Postcards

Don’t go there: The American Automobile Association has pointed to 10 highways as the nation’s most congested. They are Interstate 93 north and south in Boston; I-88/Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago; I-35/I-30 in Dallas; U.S. 59 at the 610 Loop in Houston; I-5 at the intersection of I-10, State Road 60 and State Road 101 in Los Angeles; I-94 in Milwaukee; Northbound I-35W at Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis; I-10 and I-610 in both directions in New Orleans; the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn, N.Y.; and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Washington, D.C. The group calculates that it will take $72 billion a year over the next five years to upgrade roads and bridges and $53 billion a year just to maintain current conditions. Current spending is just $35 billion a year.

This little piggy went to market: A Norfolk, Va., City Councilman has been fined $250 for hitting a store clerk in the head with a one-pound package of ham. Paul Riddick says the clerk was rude to him when he brought back spoiled ham, but the clerk testified that when she gave him the ham, he threw the package back at her, shouting, “Don’t throw that ham at me!” Riddick has appealed.

I thought you were going to do it: Bad drivers in Columbus, Ga., got a big break for 11 years because court clerks failed to forward traffic citations to the state Department of Public Safety as they were required to do. That failure meant some drivers got to keep licenses that should have been suspended or revoked, as well as insurance policies that should have been canceled.