Nestle to face lawsuit saying Poland Spring water not from a spring: U.S. judge

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday rejected Nestle SA’s bid to dismiss a revised lawsuit claiming that it defrauded consumers by filling bottles of its Poland Spring water with ordinary groundwater. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Alker Meyer said consumers from eight northeastern states may pursue claims that Nestle Waters North America deceived them into overpaying by labeling Poland Spring as “100% Natural Spring Water.” The New Haven, Connecticut-based judge allowed claims on behalf of consumers from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. He said federal law preempted claims from Vermont consumers. Nestle Waters had argued there was “no fraud” because its water met the various state requirements. Meyer had dismissed an earlier version of the lawsuit last May.

“We remain highly confident in our legal position and will continue to defend our Poland Spring brand vigorously against this meritless lawsuit,” a Nestle Waters spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday. “Poland Spring brand natural spring water is just what it says it is — 100 percent natural spring water.” Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to the amended complaint, Nestle Waters sells 1 billion gallons of Poland Spring a year in the United States, and “not one drop” of its water “emanates from a water source that qualifies as a genuine legal ‘natural spring.’” The actual Poland Spring in Maine, which the defendant’s labels said is a source of Poland Spring water, “commercially ran dry” nearly 50 years ago, the complaint said.

In his earlier dismissal, Meyer said the plaintiffs were trying merely to enforce guidelines for spring water under the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and that this preempted their state law claims. But in Thursday’s decision, he said he was “convinced” the plaintiffs would try to show only that Poland Spring water did not meet the states’ individual spring water standards, though they appeared to “mirror” the federal standard.

The case is Patane v. Nestle Waters North America Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut, No. 17-01381.

'Hoarder' pleads guilty in one of biggest breaches of U.S. secrets

(Reuters) - A former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, portrayed as an eccentric hoarder by his lawyers, pleaded guilty in a Baltimore, Maryland court on Thursday to stealing classified documents in a deal likely to put him in prison for nine years. Harold Martin, 54, who worked for several private firms and had clearances to access top secret information, was arrested over two years ago for what may have been the biggest breach of classified information in history. When Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided his home south of Baltimore in 2016 they found stacks of documents and electronic storage devices amounting to 50 terabytes of files, including classified ones, prosecutors said.

U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors said in a statement that Martin’s actions risked the disclosure of top secret information to America’s “enemies.” One of their allegations was that Martin talked online with people in Russian and other languages but they never found proof he shared stolen information with anyone. His lawyers said he was a hoarder who liked to take work home with him. “His actions were the product of mental illness. Not treason,” lawyers Deborah Boardman and James Wyda said in a statement. Martin and the government agreed that if the federal court in Baltimore accepted the plea agreement, he would be sentenced to nine years in prison on the charge of willful retention of national defense information, prosecutors said. Sentencing was set for July 17 by U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-nsa/hoarder-pleads-guilty-in-one-of-biggest-breaches-of-u-s-secrets-idUSKCN1RA03V

Two California Supreme Court justices decry death penalty as 'dysfunctional'

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two members of California’s highest court issued a scathing critique of capital punishment on Thursday, branding it an “expensive and dysfunctional system” that fails to deliver timely justice. The unusual denunciation from two Supreme Court justices came in a concurring opinion to a ruling that unanimously affirmed the death sentence of a convicted killer. It was the court’s first death penalty decision since Governor Gavin Newsom two weeks ago imposed a moratorium on capital punishment in the nation’s most populous state. The concurring opinion was written by Associate Justice Goodwin Liu and joined by Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, both appointees of Newsom’s predecessor and fellow Democrat, Jerry Brown. Liu and Cuellar said their critique had nothing to do with “morality or constitutionality of the death penalty,” and expressed empathy for victims and their families.

In their commentary, the justices pointed to the case at hand in the appeal of Thomas Potts, condemned in 1998 for the hatchet-stabbing murders and robbery of an elderly couple in their Hanford, California, home, where Potts worked as a part-time handyman. “Now, 21 years later, we affirm the judgment on direct appeal, but there is more litigation to come in the form of habeas corpus petitions in state and federal courts,” Liu and Cuellar wrote. Such a timeline is typical in capital cases, they said, adding that “serious challenges” in the fair, efficient administration of the death penalty “have not been meaningfully addressed” for decades. “As a result, California’s death penalty is an expensive and dysfunctional system that does not deliver justice or closure in a timely manner, if at all,” the justices asserted.

Voters passed a 2016 ballot measure to speed up the process, but that initiative has failed to work, largely because it lacked additional funding needed to implement necessary reforms, the justices wrote. The justices, however, vowed to continue to uphold death sentences “when the law requires.”

Newsom had cited personal conscience as a major factor in ordering a halt to executions. The governor, who has said he has concerns that dozens of the 737 inmates on the state’s death row were innocent, issued a statement on Thursday praising the concurring opinion of two justices. California, which has by far the largest number of inmates on death row, last put a person to death in 2006. Newsom signed his moratorium on executions of current death row inmates as the state moved toward resuming capital punishment after developing a new protocol for lethal injections.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-california-death-penaty/two-california-supreme-court-justices-decry-death-penalty-as-dysfunctional-idUSKCN1RA05Z

>>5958184

I agree with that assessment have had family who lived on border lines in various border states..it was a common complaint that as soon as one tunnel would be shut down and closed up another would pop up just about instantly.

>>5958161

Governor Clinton Hotel Interesting.

Found a Pic.

>>5958245

I agree with you on that, they are so hell bent on proving that they are right about previous statements they'll say anything now to make the point..it seems to be infectious with them..MSM Infection of Deflection..kek

>>5958312

What made sense to me that they may have someone on the inside within the local branch of the FBI.

New England Patriots DC Greg Schiano steps down from position

https://www.upi.com/Sports_News/NFL/2019/03/28/New-England-Patriots-DC-Greg-Schiano-steps-down-from-position/7981553828658/