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In early January 2018, in case you were not aware, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) proposed the Southside Chattanooga Lead Site to be added to the Superfund Program’s National Priorities List (“NPL”). Superfund, as established by Congress in 1980, investigates and cleans up sites in the United States that have been contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup because the site poses a risk to human health and/or the environment. When a site is on the NPL, it undergoes a comprehensive evaluation to determine the nature and extent of contamination, an estimation of current and future risks, an analysis of cleanup alternatives, and the design and construction of the selected cleanup plan. Sites placed on the NPL are eligible to receive federal funding for long-term cleanup. EPA deletes sites from the NPL once all response actions are complete and all cleanup goals have been achieved.

Although many people are thinking of Valentine’s Day and what to get their significant other, others are still trying to decipher the more than 1000 pages of new tax legislation that the President just signed into law.

Federal immigration authorities have recently formalized a policy to send deportation agents to federal, state and local courthouses to make arrests, dismissing complaints from judges and advocacy groups that it instills fear among crime victims, witnesses and family members. As such, people who are undocumented and people with lawful status with certain criminal convictions may be at risk of being detained and deported simply for attending their court hearings.

While in some instances color is capable of trademark protection, such as the use of pink insulation for Owens-Corning, Cheerios recently was unable to protect the color yellow for its Cheerios boxes.