Free Republic

Maryland is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to act on a petition requiring power plants in five upwind states to reduce pollution, the state’s attorney general and an official in Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration said Wednesday. The Hogan administration says 70 percent of Maryland’s ozone problem originates in upwind states. Maryland petitioned the EPA in November for a finding that 36 power plant units in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are emitting air pollution affecting Maryland in violation of the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor provision.” In January, the EPA issued a six-month extension to...

A neighbor apprehended an 18-year-old man at gunpoint Sunday after police say he attempted to burglarize a Sherwood Drive home. At 10:09 p.m., officers were dispatched to the 2000 block of Sherwood while investigating an earlier burglary complaint on Ivanhoe Drive 13 minutes earlier, according to Officer Cielo Rodriguez’s report. Curtis Stanford, 48, told officers he heard a loud noise come from his neighbor’s home while he was in his bedroom. He said he looked out of the window and saw alleged burglar Darrel Watkins running from the backyard in between his residence and the neighbor’s, Rodriguez wrote. Stanford stated...

A man in midtown Sacramento who once hung a swastika banner in the front window of his Newton Booth home to prevent the next-door neighbors from renting their house was taken into custody for violating a court order this morning. Joe Ongaro, an electrical contractor, was taken into custody after police served a search warrant and arrest warrant this morning about 7:30 a.m. at the man's home near 25th and U streets. "It is related to a court order barring him from harassing his neighbors," said Sacramento Police . . .

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has bought a 940-acre ranch along the Big Hole River. Keith Urbahn, a spokesman for Rumsfeld, said Donald and his wife Joyce Rumsfeld intend to keep the property largely as is. "Mrs. Rumsfeld was born in Montana, she has relatives in the state and the Rumsfelds have always thought very well of the state," he said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. "They plan to spend some time out there to enjoy it." The property in Madison County on Burma Road south of Twin Bridges includes hayfields, wetlands and frontage on the Big...

It's just before 2 p.m. on a Thursday, and there's a line to get into the Blue Moon Tavern. snip As time goes on and Seattle's past is increasingly knocked down or painted over, places like this are looking less seedy and more romantic all the time. It may not have a kitchen and may need something close to sandblasting, but memories live here, in the walls and the echoes. And that should be worth something. The place also features the distinct smell of irony. Selling the Blue Moon was a last-straw decision by longtime owner Gustav Hellthaler, who refused...

Who are the moles? The question was like a parlor game for employees of State Farm Insurance Co. after Hurricane Katrina, one they nervously played during coffee breaks or in the parking lot after work. Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, a prominent lawyer of tobacco litigation fame, created a stir by announcing in March that two "insiders" were helping him build cases against insurers for denying claims for Hurricane Katrina losses. Their identities remained a mystery until the day in early June when Cori and Kerri Rigsby — employees of a company that contracted with State Farm — told a supervisor they...