James Kent knew that there was something wrong with his computer. He had only recently acquired the computer — not through a purchase of his own, but through his employer. Kent taught public administration at a college in upstate New York and the computer had been installed in his office as a replacement for an older one. When the IT department had put the new one in they simply moved Professor Kent’s files onto the new computer’s hard drive.
How better to get settlers to move into uncharted and untamed lands than to promise them the sustainability and wealth that comes from the ownership of land? Give them the land for free on the promise that they will go and settle that land, turning it from wilderness to useable farmland, timberland or pasture. The policy worked for America, it worked for the Spanish in Florida and it worked for Mexico in parts of what is now the American Southwest.
The 1996 Summer Olympics were about half over on July 27. Spectators, athletes and reporters were enjoying a night out and reviewing the days’ events, congregating on the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park and listening to a free concert there. Sometime after midnight, a security guard noticed a suspicious bag and began to move people away from the area. The bomb squad was alerted. At 1:20 a.m., the largest pipe bomb in U.S. history exploded, showering the area with shrapnel. One woman was killed by the blast and a cameraman rushing to cover the explosion died of a heart attack. One hundred and eleven people were injured.
March Madness is unde rway. Baseball season begins in two weeks. Clearly, it must be time for a column about the law of … football? Indeed, football is the sport making legal news right now both for the penalties it has just imposed on teams for violations of a non-existent salary cap in 2010 and, even more so, for the penalties that it is about to impose on teams for running a “bounty” system. The latter is more critical, and, though law enforcement officials in cities like New Orleans, Buffalo and Washington have already declined to become involved, it is the latter that also likely crossed the line into being criminal.
A front-page story in last week’s Delaware Gazette noted the adoption of a contract for “respite” services for juveniles. The story incorrectly reported that the contract was for $110,000 rather than its actual value of just $10,000 (the Gazette kindly printed a correction the following day) and the article didn’t have the space to go into the reasons behind the use of respite care and the source of the funding used to provide it.
There are a handful of landmark Supreme Court cases that Americans can cite by name. Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona and Bush v. Gore are among the cases whose names are as well known as their rulings. There are other cases whose holdings are well known even though their names are not.
It ain’t easy being St. Nick. To begin with, Santa has all the problems he’s always had. He has to manage a team of flying reindeer. He has to feed, clothe and employ an untold number of elves. He has to make toys for children all around the world, while also keeping track of whether they have behaved themselves or not, despite the fact that it’s not clear exactly how the naughty or nice scale operates. Then, on top of all of that, he has only 24 hours to deliver every single one of those presents across a planet nearly 25,000 miles around.
Cincinnati was abuzz this week heading into the annual matchup between the city’s major collegiate basketball programs, Cincinnati and Xavier. Coming into the game, Xavier was ranked as the 8th best team in the nation and so it wasn’t surprising that as the final seconds ticked off the clock, Xavier was winning by a comfortable margin.
