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Exclusive new photos show John Edwards and his loony lover, Rielle Hunter, spending a long weekend at his beach house, hugging, flirting and playing in the sand with their love child. Hunter laments in her new tell-all, “What Really Happened: John Edwards, our Daughter and Me,” that her relationship with the former presidential candidate is confusing and complicated. “I really have no idea what will happen with us. The jury is still out. I can honestly say that the ending is of no concern to me anymore. The love is here. And as sappy as it may sound, I love...

Rielle Hunter, in a gossipy new memoir, calls the cancer-stricken wife of her lover, former presidential candidate John Edwards, a "witch on wheels" and claims that while they were furtively seeing each other he lied about having three other mistresses at the same time, according to a new report. Hunter, who has a four-year-old daughter with Edwards, says she wrote the book, "What Really Happened," to give young Frances Quinn "one entirely truthful public account of how she came into the world. After all, this is her story too." ABC News reported Monday that it had obtained a copy of...

The Justice Department announced Wednesday it will give up its criminal case against former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, NPR reports. In May, a deadlocked North Carolina federal jury found Edwards not guilty of one charge of accepting illegal campaign donations. The group couldn't reach a decision on five other felony charges, including one alleging that Edwards knowingly used $1 million in secret campaign donations from wealthy donors to support his mistress. Edwards could have faced 30 years in prison if convicted. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in a statement that the Justice Department put forward its best...

Edwards advised to keep low profile before 2nd actBy MARTHA WAGGONER and MICHAEL BIESECKER | Associated Press – Fri, Jun 1, 2012 RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Now that he has survived his campaign corruption trial, John Edwards may face an even tougher fight to regain the public's respect. Image experts and friends recommended that the disgraced former Democratic presdential candidate put his public and political life on hold for a few years. The details of his affair and child with his mistress that were replayed at his trial are too fresh, they say. "Plant a small garden, tend that garden...

After a lengthy deliberation, a North Carolina jury has reached a verdict in the John Edwards mistress-and-money trial. The verdict is expected to be read shortly. The jury began deliberating on May 18 after a month of testimony, which at times sounded more like a steamy soap opera than a trial on the intricacies of campaign finance rules. Charged with six counts of violating federal campaign laws, Edwards was accused by the government of soliciting nearly $1 million from wealthy backers to finance a cover up of his illicit affair and illegitimate child while running for president in 2008.

Here’s a riddle: What comes in group of four and is the color of French’s Mustard? After a week of deliberations, the four alternate jurors have become the prime distraction for the assembled press corps and spectators in the courtroom. On Thursday the alternates – three women and one man – caused something of a stir when they showed up in matching bright yellow shirts, hardly bothering to suppress their snickering as the judge addressed the main panel of jurors. Today they are all wearing red. For nearly four weeks, 16 jurors heard all the evidence in Edwards’ case....

ABC News is reporting that John Edwards has been repeatedly flirting with a female juror during his trial, a distraction that "has become so obvious that even Edwards' attorneys have to work to suppress their laughter at the absurdity of it all." The juror (who is an alternate) is a young woman with jet-black hair. According to the report, "The juror clearly instigated the exchanges. She smiles at him. He smiles at her. She giggles. He blushes."

The jury deciding the fate of John Edwards has asked to see more evidence exhibits. The former presidential candidate faces 30 years in prison after pleading not guilty to six campaign finance corruption charges. The jury began considering its decision Friday, after nearly four weeks of testimony. Deliberations continued Monday morning. On Monday afternoon, the jurors asked to see eight evidence exhibits. Prosecutors have accused the Democrat of masterminding a scheme to use nearly $1 million in secret payments from two donors to help hide his pregnant mistress as he sought the White House in 2008.

Not since Bill Clinton challenged the definition of "is" has so much hinged on a very short word. John Edwards appears to basing much of his defense, which begins today in a North Carolina courtroom, on the legal interpretation of the word "the." Edwards has listened to three weeks of testimony meant to prove that he violated federal campaign finance laws by using nearly $1million in donations to hide his mistress Rielle Hunter and her pregnancy during his bid for the 2008 presidential election and in the months after he dropped out -- but was still angling to be vice...

