in start-up funding "in an investment round led by Bitcoin moguls Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss," according to Forbes.

To read the Business Insider article, click here. To read the Forbes article, click here.

New Voting Rights Bill

A bipartisan group of legislators plans to announce the introduction of The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 in Congress today. The new bill is in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder which invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the American Civil Liberties Union reports.

Last year's ruling invalidated "the coverage formula that determined which states and political subdivisions were subject to the law’s preclearance requirement," the ACLU release stated. Because the ruling did not strike down the preclearance requirement itself, it opened the door for Congress to "devise a new formula and other mechanisms" to protect minority voters' rights.

The bipartisan group includes Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT.), among others.

To read the release in its entirety, click here.

Scott Requests SCOTUS To Weigh In On Drug-Testing

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to fight a Miami federal judge's ruling on drug-testing state employees. During Scott's first year in office, he issued an executive order for state agencies to conduct random drug tests of state employees. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 79 sued on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, the Orlando Sentinel reports. In 2012, a Miami federal judge ruled that the order violated state employees' Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

To read the Orlando Sentinel article, click here.

Franklin McCain Dies, Part of Greensboro Four

Franklin McCain, who, with three other college students, helped touch off the American civil rights movement, has died of respiratory ailments. He was 73. The Greensboro Four sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter, knowing that they would not be served, The Washington Post reports.

The four were college freshmen at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, and included Mr. McCain, his roommate, David Richmond, and their friends Ezell Blair Jr. and Joseph McNeil when they sat at the Woolworth's lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960.

To read the entire article, click here.

Earthquake Felt In Tampa Bay Area

A 5.1-magnatude earthquake struck just before 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon in the Straits of Florida between Cuba and Florida. The quake, which lasted about 30 seconds, caused highrise buildings in Havana to sway, startling workers, according to Tampa's WFLA.com. The city closest to the epicenter is Corralillo, 17 miles to the southwest; the quake was approximately 106 miles east of Havana.

According to the U.S. Geological Service, there were five reports from Tampa and seven reports from St. Petersburg of people reporting that they had felt tremors. The USGS site mentioned one report from as far away as Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.