Alabama has what's known as the Guest Passenger Statute, which says that if you are a passenger in a car, you can't sue the driver for simple negligence. Simple negligence means that the driver was not exercising the standards of care required of a person driving a car.

MINNEAPOLIS - A two-year-old law intended to improve safety for meatpacking workers has failed and conditions in many plants have actually gotten worse, according to a survey by the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota. In 2007, the Minnesota Legislature passed a Packinghouse Workers Bill of Rights, becoming only the second state - after Nebraska - to implement legislation targeting one of the most dangerous industries. Among other things, the bill provides meatpacking workers the right to adequate equipment to safely perform their jobs and information about occupational hazards known to exist in the workplace.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Local employers Kraft Foods and Supervalu are pushing Congress to allow an increase in the weight of trucks, claiming such a change could save money, cut fuel use and reduce emissions. A bill pending before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would increase the allowable weight of trucks from 80,000 pounds to 97,000 pounds. But it would require a sixth axle be added to trucks carrying that much weight. The bill is backed by the Coalition for Transportation Productivity, made up largely of companies that ship products by truck, and the American Trucking Association. Opposing the bill are some independent truck owners and highway safety groups.

Birmingham News blogger Don Kausler Jr. shares his harrowing experience as an 18-wheeler collides with traffic stopped on Interstate 20 from a previous accident. According to his story, while stopped near mile marker 147 waiting for traffic from another wreck ahead to be cleared, "A big rig loaded with two trailers came squeezing between an 18-wheeler and the concrete median barrier. It sideswiped the Dodge Ram pickup truck to my left, knocking it into my truck. And then the big rig slammed violently into the 18-wheeler that was turned sideways."

BAY MINETTE, Ala. - Hollis Thorn served in the Navy during the 1940's, then became a baptist minister. After his retirement, Thorn was stricken with diabetes.

A lawsuit has been filed against the firm that manages the Alabama's three veterans homes, charging negligence led to the death in 2007 of a resident in the William F. Green Veterans Home in Bay Minette.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The list of recalled peanut products linked to a national salmonella outbreak just keeps growing.

COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) - As Auburn University student Taylor Jones returned home to Montgomery after being released from the hospital this weekend, the Lee County District Attorney and the Auburn Police Department issued a warrant Monday morning for the fraternity member accused of assaulting him.

A lawsuit has been filed in the Circuit Court for Lee County, Alabama, on behalf of an Auburn University student who was injured at a campus fraternity house on Jan. 11.

AUBURN, AL (WSFA) - It's been two weeks since a fight at an Auburn University fraternity house left one freshman with severe injuries. Now the fight has moved to the courtroom. Taylor G. Jones was critically injured and rushed to a Georgia hospital after someone beat him at the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity house on January 11.Now, the Montgomery-based law firm of Beasley Allen has stepped into the fray filing a complaint on Jones' behalf against Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, the Auburn chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Alabama Alpha chapter and a fraternity member named Zachary James Quillen.