SYDNEY – A SINGAPORE-OWNED energy delivery company is facing a class action suit over allegations that one of its power lines sparked last week’s deadly Australian bush fires which broke out in the Kinglake area of Victoria state.
Residents there are launching legal proceedings against SP AusNet over a fallen power line which is believed to have started the blaze.
A woman crowned Miss California 2008, only to be stripped of her title four days later because of a mistake in tabulating votes, has asked that her case be dismissed.
Christina Silva filed suit last April 10 in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation, false advertising and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Silva, a Latina, also alleged a violation of her civil rights arising from the pageant’s alleged decision that the contestant who should win the crown should not be of her race and ethnicity.
A Thai court sentenced an Australian man to three years in prison for insulting head of state King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his heir in an obscure 2005 book that sold seven copies.
Harry Nicolaides, 41, had a six-year sentence cut in half after he plead guilty to defaming the king and his son, the Criminal Court said in a statement today. The former university lecturer who first started working in Thailand in 2003 has been in jail since his arrest in September, the court said.
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) faces a purported class-action lawsuit initiated by a consumer-advocacy group and other litigants, who say that the beverage giant made deceptive claims about its line of VitaminWater beverages.
The consumer group, called the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said its litigation department is serving as co-counsel in the suit, which was filed Wednesday in California.
“The idea that you can improve your immunity by drinking one of these VitaminWater drinks is nonsense,” David Schardt, a senior nutritionist for the nonprofit group, said during a conference call with reporters.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether a public school violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old student by conducting a strip search of her for ibuprofen.
The school argued in its appeal that the Constitution allowed a strip search of a student suspected of having prescription-strength ibuprofen in violation of its policy that prohibited medications on campus without permission.
School officials in Safford, Arizona, ordered the search in 2003 of Savana Redding, who was in the eighth grade. Following an assistant principal’s orders, a school nurse had Redding remove her clothes, including her bra, and shake her underwear to see if she was hiding ibuprofen, a common painkiller.
