Coffee art from The Falls restaurant in Henderson cheering on swimmer Lauren Boyle.
Apartment ban goes up in smoke
In Santa Monica, California, city officials were poised to pass strict rules that would have banned smoking in new apartment buildings and required smokers already living in apartments to register with their landlord. But the move failed after people realised it would also affect medical marijuana users. Advocates said the plan would have meant non-smoking residents could "live in their units free of the fear, and the health risk, that a heavy smoker will move in next to them". But a Los Angeles Times editorial said the ban went too far. "It makes sense to prohibit smoking in restaurants, malls and workplaces, where an individual choice creates a collective health problem. But it's an entirely different matter to regulate a person's legal behaviour inside his own home."
Heavy fines for idling buses
A private company that operates school buses in parts of North Carolina has agreed to pay $90,000 in fines and perform $348,000 in environmental projects to settle charges brought by the Environmental Protection Agency. The transgression? Allowing its buses to idle too long outside schools.
