Free Republic

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

Pat Vaillancourt went on a trip last week that was intended to showcase some of America’s greatest treasures. Instead, the Salisbury resident said she and others on her tour bus witnessed an ugly spectacle that made her embarrassed, angry and heartbroken for her country. Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard. The...

SEATTLE - Thousands of Puget Sound grocery workers voted Thursday to authorize a strike over stalled labor contract talks. The strike authorization was approved by 98 percent of the union members. It allows the union to call a strike and set up picket lines if an agreement is not reached with employers. Some 30,000 workers at Safeway, Fred Meyer, QFC and Albertson's in the Puget Sound region are affected. The vote comes as grocery store workers say they've reached the last straw. Union members are upset the company wants to reduce holiday pay, hold wages at current rates, and force...

Conservationists working on its return are celebrating a milestone after the bee nested for the first time. The bee vanished from the UK in the 1980s, having suffered declines over the previous 60 years as its wildflower-rich grassland habitat was lost, and was officially declared extinct in 2000. A reintroduction project has brought queen bumblebees over from a healthy population in Sweden and after two releases of queens at the RSPB's Dungeness reserve in Kent, offspring worker bees have been recorded at the site for the first time. Nikki Gammans, who leads the project, said: "This is a milestone for...

Comedian Billy Connolly is being treated for the 'initial symptoms' of Parkinson's Disease, it was revealed today. The 70-year-old Glaswegian star, who recently underwent surgery for prostate cancer, will continue to appear on television and the stage with his spokesman assuring fans the diagnosis will not 'affect his ability to work'. 'Billy has been assessed as having the initial symptoms of Parkinson's disease, for which he is receiving the appropriate treatment,' his spokesman said. 'Billy has been assured by experts that the findings will in no way inhibit or affect his ability to work, and he will start filming a...

a friend sent me this and thought it was worth sharing.....

(WXYZ) - It was a shouting match serious enough for a clerk at a Detroit cell phone store to start filming the exchange. The heated argument was regarding a woman’s son, who bought a cell phone more than two weeks ago and wanted a refund. “They came in a week ago, I explained them the situation,” said the store clerk, who wanted his identity hidden. “I showed them everything on the receipt.” The clerk who shot the footage says after trying to explain to the irate mother her son’s date of purchase exceeded the store’s 7-day policy for refunds, the...

NOOKSACK, Wash. — A group of fleeing robbery suspects was ahead of pursuing officers when they decided to paint their getaway car a new color, but they forgot to change the license plate on the vehicle. The Bellingham Herald reports (http://bit.ly/15jkrHv) the alleged driver, 22-year-old Westley C. French, outran the law for five more hours this past weekend. French and his alleged accomplices used those fleeting moments of freedom to give his green Nissan 240 SX a new coat of black spray paint. But they neglected to swap out the car's South Dakota plates when border agents found the car...

SEATTLE -- In an incident that contains all the illegality of regular assault but with 70 percent less saturated fat, a wheelchair-bound man was bludgeoned with a tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! last Wednesday in South Lake Union. According to the Seattle Police Department's report, the victim, who lives in a shelter in the 1800 block of Eastlake Avenue, was confronted by another resident, who accused the victim of having his television turned up too loud. The suspect repeatedly hit the victim over the head with a 16-ounce tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, according...

In a perfect world, every father would think his daughter is beautiful. David Fraser agrees. "Yeah, but she's actually beautiful," he says of his own daughter, 15-year-old Jeana. "I mean, she looks like a cheerleader." Jeana is a cheerleader. A sophomore, she wears her uniform to Countryside High School on game days along with the rest of the squad. Or she did until Friday, when the school decided its own uniform was against the dress code. Several Pinellas County schools are restricting or banning their own cheerleading uniforms during classroom hours amid a broader crackdown on the student dress code....

