"Each Worth County High School student will receive between $1,000 and $6,000, but students who attorneys say suffered more invasive violations will receive higher amounts. Hobby's attorney, Raleigh Rollins, said the settlement will be paid through the county's insurance policy rather than directly from public funds."
"The problem, of course, is what to do when compliance is not enough."
"Neighborhoods are rotting away as the local economy crumbles giving way to a surge in homicides. Baltimore is on track for the worse year ever with a homicide rate the highest in the United States. Baltimore is home to about 615,000 people, but the city has more homicides than New York or Los Angeles, both of which have far larger populations. Earlier this year, Mayor Catherine Pugh called in the Federal Government in hopes to restore order. She was even quoted, 'violence in the city is out of control'…"
"There is no particular need –aside from red meat for the anti-immigrant base — to expel these law-abiding people who have made their home here for as long as seven years. Florida’s unemployment rate of 4.1 percent does not suggest that they have displaced U.S.-born workers. And the notion that these people can return to Haiti to enjoy a decent life is belied by the facts on the ground there. The lack of humanity is evident in the administration’s anti-family action. The hardship on those Haitians is immense, while the 'benefit' to the United States is nonexistent."
"A recent California law is requiring that trade schools like Bob’s deny admission to any student who has not completed high school or a state-approved equivalent. He is joined in the suit by Esteban Narez, a ranch hand who wants to learn how to shoe horses at PCHS, but cannot be admitted because he never graduated high school."
"Hermine and Tom had used their front-yard garden to grow vegetables and other plants for 17 years. Miami Shores told Hermine and Tom to destroy their garden or face fines of $50 per day. Unable to bear the cost of the fines, they dug up their garden. In today’s decision, the court upheld the vegetable ban, concluding that it is rational for government to ban 'the cultivation of plants to be eaten as part of a meal, as opposed to the cultivation of plants for ornamental reasons.'"
"Unclaimed property is one of the fastest growing sources for state revenue, and many believe that most unclaimed property is not reported. The lucrative silence surrounding unclaimed property has shifted from business entities, prior to the enactment of unclaimed property laws, to the current lucrative silence that allows unclaimed property to become a vital source of revenue for state governments."
"Police made mass arrests that swept up journalists, onlookers and even a black undercover officer, who was reportedly beaten. This also seems like one of those 'How would we view this if it happened in another country?' moments. A judge just found the police guilty of using chemical agents on protesters because those protesters were criticizing the police."
"The employer mandate is lucrative for the government. It is expected to bring in penalty payments of $207 billion over the next decade, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office. Businesses will generally incur fines of around $2,000 per employee (excluding the first 30) if they do not offer qualifying coverage to nearly all of those who work an average of 30 or more hours a week. The penalty is activated if at least one employee then buys insurance on the health law’s marketplace and receives a subsidy for it. The per-employee fine increases each year, and can add up quickly: A company with 100 workers that ignored the law this year would owe a penalty of more than $158,000."
"Under the 1986 law, email that has been stored for 180 or more days is considered to be ‘abandoned’ and can be perused by federal authorities sans a warrant. But in an era of cloud computing and services like Dropbox, most Americans certainly would beg to differ that any emails stored online had been abandoned."