"law" news and stories

Photo: pixelens/Flickr.

When a Malaysian night club was busted and 32-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was caught with a beer, she knew she was in trouble. Not because alcohol is illegal in the country -- it's not -- but because Kartika is a Muslim.

Under Sharia law -- which regulates the day-to-day life of Muslims, including politics, business, sexuality and hygiene -- consuming alcohol is a major offense. Though non-Muslim in Malaysia would be prosecuted under civil law, Kartika had to face Islamic courts.

"I accept the punishment," she said, according to a Daily Telegraph report. "I am not afraid because I was ready to be punished from day one. [The authorities] hope to use my case as a way to educate Muslims. So go ahead. I want to move on with my life."

Photo: Justusthane, Flickr.

Florida's honeymakers, already adept at catching flies, have lately been buttonholing politicians, successfully pressing for new legislation that experts say should save the state's honey industry.

The Florida legislature this month approved a bill prohibiting the production and sale of adulterated honey -- a racy-sounding term that encompasses the honey-fructose blends and chemically treated honeys that have flooded the market over the past decade. While Florida is the first state to issue an official honey standard, Nancy Gentry, who chairs the Florida Honey Bee Technical Council, says as many as 28 states are contemplating similar legislation.

"We're already seeing significant changes," Gentry reports. "We're going to take blended honey products off the shelf in Florida."

The American honey industry was decimated in the 1980s by the Varroa mite, which took down more than 20 percent of hives nationwide.

Whiskey, gun. Photo: Swift Benjamin, Flickr

Tennessee restaurateurs are fighting a new law that threatens to enshrine a tradition they believe is best left in the Old Wild West.

Unless a judge grants a last-minute injunction, Tennessee residents with the proper permits will be able to carry their concealed, loaded firearms into restaurants serving alcohol starting this coming Tuesday. That makes Tennessee the first state in the nation to expressly allow folks to tuck their guns into hidden holsters and sidle up to the bar.

Attorney David Randolph Smith, who's representing 10 citizens opposing the law, says in what some might consider an understatement, "the problem with having guns where alcohol is served is that fights and breaches of the peace are known to occur."

Or, as Nashville songster Travis Tritt put it more lyrically in one of his biggest hits: "Each time I drink, I start to think I'm 10-feet tall and bulletproof."

Ah, to be Chef Gordon Ramsay and to have free time to sit around and spout ridiculous nonsense.

His newest attention-getting quote? His Highness thinks that restaurants should be fined for using out-of-season vegetables. Yep, fined.

The money quote: "There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only." Now, I'm all for using in-season fruits and veggies - we all know they're more flavorful, more fresh, and usually more decently priced - but stringent laws?

If I want to order summer squash in the dead of winter, or a strawberry tart in October, or pumpkin soup in July, that's my prerogative, dude. Don't take that away from me.

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Effective immediately, a federal appeals court says that all New York restaurants must post their food's caloric information on menu boards, and should begin no later than tonight at midnight.

The bill will apply only to restaurants with 15 establishments or more, and demands that the calorie counts be printed in the same font and size as normal menu information (even if this means making the rest of the menu's text teeny-tiny).

Fines will be instated beginning July 18 if restaurant owners do not comply with the new law.

Restaurant owners will fight out the case again in court on June 9, when the showdown will likely begin again.

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