Wesley "wolvereness" Wolfe is the latest to become victimized by a swatting prank. According to Chron, the 25-year-old programmer best known for Craftbukkit for Minecraft, was the victim of someone sending a swat team to his house, claiming that he had shot and killed his parents and was going to kill more people.

After some pressure from rights group Green America and an investigating of its own, Apple has agreed that it will take steps to stop allowing suppliers from using dangerous chemicals that can have long-term effects on the health and well-being of its workers.

Apple announced on August 13 that it has taken the first steps to protect the workers who make their products (iPhones, iPads) overseas by banning the use of benzene and n-hexane in the final assembly of its products.

You can probably chalk this up to "positioning in a political year against a tough opponent," but Republican attorney general candidate Dawson Hodgson says it is time for the incumbent Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin to admit that he may be a "potential witness" in the state police’s 38 Studios investigation that he needs to "stand aside" because "the appearance of a conflict of interest … is just too strong."

The Rhode Island State Police have joined the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office in investigating potential lobbying violations by a political insider who represented 38 Studios prior to receiving its $75 million loan guarantee from the state.

Rhode Island State Representative Michael Chippendale (R-Coventry) claims that he has received a death threat against himself and his family for investigating 38 Studios. Chippendale, the secretary for the House Oversight Committee investigating the failed $75 million loan deal for Curt Schilling's 38 Studios, said that he received a threatening letter at his State House office.

"It basically said that I have a beautiful family and I should stop poking around for their sake,” said Chippendale.

Erling Ellingsen, Funcom's director of communications, tells MMORPG.com that his company is cooperating with Norwegian authorities who are conducting an investigation into allegations that executives at the MMO developer engaged in insider trading.

Norwegian MMO developer and publisher Funcom is under investigation for insider trading, according to this Eurogamer report. According to the report, staff were sent home today as Norwegian authorities collected documents related to an investigation into insider trading, though specific details about the investigation remain unknown as of this writing. Funcom's stock has also been temporarily frozen on the Oslo stock market.

It sounds far-fetched when someone says that playing something as innocent as Angry Birds is helping spy agencies gather information about you, but that is just what happens when users launch what this Pro Publica investigation claims is a "leaky app."

A documentary about the ill effects of online game addiction in South Korea made its debut this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. According to the festival's official website (as reported on by GameSpot), the documentary explores South Korea's online gaming culture as it follows the story of a couple whose three-month-old daughter died of malnutrition while they were allegedly playing the massively multiplayer online game, Prius Online.

A report on the investigation of last year’s horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School has been released to the public.  The purpose of the report is to identify persons other than the shooter who are criminally responsible for the twenty-seven homicides that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 and indicate if there will be any state prosecutions.

Almost a year after Adam Lanza stormed the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and killed 20 children and six adults before taking his own life, a report on the investigation will be released to the public, according to prosecutors overseeing the case. The report will be published on the website of Connecticut's Division of Criminal Justice, www.ct.gov/csao.

The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation has confirmed with several outlets that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is actively investigating the $75-million taxpayer-backed loan given to Curt Schilling's now-bankrupt video-game company 38 Studios.

A Rhode Island House committee opened hearings today to look into the events leading up to awarding a $75 million loan guarantee to former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's 38 Studios. The oversight panel will start by sifting through 8,000 pages of documents related to the loan guarantee, according to what House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Marcello (D-Scituate, Cranston) told talk radio station WPRO.

The Obama administration has lifted an International Trade Commission ban on older models of Apple's iOS devices (iPhones and iPads). As a general rule, presidents do not intervene in cases handled by the ITC - the last time an ITC ban was overturned was in 1987. The news was revealed over the weekend by U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who announced that  he would stop both an import ban and a cease-and-desist order that would have required Apple to remove the products from shelves.

This week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will announce plans to start an investigation into the questionable practices employed by patent trolls, according to a New York Times report. The investigation will be announced at a conference headed up by FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

The parent company of Atlas is being investigated in Japan for "shady practices," according to this Kotaku report. In Japan "Atlus" is just a brand on paper and not a real company anymore because the Japanese company was dissolved and delisted from the stock market a few years ago after it became a wholly owned subsidiary of a company called Index.

