Posts

Holiday travel can be a headache – especially if you’re traveling by air. But if an airline loses your luggage or leaves you trapped on the tarmac for hours, how does the Passenger Bill of Rights come into play? The answer may fly in the face of air travelers’ expectations. While the Passenger Bill of Rights punishes airlines for behaving badly, it doesn’t give passengers a ticket to sue. In fact, it doesn’t give passengers any new powers at all....

Joseph Edwards is one lucky man, and not because the 4th Circuit has agreed to suppress evidence related to his drug conviction. During a 2009 arrest, Baltimore police cut a plastic baggie full of drugs off of Edwards’ penis. Outside. With a knife. In the dark. Without a flashlight. He wasn’t hurt, but the court determined that a knife to the groin posed a “significant and unnecessary risk of injury.” The search was thus ruled unreasonable under the 4th Amendment....

An alleged school shooting scam artist has been arrested for trying to profit off the Sandy Hook massacre via a Facebook page. Nouel Alba, 37, of New York City, is accused of posing as a relative of school shooting victim Noah Pozner so that she could collect money from well-wishers, reports CNN. Alba allegedly used her Facebook account to solicit money from those wanting to donate to the victim’s family. Alba apparently claimed that the money she received was to be used for a “funeral fund....

It appears a settlement has been reached in the suit between a Watertown, South Dakota, woman and GlaxoSmithKline, makers of the drug Paxil. The plaintiff, Jennifer Berg, sued the pharmaceutical company after she claimed her use of Paxil during pregnancy was the cause of a heart defect that killed her infant son. The Associated Press reports that letters from Berg’s attorneys to the judge presiding over the case indicate a settlement has been reached....

Since last year, Sofia Vergara has been facing a rather difficult battle over the custody of two embryos that she and her ex, Nick Loeb, had created while undergoing IVF. Although the couple’s agreement states that the embryos cannot be used without both parties’ consent, Loeb is fighting in court to win the right to implant the embryos in a surrogate. Vergara has opposed Loeb, and has refused to allow him to use the embryos....

Car thefts are down for the eighth straight year nationwide, new FBI figures show. But that’s not true for all cities, with one state in particular seeing more than its fair share of vehicle thefts. Car-crazy California has the dubious distinction of having seven of the nation’s Top 10 metropolitan areas with the highest rates of vehicle theft, according to a new report by the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Some cities that made the NICB’s annual list of Top 10 “Hot Spots” for car theft may surprise you....

U.S. safety regulators have announced the recall of more than 2.1 million vehicles made by Toyota, Chrysler, and Honda for a defect that may cause the vehicle’s air bags to deploy in the absence of an accident. The recall was announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Saturday, Reuters reports. The new air bag recall is unrelated to the massive ongoing Takata air bags recall. However, according to NHTSA, about 1 million of the vehicles included in the new recall are also affected by the Takata air bag recalls, which may make getting the required repairs even more urgent....

Despite two different federal appeals courts upholding the ban on the travel ban, the U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly reversed both rulings. However, even with their reversal, SCOTUS still limited the reach of the executive order issued by President Trump. Primarily, the Court found that the ban could not be applied to individuals seeking entry who have sufficient, and legitimate, ties to the United States. The Court did find that in the absence of a prospective foreign visitor’s ties to the U....

Though the public has been privy to hundreds of documents in the Trayvon Martin murder case, both state prosecutors and George Zimmerman’s attorney would like for that to stop. Assistant State Attorney Bernardo de la Rionda and Mark O’Mara have filed motions requesting that the judge limit the public release of certain subsets of Trayvon evidence. Prosecutors want to withhold the names of witnesses, photos of Trayvon’s body and a few recorded statements....

On January 24, the UK newspaper News Of The World published a story about celebrity couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (a.k.a. Brangelina). The story claimed the couple had agreed to separate. It even went so far as to say they’d consulted a lawyer who helped them reach a settlement on the division of joint assets and custody of their six children. “The News of the World failed to meet our clients’ reasonable demands for a retraction of and apology for these false and intrusive allegations which have now been widely republished by mainstream news outlets....

