Poor Mojo's Newswire

"When times are good, the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). "But when times are bad . . . some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back." "I think a company does have a right to make sure there's no fraudulent information," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.). "But if a citizen acts in good faith, we should expect the insurance company that takes their money to act in good faith also." Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud." The answer from all three executives: "No."

[Harass the Wonder Dog] could supposedly do things no other dog could: tracking scents months later and even across water, according to his handler, John Preston. If it sounds hard to believe, there's a good reason. After providing prosecutors with testimony for years, Preston was finally discredited by a judge who had the sense to do what others had not: test the dog for himself. But not until after Preston and his dog had appeared in dozens of cases. We know that at least three of those cases were overturned — after the defendants collectively spent more than a half-century in prison.

LOCKPORT — It is legally permissible for police to zap a suspect with a Taser to obtain a DNA sample, as long as it’s not done “maliciously, or to an excessive extent, or with resulting injury,” a county judge has ruled in the first case of its kind in New York State, and possibly the nation. Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza decided that the DNA sample obtained Sept. 29 from Ryan S. Smith of Niagara Falls — which ties him to a shooting and a gas station robbery— is legally valid and can be used at his trial. Smith was handcuffed and sitting on the floor of Niagara Falls Police Headquarters when he was zapped with the 50,000- volt electronic stun gun after he insisted he would not give a DNA sample. He already had given a sample, a swab of the inside of his cheek, without protest the previous month. But police sent it to the wrong lab, where it was opened and spoiled.

No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. ... For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance. It wasn't a hot tip or an undercover informant that helped seal their fates, but a computer check of Social Security numbers. "A desktop raid" is how the workers' representative, John M. Grant, vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, described the scenario. Overhill, a $200-million-a-year company that provides frozen meals for clients such as American Airlines, Panda Express, Safeway and Jenny Craig, says it had no choice: An Internal Revenue Service audit found that 260 workers had provided "invalid or fraudulent" Social Security numbers. The government took no action against the workers. But Overhill did: All of the employees were fired May 31.