An investigation examining 400 apps conducted by Develop shows that there is a lack of consistency in the way in-game purchases are presented on digital stores. The investigation follows the UK government agency the Office of Fair Trading’s recent announcement that it would investigate in-app purchases in children’s games.

According to a report in the UK newspaper The Guardian - citing data from a recent Microsoft survey - as much as £30.9 million in purchases a month are made by children without their parents' consent. That is according to 28 percent of 2,000 parents surveyed in the region.

Apple has won another battle this month at the U.S. International Trade Commission. The ruling dismissed patent claims by Google's Motorola Mobility against Apple's iPhone. If Motorola had prevailed, the ITC could have instituted a ban on imports of the iPhone into the United States from Apple's manufacturers in China.

Earlier in the week we learned that UK regulatory agency the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) had begun investigating free-to-play models in mobile and online games that used questionable practices to highlight (to children) buying upgrades in-games. Today we have learned the contents of the public survey that the agency is using to get information from UK consumers.

Responding to news that the UK regulatory agency the Office of Fair Trading is investigating free-to-play game practices, the UK video games trade body UKIE issued a statement saying that it would assist the OFT in find the truth.

The OFT announced that it would investigate how companies offer in-app purchases in games and if they use strong marketing techniques against children.

Kaspersky Lab has uncovered a Chinese hacking ring that has been breaching the security of and stealing source code and other material from various online games in East Asia, South Korea, Germany, the US, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Peru, and Belarus. The security researchers at the company say that this Chinese hacking ring broke into the servers of dozens of online video gaming companies and stole from them over a four year period.

Lieutenant J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police issued a brief statement yesterday in response to a New York Daily News report detailing particulars of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting that occurred last December. An anonymous source attending a law enforcement seminar in New York leaked supposed information from the investigation about the shooter, Adam Lanza, claiming that he had a spread sheet filled will data from other mass shootings.

Ars Technica points out a new scam trolling internet users with legal threats demanding cash settlements for alleged incidents of infringement. An organization calling itself the Internet Copyright Law Enforcement Agency (ICLEA) recently sent out copyright infringement notices to victims warning them that "if this matter is not settled by Friday, March 1, 2013 then you may face serious potential criminal and/or civil charges filed against you.

An investigation conducted by UK gaming publication Computer & Video Games shows that some online retailers are not doing their best to keep under-age children from buying mature-rated video games online. The investigative report (which includes some video) shows a person purchasing three games online without any age verification checks blocking his purchase. The UK-based retailers found to be lacking in this area include Amazon UK, HMV and Zavvi.

Teasing an upcoming interview with Hotline Miami co-creator Jonatan Söderström, VG247 offers tidbits on the developer's positions on piracy and making games "just for money." Recently made headlines when he offered support to players who had pirated his game over on Pirate's Bay.

First he talks about why he makes games:

It looks like Foxconn is going to "take one for the team" in the controversy over under-age interns working at its factory in Yantai, China. This is the plant where Nintendo's Wii U is reportedly being put together, so Nintendo is very concerned about any public perceptions that it finds breaking China's labor laws concerning under-age workers acceptable.

Earlier this week we reported that Foxconn - the company that helps build many of the products that are popular in the West from companies like Apple, Sony, Samsung, Microsoft and Nintendo - reported that it found underage interns working in one of its plants in Yantai, China. Today we have learned that that plant is responsible for assembling Nintendo products.

Over the weekend pictures and forum threads started to illustrate that players had somehow gotten their hands on early copies of Halo 4 - which isn't set for release until November 6th. Microsoft was obviously not very pleased with this news and promised that it would conduct an investigation into the early leaks of the game and would do so in conjunction with law enforcement.

Attorney Jack C. Schecter, Partner at law firm Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP, passed along word that 6Waves has decided to settle its lawsuit with Spry Fox. You may remember that earlier in the year Spry Fox filed a lawsuit against the iOS developer claiming that Lolapps (a development studio the company acquired) had violated its copyright when it created a clone of its popular iOS title Triple Town.