Shakespeare was wrong. A rose by any other name might still smell as sweet, unless that name is pink slime. Then, there’s a good chance consumers would never know what it smells like because no one smells pink slime. Do you remember the news reports about “pink slime” that made the local news circuit back in 2012? How could anyone forget right? Finding out that over half the nation’s ground beef contained pink slime was eye opening....

Grammy-winning country singer Lynn Anderson was arrested Friday in Nashville and charged with DUI following an early morning crash. Police say that Anderson, who won a Grammy in 1970 for the song “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden,” admitted to drinking alcohol and taking prescription medication before the crash, reports Nashville’s WSMV-TV. Unfortunately for Anderson, this isn’t her first time facing DUI charges. Anderson may be facing stiff punishment if convicted of driving under the influence due to her previous arrests for DUI....

Lisa Osbourne, the estranged wife of Jack Osbourne, has opted for the lump-sum instead of smaller monthly payments. No, she didn’t win the lottery, she settled her divorce. Lisa and Jack Osbourne settled their divorce, according to papers filed in a Los Angeles Country Superior Court, on August 15, about four months after Lisa filed papers. Jack will not be paying any spousal support, but instead gave Lisa a “sizeable” upfront cash payout....

McDonald’s has issued a recall for more than two million Hello Kitty toys included in the company’s Happy Meals. The plastic Hello Kitty Birthday Lollipop toy may pose a choking risk for children. The whistle inside the toy can be removed and used to make sounds by inhaling and exhaling, reports CNN. At least two children have sucked the whistles into their mouths, with one requiring medical treatment. What are the details of this latest toy recall?...

These days, Mel Gibson is juggling a few legal issues at once. On November 10 he was in a Los Angles court for what news reports say is his first courtroom appearance in the on-going custody battle over his one-year-old daughter Lucia with ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Gibson and Grigorieva currently share custody of their daughter with an every other day exchange and one overnight visit per week for Gibson, reports People....

It’s hard to keep track of all the Cosby cases lately. But there is one matter less, reports the New York Daily News, as a model who sued comedian Bill Cosby for an alleged assault at the Playboy Mansion in 2008 has moved to dismiss her suit without prejudice. The filing by Chloe Goins in a Los Angeles federal court was short and did not elaborate on the model’s reasons for dropping her claim, but it did reserve the right to file again....

Police have charged a New Jersey mom, a first-grade teacher, with endangering the welfare of a child after a 15-year-old attending a drinking party at her home had to be hospitalized. Tracey Harding, 50, of South Brunswick, was allegedly aware of the boy’s condition, but told the teen’s mother he was sleeping when the mother called looking for her son, The Associated Press reports. In some cases, it’s parents acknowledging that their kids will drink anyway and trying to provide a safe environment and keep an eye on them....

A new Tylenol warning will be placed on pill bottles, cautioning consumers in bright red letters that the product “CONTAINS ACETAMINOPHEN. ALWAYS READ THE LABEL.” Tylenol’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, hopes the new warning on bottle caps will raise awareness and help reduce the number of accidental acetaminophen overdoses that occur every year, reports CNN. The new warnings are set to show up on bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol in October....

Philadelphia legislatures have tighten the screw caps a bit more on those naughty soda drinkers. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the Philadelphia Beverage Tax (PBT), which adds a 1.5 cent per fluid ounce tax, paid by beverage distributors, on “sugar sweetened beverages.” Is This a Double Tax? The city successfully defended the ordinance based on the Sterling Act, a Depression-era law that enables cities with populations over 1 million to enact certain taxes in order to pad city coffers....

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the federal government may be required to pay damages when it releases water from a dam that causes temporary flooding for a property owner downstream. The 8-0 ruling carries potential significance for future cases involving temporary seizure (or" taking") of property. The case looked at the politically charged issue of when government activity that affects private property constitutes a “taking” that requires payment to a landowner....