All posts by admin

Police: E-cigarette malfunction causes personal injury crash

January 6, 2016 admin

Tabnie Dozier, @WHAS11Tabnie10:41 p.m. EST January 5, 2016

JACKSON COUNTY, Ind. (WHAS11) – It took just under three hours’ worth of clean-up to remove a semi that crashed on I-65 North in Indiana near the Jackson-Scott County line.

Indiana State troopers say the cause is an e-cigarette the driver was using that exploded in his face. No one else was hurt.

“The truck went onto the shoulder then ultimately struck a guardrail before coming to a stop,” Sgt. Stephen Wheeles said.

Wheeles says the driver, Christian Starasinich was hurt which he calls the crash a rare one.

“His injuries are primarily from the device exploding in his hand and not from the crash itself. I personally have not heard of an instance like this where someone was injured by one and it possibly caused a crash,” he said.

Troy Leblanc, owns the 5 Kentuckiana Derb-e-cigs locations and also represents the Kentucky Smoke Free Association.

“When you hear something like that you hop that the driver is not severely hurt as well as other motorists, that’s a large truck,” Leblanc said. He says e-cig users and people in general should not be alarmed after this uncommon crash.

“It’s extremely, extremely rare. We don’t see it very often, don’t here it very often,” he said.

These devices Leblanc explains are highly popular with more than 9 million Americans using them regularly.

“I urge them to come in the advice is free and we’d be more than happy to help anyone out,” he said.

Here in Kentuckiana, sales are soaring, especially in the past two years.

“We’ve sold over five million dollars in product in our store alone of out of the 30 plus stores in the city,” Leblanc adds.

The circumstances from this crash are still unknown and Leblanc says that can make all the difference as he wonders what type of device was the driver using and how old it was, was he charging it correctly, maintenance there are so many unanswered questions.

But what can be said from both police and e-cig experts, is this crash could have had a much more devastating ending.

Read Full Article – http://www.whas11.com/story/news/traffic/accident-construction/2016/01/05/e-cig-explosion-blamed–65-semi-accident/78314388/

Blog, Divorce, Family, Legal News

Ryan Phillippe Has Found His Soulmate in Law Student Paulina Slagter: They’re ‘Madly in Love,’ Says Friend

January 5, 2016 admin

BY LINDA MARX

@LindaRoz

UPDATED 01/04/2016 AT 08:35 AM EST

•ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 01/03/2016 AT 05:35 PM EST

Over the moon about his engagement to law student Paulina Slagter, actorRyan Phillippe, 40, spent a whirlwind New Year’s weekend at eco-friendly One Hotel & Homes South Beach celebrating with his new fiancéée.

“Ryan and Paulina are very much in love,” a close friend of the actor’s tells PEOPLE. “She is changing him. He is a better man.”

One of the things Phillippe loves the most about Slagter, 24, is her mind, says the source, who spent the weekend with the couple. He is mesmerized by her intelligence and desire to make life better for everyone around her.

“Ryan feels Paulina is very intelligent and has opened his mind to equality and civil rights, areas he has never really focused on that intently,” the source adds.

“Being a student at Stanford law is impressive to him, and he is very proud of her. He feels that she has the ability to change the world and make it a better place.”

Another thing that made Phillippe want to marry Slagter was her affection for the children he shares with ex-wife Reese Witherspoon, Ava, 16, and Deacon, 12, as well as his daughter Kai, 4, with Alexis Knapp, a former girlfriend. “Paulina loves Ryan’s children, and they love her,” says the source.

Adds the source: “Ryan is madly in love and wants to spend the rest of his life with Paulina.

“And the feeling is mutual. They had eyes only for each other during the South Beach weekend. They are a wonderful couple.”

Read Full Article – http://www.people.com/article/ryan-phillippe-has-found-soulmate-law-student-paulina-slagter

Blog, Criminal, Immigration, International, Legal News, Organized Crime

How a 16-year-old white boy rose to become a Chinese mafia boss

January 3, 2016 admin

Asian man gave John Willis his number after he saved him from a fight
16-year-old dialed & was picked up by Chinese men in BMWs minutes later
Boston’s Chinese mafia took him and in and he quickly learned Chinese in two dialects, as well as Vietnamese
Willis proved his worth and rose through the ranks, known as White Devil
He eventually became second-in-command of the Chinese mob but split from them in the 2000s to sell drugs on a huge scale
His life became more stable after meeting his Vietnamese-American girlfriend but he was eventually caught trafficking $4million in oxycodone
FBI say Willis – who was jailed for 20 years – is the only white man to join the Chinese mafia

By OLLIE GILLMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 01:28 EST, 3 January 2016 | UPDATED: 09:05 EST, 3 January 2016

Down on his luck and with nowhere no turn, 16-year-old John Willis made a phone call that would transform his life.

