Two items from the Washington Post over the last few days:
a. Maryland lost total "internal sovereignty" over the Potomac
River waters when the court decided that Virginia could, without ever
again needing permission from Maryland, extend pipes into the river to
extract water, that it could make whatever changes it needed to it's
banks and erect whatever structures out over the waters that it wants.
In effect, Maryland has sovereignty over the river bed, but the border
doesn't go vertically into the air so that the body of water on the
riverbed is included undiminished as part of Maryland.
b. The residents of St. Barts in the Caribbean voted to accept a
French proposal for the island to be legally recognized by France as a
free port. Up to now, residents have simply balked at paying income
taxes to France (through Guadaloupe) citing a treaty (I believe it was
with Sweden). The French used to try to prosecute scofflaws, but gave
up some years ago given the ambiguities in the treay text that went to
the favor of the prosecuted. According to the article, the French
government offered to no longer continue to try and tax the residents
if the residents voted to do without future payments from the mother
country in support of local infrastructure. The local government
feels it can raise enough money to support itself, says the island
never got back anything near to what was paid even considering that
hardly anyone ever paid, the vote was "up" and passed in favor of the
proposal. According to the article, a bill will now be introduced in
the French parliament to give the island this little added bit of
autonomy.
See also
http://www.washingtonpost.com
LN