Word: florida
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Florida petition drive is aimed at putting a referendum on the ballot next year to bar state and local governments from using race in hiring, contracting and school admissions. It's the latest effort of Ward Connerly, the controversial mixed-race businessman who got similar measures passed in California in 1996 and in Washington State last year. He's made Florida his next battleground, and he plans to travel there this week to make a major speech. But Connerly hopes Florida will also be something more: a vehicle for pushing his anti-affirmative-action crusade into the center...
...collect damages, each of the nine lead plaintiffs in the Florida case needs to show that he or she was deceived and that the illnesses were caused by smoking. So far, no one has figured out how to sort through the individual claims of the other half a million class members. And it may not get that far. The defendants will no doubt appeal the jury's verdict, and they have often fared well on appeal. In a little more than a year, Florida appellate courts have thrown out a $1 million verdict and a $750,000 verdict in tobacco...
Still, 1999 is shaping up to be Big Tobacco's worst year in court. Even before the loss in Florida, a California court awarded $26.5 million to a lung-cancer victim in February, and an Oregon court awarded $32.8 million to another cancer victim in March. The latest cases suggest the public may no longer be buying the industry's defenses. When a tobacco executive at the Florida trial tried to deny that cigarettes are harmful, one juror could be seen rolling her eyes. A legal system that for decades favored the cigarette companies may be kicking the habit...
...shooting spree. Proving anything will be difficult, but antihate lawyers hope such a lawsuit might bankrupt the group. In 1994 the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $1 million fine against the WCOTC's previous incarnation--called simply the Church of the Creator, a group founded by a former Florida legislator--because of its ties to violence. In the '90s alone, at least 10 of its members pleaded guilty to or were convicted of racially motivated crimes. Before Hale revived the group in 1996, it was nearly dead and gone because of faltering leadership and the successful lawsuit...
...July weekend, Billy Mitchell, 33, ate every dot, energizer and blue ghost on his way to scoring the world's first Pac-Man perfect game. The six-hour feat was witnessed by Twin Galaxies, which publishes a video-games record book. After completing all 256 levels, Mitchell, a Florida hot-sauce manufacturer who also holds the world's Donkey Kong record, promptly announced his retirement from Pac-Man competition. Junior Pac-Man, however, is another story...