Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday the Justice Department "sandbagged" him with the lawsuit it filed earlier in the day against him.

The Justice Department claims in its suit that the controversial Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

"It surprises me because our lawyers have been meeting with the Justice Department officials the last week and we were cooperating," Arpaio told Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "Now all at once, I'm being sandbagged and they're suing me."

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.

Arpaio had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents it first asked for 15 months ago.

Arpaio's office had said it has fully cooperated in the jail inquiry but won't hand over additional documents into the examination of the alleged unconstitutional searches because federal authorities haven't said exactly what they were investigating.

The South Korean government, in an effort to raise money for its military, wants to sell nearly a million antique M1 rifles that were used by U.S. soldiers in the Korean War to gun collectors in America.

The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year. But it reversed course and banned the sale in March – a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates.

A State Department spokesman said the administration's decision was based on concerns that the guns could fall into the wrong hands.

"The transfer of such a large number of weapons -- 87,310 M1 Garands and 770,160 M1 Carbines -- could potentially be exploited by individuals seeking firearms for illicit purposes," the spokesman told FoxNews.com. (And every car sold could potentially be in the hands of a drunk driver. Typical liberal inconsistency - EvW)

"We are working closely with our Korean allies and the U.S. Army in exploring alternative options to dispose of these firearms."

Gun control advocates praised the Obama administration for taking security seriously.

A man known for protesting the Discovery Channel's environmental programming stormed the network's Maryland headquarters carrying a handgun on Wednesday, holding three people hostage for hours until he was shot and killed by police, according to authorities.

He entered the building in Silver Spring around 1 p.m. and appeared to have a bomb strapped to his chest, police said. After hours of negotiations, the Montgomery County Police Department announced just before 5 p.m. that they had set off smoke bombs, allowing sharp-shooters to take the gunman down. All hostages escaped safely. 

Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said an explosive device may have detonated, and the suspect may have brought other devices into the building.

The suspect was identified by Discovery Communications as James Jay Lee of San Diego, Calif., a man well-known to the building's employees because of his history of protesting the network. Maryland police, however, have not yet confirmed the suspect's identity. 

Manger said the gunman had been wearing "what appeared to be metallic canister devices" when he entered the building.  

"The man told everyone to just stay still," Manger said. 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Elementary school playgrounds in one West Virginia county are losing their swing sets.

Swings are being removed from Cabell County schools in southern West Virginia in part because of lawsuits over injuries.

Cabell County schools safety manager Tim Stewart said Wednesday that a lot of parents are accusing him of being un-American, but he says the cost of maintaining a safe surface is too expensive.

Stewart says a lawsuit in the past year involved a youngster who broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman. It was settled for $20,000.

Other equipment such as monkey bars will remain. Stewart says the schools are able to maintain the proper protection underneath them.

Paris Hilton was arrested with .8 grams of cocaine in Las Vegas on Friday evening and charged with felony possession on Monday. 

While the hotel heiress has since claimed that the purse in which the drug was found was not hers, she could face time behind bars if found guilty of felony possession of the controlled substance.

If convicted of a low-grade felony, under Nevada law, Hilton could be punished with a maximum of four years in jail. However, such a sentence is not likely, says a former D.A.

“Although the law in Nevada does tend to be more stringent than in California, in reality it is not likely Paris will receive such a harsh sentence," former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, Robin Sax told Pop Tarts. “Usually 18 months after one conviction, it gets dismissed. It is more likely that, if convicted, Paris will be given probation which could involve substance abuse class and treatment, and a $5000 fine. She may also still get probation with a small amount of jail time, [like] 30 days.”

In 2007, Hilton was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating the terms of a DUI arrest, and about a month ago she was detained and released after being caught in possession of marijuana at Figari airport, Corsica. 

Sax said these incidents combined could give the judge further impetus to doubt her claim that she is not guilty of cocaine possession. However, experts predict that even if the hotel heiress is convicted of a drug felony and imprisoned once again, her “brand” – composed of everything from perfume to party hosting to clothing to shoes – probably won’t be greatly impacted unless she is put away for a lengthy period of time.