With his father long gone and his mother dead, he was taking steroids to beef himself up and convince the owner of a club in Boston that he was 18 and therefore old enough to be a bouncer.

After helping a young Asian man called Woping Joe out of a fight at the club, he was handed a card with a phone number and told to ring it if he ever needed help.

Days later, with just 76 cents to his name and nowhere to sleep, he found himself dialing the number for a lift. Just minutes afterwards he was picked up by two BMWs car packed with young, Chinese men.

At the time he was just looking for a warm meal and a roof over his head, but a decade later he would be the Chinese mafia’s number two, known as Bac Guai John – or White Devil.

Blog, Criminal, Drug Companies, Legal News, Supreme Court

From Snoop Dogg to Willie Nelson, Pot Industry Tries to Build Brands

January 2, 2016 admin

1/2/2016 by Associated Press

Snoop Dogg has his own line of marijuana. So does Willie Nelson.Melissa Etheridge has a marijuana-infused wine.

As the fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and starts looking like a mainstream industry, there’s a scramble to brand and trademark pot products.

The celebrity endorsements are just the latest attempt to add cachet to a line of weed. Snoop Dogg calls his eight strains of weed “Dank From the Doggfather Himself.” Nelson’s yet-to-be-released line says the pot is “born of the awed memories of musicians who visited Willie’s bus after a show.”

The pot industry’s makeshift branding efforts, from celebrity names on boxes of weed to the many weed-themed T-shirts and stickers common in towns with a legal marijuana market, show the industry taking halting steps toward the mainstream.

Problem is, those weed brands aren’t much more substantial than the labels they’re printed on. Patents and trademarks are largely regulated by the federal government, which considers marijuana an illegal drug and therefore ineligible for any sort of legal protection.

The result is a Wild West environment of marijuana entrepreneurs trying to stake claims and establish cross-state markets using a patchwork of state laws.

Consumers have no way of knowing that celebrity-branded pot is any different than what they could get in a plastic baggie from a corner drug dealer.

“You can’t go into federal court to get federal benefits if you’re a drug dealer,” said Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor who tracks marijuana law.

That doesn’t mean that the pot business isn’t trying.

Hundreds of marijuana-related patents have likely been requested from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to those who work in the industry. Exact numbers aren’t available because pending patent information isn’t public.

Read Full Article – http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6828883/snoop-dogg-dank-doggfather-willie-nelson-pot-weed-marijuana-industry-legalize

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, Drug Companies, Legal News, Organized Crime, Supreme Court

Drug industry hired dozens of officials from the DEA as the agency tried to curb opioid abuse

January 2, 2016 admin

By Scott Higham, Lenny Bernstein, Steven Rich and Alice Crites

Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture or distribute highly addictive pain pills have hired dozens of officials from the top levels of the Drug Enforcement Administration during the past decade, according to a Washington Post investigation.

The hires came after the DEA launched an aggressive campaign to curb a rising opioid epidemic that has resulted in thousands of overdose deaths each year. In 2005, the DEA began to crack down on companies that were distributing inordinate numbers of pills such as oxycodone to pain-management clinics and pharmacies around the country.

Since then, the pharmaceutical companies and law firms that represent them have hired at least 42 officials from the DEA — 31 of them directly from the division responsible for regulating the industry, according to work histories compiled by The Post and interviews with current and former agency officials.

The number of hires has prompted some current and former government officials to ask whether the companies raided the division to hire away DEA officials who were architects of the agency’s enforcement campaign or were most responsible for enforcing the laws the firms were accused of violating.

“The number of employees recruited from that division points to a deliberate strategy by the pharmaceutical industry to hire people who are the biggest headaches for them,” said John Carnevale, former director of planning for the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, who now runs a consulting firm. “These people understand how DEA operates, the culture around diversion and DEA’s goals, and they can advise their clients how to stay within the guidelines.”

Read Full – https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/key-officials-switch-sides-from-dea-to-pharmaceutical-industry/2016/12/22/55d2e938-c07b-11e6-b527-949c5893595e_story.html?utm_term=.a6e6664d1a03

Lawstarz