Eco-friendly entrepreneur fights to sell biodegradable boat wrap in Minnesota
Every spring in Jamestown, Rhode Island, boat owners tear off the plastic coverings that sheltered their vessels through the winter and toss them into dumpsters. Within weeks, the boats are back on the water. The plastic heads to a landfill, where it will sit for centuries. Simon Milne, an entrepreneur and sailor himself, watched the waste pile ...
Maryland audiologist fights Medicare’s ban on private-pay care
Medicare pays Dr. Alicia Spoor $29.21 for an hourlong comprehensive hearing evaluation. Keeping her Maryland audiology practice running costs about $235 an hour—and that's just to break even. Dr. Spoor is an audiologist, a doctoral-level clinician who diagnoses and treats disorders of hearing and balance. At Designer Audiology, her independent ...
PLF heads back to SCOTUS to challenge racial discrimination in public school admissions
Pacific Legal Foundation is heading back to the Supreme Court next year with our case, The Association for Education Fairness (AFEF) v. Montgomery County Public Schools. Montgomery County, Maryland, is one of the largest school districts in the country. Four decades ago, MCPS launched a magnet program designed for gifted middle school students, ...
Good enough for Google, but not for college? One student’s fight against discriminatory admissions
What does it take to earn a place at one of America's top universities? On paper, Bay Area high school student Stanley Zhong seemed like a textbook shoo-in for admission to any of the schools on his short list. But as Stanley and his family would soon discover, being qualified for admission and getting admitted into college are not necessarily the ...
The Dispatch : The American Bar Association’s Discriminatory Diversity Push Is Ending—For Now
For more than seven decades, the American Bar Association has been recognized as an authority to accredit law schools. The Department of Education recently recommended revoking that authority, and an independent advisory board will be meeting to discuss the recommendation on September 23. The department's report mostly emphasizes other legal concer ...
Washington Examiner : Women’s birth freedom shouldn’t require a judge’s order
For one Nebraska mother, birth freedom came just in time. After a court granted a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit brought by Pacific Legal Foundation, Nebraska mother Hope Lindstrom was able to give birth at home with the assistance of a certified nurse-midwife on April 26 — the first CNM-assisted home birth in Nebraska history. Th ...
The Center Square : Looking to increase your state’s employment? Reduce regulation
When governors want more jobs, they usually reach for tax credits, development grants, or subsidies for a favored factory. Yet every state already controls a broader and more durable economic-policy lever: its own administrative code. Our new research suggests that cutting state regulatory restrictions by 25 percent is associated with 4.4 percen ...
A Supreme Court preview : PLF cases at the long conference
The Supreme Court formally begins its new fall term with oral arguments on October 5. It will hold its "long conference" the week prior to consider the petitions submitted during its summer recess. This year, the Justices will consider three PLF petitions challenging warrantless surveillance and compelled speech. A lobsterman's fight for his Fourt ...
American Heroes : Lindsay Hoopes fights to save her family’s Napa winery
Lindsay Hoopes never planned to run her family's Napa winery. But when her father became seriously ill, she came home to carry on what he had built. Now she's fighting to save it. In this episode of American Heroes, Lindsay sits down with Kathy Hoekstra to tell the story herself: How a dispute with Napa County over wine tastings and other win ...