Free Republic

Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY Voters removed a 3rd District judge who reduced the sentence of a sex offender and also caught the wrath of deer hunters and gun owners for an anti-hunting diatribe from the bench. In Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties, 54 percent of voters Tuesday said Judge Leslie Lewis should not be retained, a rare defeat for a sitting jurist. Lewis, a judge since 1991, was out of town and unavailable for comment, court spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said Wednesday. “I just don’t like the way this one was done,” said Greg Skordas, one of 40 lawyers...

In a rather bizarre ruling that has marine industry officials worried, Judge Robert G. James of the United States District Court, Western Division of Louisiana, has said that it is criminal trespass for the American boating public to boat, fish, or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters in the US. In the case of Normal Parm v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, James ruled that federal law grants exclusive and private control over the waters of the river, outside the main shipping channel, to riparian landowners. The shallows of the navigable waters are no longer open to the public....

Ruling elates schools' leaders Superintendents see new money funding smaller classes and higher teacher salaries, among other things. BY JOSH FUNK AND KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH The Wichita Eagle School officials were thrilled with the Kansas Supreme Court's ruling Friday ordering millions more for education. Officials with several districts said they were optimistic that the Legislature would comply with the court order. So they are already thinking about how this money might help provide smaller class sizes, more all-day kindergarten, better technology and higher teacher salaries. "We're dancing in the streets up here," Newton superintendent John Morton said. "It's just everything...

12:59PM Court blocks Bush changes to Clean Air Act by Tim Rostan CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the Bush administration's planned revisions to the Clean Air Act. Critics have argued that revisions to the legislation, which was passed in 1963 and revised several times since, would undercut air-quality protections by allowing increased pollution. The challenge to the administration's revisions was initiated by state attorneys general.