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The most commonly used smoke detector in homes utilizes ionization technology to sense the presence of a fire in the home. This type of smoke detector represents about 95% of the smoke detector market. The reason that should concern you is because this type of smoke detector is very poor at actually detecting smoke, which it turns out is the most common killer in house fires.

In this past Monday's Star Tribune was an article reprinted from the Los Angeles Times. It discussed an analysis of the automobile industry by the giant investment bank, Morgan Stanley. The author of the study concluded that the automobile industry as we know it will not be recognizable in the not-too-distant future. The 2 factors that are going to cause this disruption are the sharing economy and autonomous driving.

In this month's issue of the Costco magazine is an article about the dangers of driving while fatigued.  After 20 hours without sleep the average person performs as someone with a blood-alcohol level of .08 would. There were some other statistics that bear repeating here: 1. Sleeping less than five hours a night increases the risk of drowsy driving accidents by four times.

In Monday's Star Tribune was a tragic report of a death in Renville County of a 53-year-old farmer who was crushed by the tractor tire he was trying to change. For every 100,000 farm workers, about 25 are killed each year and 243 are injured. 5% of those injuries result in some sort of permanent disability. The National Safety Council also reports that of the approximately 3.1 million people who work on America's 2.3 million farms and ranches, 1300 die each year and 120,000 are injured.

Medical records are absolutely essential to someone like me if I am representing an injured person. The medical records often tell the tale of the extent of the injuries, the amount of the pain, etc. It is therefore almost impossible to represent someone adequately without obtaining copies of all of the medical records from all of the treatment received following the injury, and he usually copies of medical records going back at least five years before the injury in order to be able to compare

Over the past couple of weeks the news media in the Twin Cities has been reporting on a trial taking place in federal court in Minneapolis involving Toyota and the issue of whether they are responsible for cases of uncontrollable acceleration on some of their vehicles. If you read the reports on the trial it sounds like any reasonably competent attorney could be representing the plaintiffs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In this morning's Star Tribune there was an article about a man named Greg Torell, who lives in Cambridge, Minnesota. Seven years ago, on June 12, 2007, he was at the hospital when his granddaughter Elizabeth was born. He held her for a while and then got on his motorcycle to go back home. 20 minutes later he was broadsided on Highway 47 by a drunk driver. He lost his left arm and his left leg as a result of the accident and was blinded for life.

A lot of folks are opposed to Obamacare for a variety of reasons. As a trial lawyer, however, I had a recent case come across my desk which shows why this law is necessary and good for the country.Because my wife is a registered nurse, I may have a little more insight into this issue than most people.One of the big problems with the American healthcare system is that it is open to everyone, whether they are insured or not, or whether they can pay for their health care or not.

That was the title of a short article in today's Star Tribune (Metro section, B3). The article was written by a journalist who had written an article which appeared in the paper last week about this 11-year-old boy who was struck by a car as he crossed a busy St. Paul Street on his way to school. The first vehicle in line saw the little boy crossing the street and slowed so that he could cross safely.

I happened to be in France for my oldest daughter's wedding two weeks ago. While there I got in a discussion with my daughter's future father-in-law about jury trials, something not available to the average citizen in his country. He was very intrigued by the whole idea of a group of citizens from the area deciding cases involving other citizens from the same area. He thought it was a wonderful idea.As the song goes, "you don't know what you've got till its gone".