Free Republic

Marlene Stasinos believes the best food is local food. “It’s more healthy. It’s less processed,” she says as she walks from her farm stand toward her home in Haverhill, Mass. “It’s just better for you when you eat it.” Stasinos’ family has been farming in and around Haverhill for three generations, but she says backyard farming is under attack.

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves. The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land. Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.” “Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read,...

State Sen. Ada Smith - the Wild Woman of Albany - was convicted yesterday of throwing coffee at an aide. The Queens Democrat had denied the assault and rejected an offer of a plea deal. She was convicted by Albany City Judge William Carter after a nonjury trial. Smith will not serve jail time, but was required to pay a $250 fine and restitution to be determined by Sept. 29. She was accused of throwing the coffee in the eyes of then-staffer Jennifer Jackson of Albany in March after Jackson made a remark about the senator's attempt to lose weight....