Nearly 400 people were convicted of driving while intoxicated in the District since fall 2008 based on inaccurate results from breath test machines, reported the Washington Post, and half of them went to jail. D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said the machines were improperly adjusted by city police. The jailed defendants generally served at least five days, he said. The District has replaced the breath equipment with another brand and has begun to devise stricter standards for testing the accuracy of the machines.
Court Lets City Withhold Data About Surveillance
A panel of federal judges ruled Wednesday that New York City can keep secret about 1,800 pages of records detailing the Police Department's surveillance and tactical strategy in advance of protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention. In reversing a lower court decision, reported the New York Times, the three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sided with the department's position that releasing the documents could compromise future surveillance efforts, including those centered on terrorism suspects.
New Set of Building Codes Based on World Trade Center Recommendations
Small California Town to be 85 Percent Solar Powered
In a town of just 38 people, said the Los Angeles Times, it doesn't take much power to keep the lights on. Which is why many smaller towns, with their vast swaths of land, are turning to renewable energy. There's Rock Port, Mo., a community of about 1,400 people that has all of the roughly 13 million kilowatts it uses a year generated by wind turbines. And 10 turbines will power all the homes and more in Greensburg, Kan., after a tornado demolished 95 percent of the town in 2007. Now, on the edge of the Mojave Desert, the town of Nipton is gleaning most of its electricity from a new 80-kilowatt solar installation from Skyline Solar Inc.