A longtime professor at UCLA, told that he would not be rehired because his "research is not aligned with the academic mission" of his department, says he's being fired after 36 years at the prestigious school because his scientific beliefs are "politically incorrect." But UCLA says Dr. James Enstrom's politics have nothing to do with its decision.

Enstrom, an epidemiologist at UCLA's School of Public Health, has a history of running against the grain. In 2003 he wrote a study, published in the British Medical Journal, in which he found no causal relationship between secondhand smoke and tobacco-related death – a conclusion that drew fire both because it was contrary to popular scientific belief and because it was funded by Philip Morris.

Now Enstrom says his studies show no causal link between diesel soot and death in California – findings that once again set him far apart from the pack and put him in direct conflict with the California Air Resources Board, which says its new standards on diesel emissions will save 9,400 lives between 2011 and 2025 and will reduce health care costs by as much as $68 billion in the state.

The expected benefits of the new standards have been used to justify their estimated $5.5 billion price tag, which opponents say will cripple the California trucking industry at a time when the state can least afford it. The new standards, the critics warn, also could set the stage for national regulations.

Enstrom questions the science behind the new emissions standards, and he has raised concerns about the two key reports on which they were based – exposing the author of one study as having faked his credentials and the panel that issued the other study as having violated its term limits.

He says his views are what have gotten him fired, raising serious concerns not only about the diesel regulations but about academic freedom and scientific research as a whole.

NEW YORK –  Former New York Giants Super Bowl star Plaxico Burress has come up short in his bid for work release during his two-year prison sentence in a gun case, a denial that could keep him behind bars until at least next spring, prison officials said Tuesday.

The state Department of Correctional Services said the nature of his November 2008 crime merited turning down his request for a work furlough, which would have let him spend some portion of his time free and working. Burress can appeal the decision but otherwise can't reapply for a work furlough until June 6, 2011, the date he comes up for potential full release if he gets time off for good behavior.

"The serious and negative impact illegal guns have on the community coupled with (the) dangerous nature of the weapon discharging in a public place renders him unsuitable for work release," the agency said.

Burress' lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Tuesday.

For now, the wide receiver remains in protective custody, because of his notoriety, at a prison in the central New York community of Oneida.

The work release request was Burress' second since he started serving his sentence last September. Such requests are rarely successful — less than 2 percent of the nearly 27,000 applications received last year were granted, New York prison system spokeswoman Linda Foglia said.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- Gunmen killed the mayor of a town in the drug-plagued Mexican border state of Tamaulipas on Sunday in a region where suspected cartel hitmen recently massacred 72 migrants, the government said.

Hidalgo Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia was the second mayor to be assassinated in the past two weeks in the area, which has become a battleground between the Gulf and Zetas cartels.

President Felipe Calderon condemned the attack on Leal Garcia, which left the mayor's daughter wounded.

"This cowardly crime, and the reprehensible violent acts that occurred recently in this state, strengthen the commitment of the Mexican government to continue fighting the criminal gangs that seek to intimidate the families of Tamaulipas," Calderon's office said in a statement.

Leal Garcia's rural town, Hidalgo, has about 25,000 inhabitants. It lies southwest of a part of Tamaulipas where a massacre survivor said Zetas gunmen killed 72 Central and South American migrants last week.

Hidalgo is also near the border with Nuevo Leon state, where the mayor of another town, Santiago, was found murdered on Aug. 18. Local police allied with a drug gang are suspected in that killing.

As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.

According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations.

The projected cost of the stimulus, which passed in February 2009, and is expected to have a shelf life of two years, was $862 billion. 

The U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2010 is expected to be $1.3 trillion, according to CBO. That compares to a 2007 deficit of $160.7 billion and a 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion, according to data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. 

In 2007 and 2008, the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

"Relative to the size of the economy, this year's deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years; 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), exceeded only by last year's deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP," CBO wrote.