<p>SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Lawyers signed a deal Friday to drop a discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit against celebrity cook Paula Deen, who was dumped by the Food Network and other business partners after she said under oath that she had used racial slurs in the past.</p>

SPOKANE, Wash. — Police said they arrested one juvenile male in connection with the beating death of an 88-year-old WWII veteran Wednesday. The suspect has been charged with first degree murder and first degree robbery. His name has not yet been released because of his age. The other suspected killer is still on the loose. The Spokane Police Department said in a press release officers responded to reports of an assault and found the victim in his car with serious head injuries on Wednesday evening. He later died in the hospital. Authorities on Thursday released surveillance photos of the two...

ELMA — A partisan dispute briefly eclipsed the fun at the Grays Harbor County Fair on Friday when the director of the fair had to ask Republicans to stop shooting Nerf guns at a poster poking fun at Democrats. Since Wednesday, the Grays Harbor Republicans have had a poster of a donkey up in their booth in the fairgrounds pavilion. The donkey states, “Help me try out Obamacare! I don’t know what’s covered because I haven’t read it yet.” And there’s a bull’s eye with points like a dart board on the donkey’s forehead and the donkey’s rear end. Former...

Graham and Sheryl Anley and their Jack Russell terrier Rosie ran aground off one of South Africa’s most dangerous stretches of ocean, at Cebe on the Transkei coast. They battled waves of up to seven metres and were swept onto a reef. National Sea Rescue Institute North London station commander Georff McGregor said all three were wearing life jackets. The dog Rosie was wearing a specially tailored dog life-jacket with an emergency strobe light. "As the incident happened Graham sent a Mayday radio distress call and activated the EPIRB (Global Positioning Distress beacon) but they were immediately forced to abandon...

The 15-tonne mass of festering food fat mixed with wet wipes and sanitary products threatened to send raw sewage spurting onto the leafy streets of Kingston upon Thames. "We've never seen a single, congealed lump of lard this big clogging our sewers before," said Gordon Hailwood, waste contracts supervisor for Thames Water. "The sewer was almost completely clogged with over 15 tonnes of fat," said Mr Hailwood. "If we hadn’t discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston. "It was so big it damaged the sewer and repairs will take...

SEATTLE - An internal memo at Seattle City Hall is causing quite a stir. It suggests government workers no longer use the terms "citizen," or "brown bag." According to the Office for Civil Rights, the terms are potentially offensive and other words should be used. "Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'" Bronstein wrote. The Office of Civil Rights says Seattle serves all residents, whether they're United States citizens or not. And while city leaders publicize "brown bag" lunch meetings as a way to designate a...

I am watching a documentary on Gettysburg and the point was made that the town was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know there are countless military reasons/theories why 160,000 forces met there. But the point about wrong place... got me to wondering - Do FReepers know of any books on what it must have been like to be a resident of Gettysburg, knowing that all hell was about to decend upon your town? I think, at least, that would make a great fictional story. Darn near like a Hitchcock movie with tons of building tensionHere they...

An Omaha father whose youngest daughter recently had her Hello Kitty bicycle stolen said Thursday that his family has been overwhelmed by offers to help replace the prized possession. “This kind of thing happens in small towns all the time, so it's great to see it happens in our city as well,” Bill Morford said. “Hailey has been holding out hope that she will get her bike back because she worked for it, but we'll talk with her today and see if we can't push her toward allowing the Benson community help.” Morford said his telephone “began blowing up” with...

MAYNARDVILLE (WATE) - A local bar patron is claiming he was discriminated against because of his tattoos. The incident happened Saturday evening at Bubba Brew's on Norris Lake in Maynardville. The restaurant says some of the tattoos were offensive to families dining there. Bubba Brew's is a floating sports pub and grill attached to Beach Island Marina, so there's not much of a dress code. People come off the water to eat and drink in their swimsuits and flip flops. It has the only full bar within a 30 mile radius so it draws quite a crowd. But employees say...