Free Republic

A lawsuit is expected to be filed in California today over the amount of arsenic in some of the best-selling wines in the country. CBS News reports laboratory testing by Denver's BeverageGrades found some wines have as much as time times the maximum level of arsenic the Environmental Protection Agency allows for drinking water. The EPA doesn't regulate wine as it does water, and there are no federal labeling requirements to disclose what's in wine.

MIAMI (Reuters) - As courts across the United States struggle to determine the legality of red-light cameras, drivers are slipping through a patchwork of often conflicting laws to avoid millions in fines. Two south Florida judges dismissed 24,000 red-light tickets worth an estimated $6.3 million earlier this week over concerns Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions Inc (ATS), which provides the cameras, was too involved in the outcome of cases. By Florida law "the police have certain powers they cannot delegate to private vendors," said Ted Hollander, who represented the Florida drivers. "What we found in testimony is that (the company) had...

I'm not one for boycotts, but I am one for data. And I like this kind of data. It's just good to have data when spending money. That's all. I mean, if I have no choice in keeping a SIGNIFICANTLY large portion of my money from being squandered by the folks that I've freaking employed up on the Hill (like drunk girls on Spring break with their Daddy's credit cards), I'm going to be as informed as possible with what's left of said money. Thus, the data thing. You know. According to the source article above and the New York...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- Hauling a truckload of logs to a Southern Oregon mill last fall, Chris Hill noticed a sheriff's deputy behind him and flashed his lights to warn a UPS driver coming the other way. The deputy pulled over Hill on U.S. Highway 140 in White City and handed him a $260 ticket for improperly using his headlights, saying another deputy had seen the flashing lights from behind the UPS truck and alerted him to stop the log truck because of the signaling. Outraged, Hill decided to fight the ticket, and on Wednesday, a Jackson County Justice...

Scott Renfroe's proposal has bipartisan support. Red light cameras and photo radar vans are hot button issues in Colorado. Police say they make intersections and roadways safer, but many motorists insist that the cameras and radar vans are used mainly to generate revenue. Today, Republican Senator Scott Refroe, of Greeley, introduced a bill to ban red light cameras and photo radar vans in Colorado. It’s his second attempt. The first one in 2012 went nowhere. This time, he has the backing of several prominent Democratic lawmakers ... Refroe’s bill will be heard next week in the Senate State, Veterans and...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Rev. Jesse Jackson plans to lead a delegation to the Hewlett Packard annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday to bring attention to Silicon Valley’s poor record of including blacks and Latinos in hiring, board appointments and startup funding. Jackson’s strategy borrows from the traditional civil rights era playbook of shaming companies to prod them into transformation. Now he is bringing it to the age of social media and a booming tech industry known for its disruptive innovation.

One man endured a night in jail and a criminal case hanging over his head for year, only to have prosecutors say they don’t think he was even guilty of a crime... A voluntary breath test showed he hadn't had too much to drink. He blew a 0.00 on the breath test. "I told them I would take a blood sample as well, just to prove that I didn't have anything in my system," Davis said. That test looked for seven types of drugs in his system, and Davis tested negative for all of them.

LOS ANGELES — In a city of seemingly endless highways — with its daily parade of car accidents, frustrating traffic jams and aggressive drivers — the Los Angeles Police Department these days is training its sights on a different road menace: jaywalkers. It is not quite “Dragnet,” but the Police Department in recent weeks has issued dozens of tickets to workers, shoppers and tourists for illegally crossing the street in downtown Los Angeles. And the crackdown is raising questions about whether the authorities are taking sides with the long-dominant automobile here at the very time when a pedestrian culture is...

A former New Jersey Transit police officer who retired on disability after stapling his own hand is the subject of renewed scrutiny after a video emerged, showing him repeatedly firing a sniper rifle at a gun range. In Christopher Onesti’s 2008 application for a disability pension, doctors said he was “permanently and totally disabled” because he would have trouble operating his service weapon and performing other police duties. His injuries stem from a firearms certification class two years earlier, where Onesti accidentally fired a staple into his non-shooting hand while preparing to attach a paper target to some cardboard. The...

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday agreed to pay nearly $6 million to a group of police officers who accused their superiors of imposing a secret traffic ticket quota system on the Westside. The settlement, approved unanimously, brings to more than $10 million the amount of taxpayer money spent on payouts and legal fees from the ticket quota cases. But that number could grow because one more officer's case is still pending. The ticket controversy has been a black eye for the Los Angeles Police Department. Ticket quotas are against state law. After the officers’ allegations were made public,...

