BAKERSFIELD, CA–A law proposed in California could deliver some poetic justice to individuals wronged by the drug war. SB 1193 could be on the floor for debate in just a few days. If passed, police would be required to return or reimburse pot taken from medical marijuana users whose charges have been dropped. The law…
Law enforcement personnel in Will County, Chicago appear to have found a creative way to issue tickets: catch people admitting to infractions on Facebook. A local woman discovered as much after she posted to a Facebook page dedicated to Will County’s Whalon Lake Dog Park. The woman, who did not have a license to use…
Female students at a high school in Utah want to know why their yearbook photos were altered without their knowledge to show less skin, KSTU reports. “We only apologize in the sense that we want to be more consistent with what we’re trying to do,” says Superintendent Terry E. Shoemaker.
Nine years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’s Recovery School District – created in 2003 to take over the administration of Louisiana’s lowest-performing schools – is undertaking groundbreaking educational reform. This week, it permanently closed down its five board-run public schools: from now on, all of its facilities will be charter schools. Charter schools are publicly…
VANCOUVER, WA–Parents of two third graders at Mill Plain Elementary school were irate after discovering the teacher’s bathroom policy. Children at the school can earn play money for good behavior, and can then use it to buy small toys, pizza, and popcorn. The unnamed third grade teacher was also charging the children $50 to use…
WICHITA COUNTY, TX– Another casualty in the senseless drug war has been reported in Texas. Nicole Guerrero was arrested on a drug possession charge back in 2012, and alleges in a federal lawsuit that she was forced to give birth in solitary confinement while her cries for help were repeatedly ignored. Guerrero was about 8½…
When the impersonal force of government runs up against long-held personal values, the latter power prevails. As part of a nationwide campaign to encourage cremation, China’s government has begun demolishing tombs. To those who stand atop China’s millennia-old traditions, this policy constitutes a sacrilegious show of disrespect. AFP News reports that six elderly Chinese people…
KEY WEST, FL–Charles Eimers, 61, retired to Florida last year to gain some peace and relaxation after 20 years as an autoworker. But shortly after moving from Michigan, Eimers died following a run in with police, and his family is adamant that there is a coverup. “He was murdered by those officers,” his son Treavor…
BRONX, NY–Javier Payne, 14, was with a friend last week when they asked a 49-year-old man for cigarettes. The two grew irritated when they were denied with one punching the man in the head, while the other hit him with a backpack. They ran off, but the older man flagged down a patrol car and…
One of the oldest distilleries in the country is warning of what some observers are calling a “whiskey apocalypse.” “Despite the increase in distillation over the past few years,” says Buffalo Trace, “bourbon demand still outpaces supply.” The apocalypse is looming, explains Esquire, because whiskey has become trendy overnight. “Ten years ago everybody drank vodka,…