Rielle Hunter's life had a lurid, supermarket-tabloid quality to it — full of deception, betrayal, reckless behavior and broken dreams — well before she became a party to one of the biggest lies in recent American political history.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — A onetime donor to John Edwards testified Tuesday that he warned the campaign of President Barack Obama in 2008 to look closely at rumors about the former North Carolina senator's infidelity before it considered offering him any position in the administration.

The key person funding John Edwards' cover up of his affair was a 101-year-old philanthropist who had swooned over the Democratic presidential contender in 2007. Rachel "Bunny" Mellon was so taken with Edwards after meeting him at her Virginia estate in 2005 that she lent her personal plane to take him home to North Carolina, her confidante Bryan Huffman told the jury at Edwards' trial.

When the National Enquirer broke a story that presidential candidate John Edwards was having an affair, Edwards' campaign was worried by mistress Rielle Hunter's initial reluctance to issue a denial. Instead, she wanted to put out a flip statement that she was "abducted by aliens." The Enquirer's story triggered an emotional meltdown by Edwards' wife Elizabeth, who was coping with terminal cancer at the time of the revelation in October 2007. She confronted her husband in an airport parking lot, collapsing a heap, then tearing off her shirt and bra. That testimony sent daughter Cate Edwards out of the courtroom...

A North Carolina Democrat faces serious sexual misconduct charges, and this time it isn't the state's former senator John Edwards. The ex-girlfriend of former state party executive Jay Parmley claims that he gave her HIV and his lawyers promised to put her on the Democratic National Committee's health insurance. Mr Parmley's ex Rebecca Burgin, 29, spoke out today saying that her 'biggest concern is for anybody else that had had a relationship with him that he did not tell'. Ms Burgin started dating Mr Parmley when she was 20 and he was her 32-year-old teacher at Oklahoma City Community College...

BOSTON (CBS) – It’s Day 2 of the corruption trial of former Senator John Edwards down in North Carolina, and before too long, we’ll likely to be treated to fresh details about the amoral life of one of the worst dirtbags in modern American politics. In essence, Edwards is accused of extracting close to a million bucks in campaign donations from a political crony and a very elderly millionaire supporter that were never really campaign donations at all, but slush funds to be used to cover up the sleazy affair he was having at the expense of his terminally-ill wife....

Who Is Funding Barack Obama? by Paul Hollrah In a July 10 installment of “The World According to Barack,” we discussed Obama’s phenomenal fundraising juggernaut. Obama boasts of having built a contributor base of 1.5 million people, each contributing $5, $10, $20...or, as Obama assures us, “whatever they could afford.” Please do the math with me. The Obama campaign has disclosed that one-fourth, or $66.25 million of the $265 million reported as of May 31, 2008 (he has raised an additional $70 million during the month of June), came from those contributing $2,000, or more...which means that the remainder, or...

Live updates of the John (Breck Girl) Edwards federal campaign finance law violation trial.

The Supreme Court is again at the center of a highly controversial policy debate, having just heard arguments for the Affordable Care Act. There's been much discussion about the justices' supposed political agendas. I've heard fear-mongering about government takeovers and rumors of increased business costs. But I haven't heard much about what's really at stake: the welfare of the American people -- specifically women. Women like my mother and the other mothers, wives, sisters and daughters who need preventive services to ensure that they are healthy. Our Constitution was created to "promote the general welfare." So a court that strikes...

The overall cost and frequency of so called $50m plus ‘super losses’ in the US healthcare insurance sector are on the rise according to specialist healthcare insurer Hiscox. Despite the clear benefits of the implementation of quality and patient safety measures, the large losses keep on getting larger with, in the last two years alone, juries awarding well over $1bn in total damages for just seven medical liability cases. While there are many healthcare institutions who continue to risk manage their more modest loss levels well, many others are experiencing mid-sized losses getting steadily larger together with a rise in...

John Edwards is the perfect Democrat. When you see him coming, you don't know which to lock up first: your wallet or your daughters. Edwards, who reportedly also pals around with prostitutes, is on trial for a brilliant trifecta of exploitation of women. He seduced an old biddy into giving him campaign cash, which he gave to the airhead he was exploiting for sex, while cheating on the dying wife he exploited as a campaign prop. Even by Democratic standards, this is sheer genius! But he's a great respecter of women's rights, you know, just like the man who ran...