A Texas jury was recently lambasted in open court for committing jury nullification by visiting judge Jerry Ray because they acquitted a defendant in a driving while intoxicated (DWI) case. Judge Ray went so far as to equate the jury’s verdict with the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. Unfortunately, like many judges, Judge Ray did not understand what jury nullification is, what juries do, or his own obligations as a judge. Jury nullification occurs when a criminal jury votes not guilty, in spite of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt, because they believe the law is either unjust or is being...

One of the oldest rules in psychology and economics is that if you reward a behavior, you can expect to see it more often. In America, we reward victimhood. That makes us feel good about ourselves and in some cases, it helps improve the lives of the people who've been victimized, but there's a dark side to it as well. It creates perverse incentives for people, it helps legitimize a victimhood mentality, and it also encourages people to fake hate crimes. Under normal circumstances, that would seldom happen. However, in a society where we celebrate victimhood and savagely attack people...

I was perusing through the news and saw many articles on the horrific destruction the storm in the Philippines had wrought. As I reading through the stories at Google, yahoo News, the term 'Climate Negotiator' kept on appearing in article after article. Well, I had no idea what a Climate Negotiator is, does. I mean, trying to negotiate with the climate seems a sissyphean task if not the most mentally stable thing to attempt. I tried searching Google, Yahoo for some precise meaning, job description for a Climate Negotiator but information was far and few between. It seems it is...

A pilot program in which surveillance cameras were installed near traffic signals in Rochester to catch motorists running red lights has been upheld by a judge who rejected the constitutional challenges of an attorney whose vehicle was among those caught on camera. The law, V&T §111-b, allowed the city of Rochester to install up to 50 cameras at intersections and authorized a civil fine of $50. Under the law, the owner, whether or not he or she was driving the vehicle, is liable for the fine but can sue the actual driver for indemnification. The statute makes clear that a...

I admit it, I drove in the car pool lane as a single driver. I got in a hurry and started playing that game of seeing what I could get away with. I drove from the Veteran's Hospital in Santa Rosa, toward San Rafael, past acres of vineyards, past sleep cows, past car lots full of vehicles and tried to save some time. All was well until some other driver peered out of her SUV to see me whizzing past, then and decided to join me in the express lane. That single driver was soon followed by another in one...

Anger is boiling over at the chairman of the Barilla pasta company after he vowed to only feature heterosexual couples in commercials — and added that anyone offended by his anti-gay stance could buy a different brand of noodles. Guido Barilla told Italian radio on Wednesday that he would never use a gay family to promote the world’s leading brand of pasta, according to The Guardian. “For us the concept of the sacred family remains one of the basic values of the company,” Barilla said. ”I would not do it but not out of a lack of respect for homosexuals...

BERKELEY, CA -- A truck driver was beaten within an inch of his life by California Highway Patrol for not signing a traffic ticket that he could not read. The driver, who broke no laws, was beaten so badly that he woke up in a trauma hospital. Olegs Kozacenko, a local resident originally from Russia, was pulled over and cited by police for allegedly driving too many hours in one day. Kozacenko refused to sign the ticket because he had not or could not read it. CHP Officers didn't take kindly to the driver's refusal to sign. Two officers, one...

Hospitals across the nation are being swept up in the biggest wave of mergers since the 1990s, a development that is creating giant hospital systems that could one day dominate American health care and drive up costs. The consolidations are being driven by a confluence of powerful forces, not least of which is President Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. That law, many experts say, is transforming the economics of health care and pushing a growing number of hospitals into the arms of suitors. The changes are unfolding with remarkable speed. Two big for-profit hospital chains, Community...

Daylight checkpoints

(NNPA)—Do you feel George Zimmerman is “a racist?” Make a fashion statement to let the world know how you feel. The issue of “race in America” was clearly illustrated in the attention African-Americans paid to the Zimmerman trial. Nowadays, Black Americans are no longer asking, rather, they’re demanding “Justice for Trayvon Martin.” If Zimmerman thought he’d live out his days as a happy camper, he’s sadly mistaken. The “Justice for Trayvon Martin” campaign has morphed into an enterprise that’s not going anywhere, anytime soon, especially if Parks & Crump, attorneys at law, have any say in the matter. Parks &...