Free Talk Live

Mose Yoder was told he owed $158 in fines and court costs for refusing to display a bright orange-red safety triangle on the back of his horse-drawn buggy. Judge Deborah Hawkins Crooks sentenced nine Amish men to between three and 10 days in jail, beginning late Monday night, for their refusal to pay the fines on religious grounds.

A change in state police policy could create problems for Amish gun-owners in Illinois, as a rule requiring photos to be on gun-owner ID cards will soon be applied to their community.

As the blog Amish America writes Monday, many Amish people use guns to hunt deer and other game, and to disperse "varmints."

Another case of civil disobedience from the Amish. These Amish value their independence and do not recognize the authority of the state. Not a repeat.

Four attacks of hair cutting have alledgedly been perpetrated on Amish families from an isolated splinter settlement near Berghol -- said to be led with an iron hand by Sam Mullet, a prickly 66-year-old man who had become bitterly estranged from mainstream Amish communities and had had several confrontations with the Jefferson County sheriff.

Sixteen members of a breakaway Amish community in rural eastern Ohio, including its leader, were convicted of federal hate crimes Thursday for the forcible cutting of Amish men's beards and Amish women's hair. Sam Mullet Sr. and the 15 followers were found guilty of conspiracy to violate federal hate-crime law in connection with what authorities said were the religiously motivated attacks on several fellow Amish people last year. The verdicts were read in U.S. District Court in Cleveland following several days of jury deliberation and a trial that began in late August, a U.S.

JPMorgan Chase donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation, in the form of 1,000 new patrol car laptops, security monitoring software in the NYPD’s main data center, other technology resources, and funding. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple.

The Amish do not experience autism, or any of the other learning disabilities that plague our technological society. The Amish live in a society that consists of outdated technologies and ideals, by contemporary standards. Their diet consists of eating organic, fresh, locally-grown produce, and of course, they do not follow the established vaccination routines.

Amish farmers are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay. And the EPA, charged by President Obama with restoring the bay to health, is determined to crack down. The farmers have a choice: change the way they farm or face stiff penalties.

A Portland police bureau traffic police officer Mark James showed his soft side when he stopped his chase to help a mother duck and her ducklings cross the road.