Graduate Transfer Rule is Reshaping College Football

Without exception, players who earn a degree, yet have playing eligibility remaining are allowed to transfer to a different school and play immediately. Normally, transfer students must sit out a year before being permitted to play for a different school. The remaining eligibility could come from being red-shirted (usually as a freshman), requiring the player to sit and practice for a season before being permitted to play in regular season games. Other causes for remaining eligibility could stem from medical/injury reasons, as well as by taking summer classes and graduating early.


USDA Approves Second-Generation Genetically-Engineered Potato

Simplot is hoping that the FDA will approve the blight-resistant potatoes by early 2017, enough time for crops to be ready for consumers by the fall of that year. Since hitting the market, Simplot has sold about 400 acres worth of the first-generation potatoes to supermarkets in 10 Midwestern states.


Appeals Court Rules Supreme Court Plaza off-Limits for Demonstrations

The appeals ruling involved the civil rights of protestor Harold Hodge of Southern Maryland. In January 2011 after ignoring three warnings by Supreme Court police, Hodge was arrested while wearing a sign inside of the plaza near the front of the Court’s entrance that read, “The U.S. Gov. Allows Police to Illegally Murder and Brutalize African Americans and Hispanic People.”


Hello Denali!

Needless to say, several Ohio lawmakers are really bent out of shape by the name change. House Speaker John Boehner said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, and Republican U.S. Representative Bob Gibbs said, “This political stunt is insulting to all Ohioans, and I will be working with the House Committee on Natural Resources to determine what can be done to prevent this action.”


9th Circuit to Debate California’s Death Penalty

The hearing also comes as California begins resuming executions this fall, introducing a new single-drug lethal injection procedure. The state had issued a defacto suspension of executions since 2006, joining many states’ concerns over the effectiveness and pain level of the established injection substances. It also comes just weeks after Connecticut’s Supreme Court commuted all of its condemned prisoners’ death sentences to life without parole. Voters in that state abolished the death penalty in 2012; however the law that was adopted only abolished it for future crimes, not for those already sentenced.



The Living Legacy of Katrina

The disaster was born that week ten years ago, but it is very much alive, affecting people’s lives every day moving forward. CNN conducted a poll that showed, while the memories have faded a little, the lessons of Katrina remain on the forefront. 51 percent of respondents believe that the U.S. is no better prepared for a disaster like Katrina in the future. This is up from 48 percent who were asked that question in 2006. While that may seem a surprising number, yet not a very significant difference, it bears remembering JUST HOW BAD THE 2005 RESPONSE WAS.


NLRB Rules in Favor of Increased Bargaining power for Subcontractors, Temporary Workers

IFA president Steve Caldeira released a statement following the ruling, saying “The Board’s tortured analysis will undoubtedly be met with skepticism and will be rejected by local franchise owners, legislators and, ultimately, the courts. IFA and its allies are asking Congress to intervene to halt these out-of-control, unelected Washington bureaucrats to preserve the established joint employer standard.”


Marcy Borders, 9/11 ‘Dust Lady,’ Dies of Cancer at 42

Borders’s death is a stark reminder that many of those who endured the 9/11 tragedy are suffering from long-term health problems. Borders was asked if she thought that the debris from the terror attack, which contained glass and other carcinogenic dust, among other dangerous particles led to her cancer. She responded, “I’m saying to myself, ‘Did this thing ignite cancer cells in me?’ I definitely believe it because I haven’t had any illnesses. I don’t have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes.”


Appeals Court Strikes Down New Jersey’s Sports Betting Law…Again

Governor Chris Christie, along with state politicians and residents, has been hoping to revive the industry through sports wagering. Judge Rendell acknowledged the local sentiment, writing in the majority opinion, “While PASPA’s provisions and its reach are controversial and, some might say, unwise, we are not asked to judge the wisdom of PASPA and it is not our place to usurp Congress’ role simply because PASPA may have become an unpopular law.”