The Northwest pilots on Flight 188 who missed their destination by 150 miles because they were distracted by their laptops brings up the important question of negligence. Who would have been held responsible if the pilots had not landed that plane safely and injured the passengers?
The former Hole lead singer and infamous widow of Kurt Cobain is digging herself deeper in that legal hole we wrote about. Courtney Love has been denied protection with California's Anti-SLAPP law by Judge Aurelio Munoz in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The denial stems from a lawsuit for libel via the social networking tool Twitter. The Los Angeles clothing designer Dawn Simorangkir brought a suit for libel when Ms. Love tweeted about the designer calling her a thief, drug dealer, and an unfit mother.
With social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and gossip sites like Campus Gossip, it is getting easier and easier to ruin a regular person's reputation with just a few keystrokes. While cyber bullying seems pretty harmless to most people, it is actually a serious legal problem.
When you post something online about another person that can ruin his/her reputation, you run the risk of being held liable for digital defamation or libel.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, adults over the age of 65 accounted for 14 percent of all traffic fatalities and 18 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in 2008. It likely comes as no surprise that the same study shows that fatality rates in the over-65 population generally increase with age. So, is there ever a point where an older driver is just too old to be driving? It's certainly a matter of ongoing debate. And the line between "experienced driver" and "too old to drive" may get even fuzzier--in an arguably good way--if newly proposed federal legislation makes its way to the President's desk.
H.R. 3355, known as the Older Driver and Pedestrian Safety and Roadway Enhancement Act, proposes programs and investments aimed at making national roads a safer place for older drivers and those of us who share the road with them. The Act, introduced by Congressman Jason Altmire (PA-4), directs the Secretary of Transportation to carry out a program to improve roadway safety infrastructure in all States to enhance the safety of older drivers and pedestrians. Features include:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest released a new report today on the "Top Ten Riskiest Foods Regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration". The report details ten common foods that account for 40 percent of all food-based illness outbreaks. So, what makes a food risky in the eyes of the CSPI?
More than 1,500 separate outbreaks were associated with the top ten riskiest foods, causing nearly 50,000 reported illnesses. Reported illnesses range from stomach aches to major issues such as kidney failure and death, and included fun stuff like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeriosis and Norovirus. The Top Ten Riskiest Foods:
