ReportWire

Tag: Corporate news

  • Disney announces ex-CEO Bob Iger to return for 2 years

    Disney announces ex-CEO Bob Iger to return for 2 years

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    BURBANK, Calif. — The Walt Disney Company announced late Sunday that former CEO Bob Iger would return to head the company for two years in a move that surprised the entertainment industry.

    Disney said Bob Chapek, who succeeded Iger in 2020, had stepped down from the position.

    “The Board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the Company through this pivotal period,” board Chair Susan Arnold said in a statement from Disney.

    Arnold thanked Chapek for his service, including his time during “the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.”

    Iger steered Disney through its absorption of Lucasfilm, Pixar, Marvel and Fox’s entertainment businesses and the launch of Disney Plus.

    Earlier this month, Disney posted lower than expected results for its fiscal fourth quarter.

    Iger led Disney for 15 years before stepping down in 2020.

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  • Company: Leak at Pennsylvania gas storage well plugged

    Company: Leak at Pennsylvania gas storage well plugged

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    The operator of a natural gas storage well in Western Pennsylvania says workers have successfully plugged a leak that had been spewing massive amounts of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere for two weeks.

    Equitrans Midstream said the well at its Rager Mountain storage facility, located in a rural area about 1.5 hours east of Pittsburgh, was sealed shut with concrete on Sunday. The well had been venting about 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day since Nov. 6, according to initial estimates.

    If accurate, that would total more than 1.4 billion cubic feet in methane, equal to the greenhouse gas emissions from burning more than 7,200 tanker trucks of gasoline.

    Pennsylvania environmental regulators have issued the company notice of five potential violations of state law.

    A written statement provided Sunday by Equitrans says the company had verified a 0% gas reading at and around the well. More than 250 feet of cement was pumped into the wellbore above two plugs to ensure venting does not recur, the company said.

    The Rager facility is in Jackson Township, at the heart of the Marcellus Shale formation that has seen a boom in gas production since the introduction of hydraulic fracturing more than a decade ago. Residents living as four miles away from the leak told The Associated Press on Friday they could hear the roar of pressurized gas escaping from the well and smell the fumes.

    Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is colorless and odorless. But when the gas is processed for transport and sale, producers add a chemical called mercaptan to give it a distinctive “rotten egg” smell that helps make people aware of leaks.

    Methane’s Earth-warming power is some 83 times stronger over 20 years than the carbon dioxide that comes from car tailpipes and power plant smokestacks. Oil and gas companies are the top industrial emitters of methane, which, once released into the atmosphere, will be disrupting the climate for decades, contributing to more heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and floods.

    The leak came as the Environmental Protection Agency on Nov. 11 updated proposed new rules intended to cut methane and other harmful emissions from oil and gas operations.

    The citations issued against the company by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection include failures to properly maintain and operate the gas facility, creating a public nuisance and producing a “hazard to public health a safety.” The company was also cited for failing to provide state inspectors “free and unrestricted access.”

    ————

    Biesecker reported from Washington.

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  • Renewed shelling threatens key Ukrainian nuclear plant

    Renewed shelling threatens key Ukrainian nuclear plant

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Powerful explosions shook Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the global nuclear watchdog said Sunday, calling for “urgent measures to help prevent a nuclear accident” in the Russian-occupied facility.

    Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said two explosions — one Saturday evening and another Sunday morning — near the Zaporizhzhia plant abruptly ended a period of relative calm around the nuclear facility that has been the site of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.

    Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been at the forefront since Russian troops occupied the plant during the early days of the war. Continued fighting has raised the specter of a disaster.

    In renewed shelling both close to and at the site, IAEA experts at the Zaporizhzhia facility reported hearing more than a dozen blasts within a short period Sunday morning and could see some explosions from their windows, the statement said.

    Several buildings, systems and equipment at the power plant — none of them critical for the plant’s nuclear safety — were damaged in the shelling, the IAEA said, citing the plant’s management.

    Still, Grossi said reports of the shelling were “extremely disturbing.” He added: “Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately.

    “As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” Grossi said, and appealed to both sides to urgently implement a nuclear safety and security zone around the facility.

    Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians amid frigid weather. That has left Ukrainians without heat, power or water as snow blankets the capital, Kyiv, and other cities.

    Ukraine’s state nuclear power operator said Russian forces were behind the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia plant. Energoatom said in a Telegram post Sunday that the targeted and damaged equipment in the facility is consistent with Kremlin’s strategy “to damage or destroy as much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as possible as” winter sets in.

    The most recent strikes damaged the system that would enable the plant’s power units 5 and 6 to start producing electricity again for Ukraine, the power operator said. It listed chemical desalinated water storage tanks and steam generator purge system as being damaged in the shelling Sunday, although the full extent of the damage is still being assessed.

    The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine decided to bring the two units to a minimally controlled power level to obtain steam, which is critical in winter for ensuring the safety of power units, the plant’s staff, the local population and the environment, Energoatom said.

    Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, however, blamed Ukrainian forces, claiming they shelled the power plant twice Sunday. He also said two shells hit near the power lines supplying the plant with electricity.

    Elsewhere in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces shelled civilian infrastructure in about a dozen communities, destroying 30 homes, the Ukrainian presidency said Sunday.

    In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, one person was wounded and 20 buildings damaged in shelling of Nikopol, a city across the river from the Zaporizhzhia plant, the report said. Three districts in the northern Kharkiv region — Kupyansk, Chuguiv and Izyum — also came under Russian artillery fire in the past 24 hours.

    In the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Russian shelling killed one person in Donetsk and damaged power lines, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office.

    The situation in the southern Kherson region “remains difficult,” the report said, citing the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces. Russian forces fired tank shells, rockets and other artillery on the city of Kherson, which was recently liberated from Ukrainian forces, and the settlements of Chervyn Mayak, Kachkarivka, Tokarivka, Chornobayivka and Antonivka.

    Shelling late Saturday struck an oil depot in Kherson, igniting a huge fire that sent black billowing smoke into the air. Russian troops also shelled people lining up to get bread in the Kherson regional town of Bilozerka, wounding five, the report said.

    In the city of Kherson — which still has little power, heat or water — more than 80 tons of humanitarian aid have been sent so far, said local administrator Yaroslav Yanushevych, including a UNICEF shipment of 1,500 winter outfits for children, two 35-40-kilowatt generators and drinking water.

    Also on Sunday, a funeral was held in eastern Poland for the second of the two men killed in a missile explosion Tuesday. The other man was buried on Saturday. Poland and the head of NATO have both said the missile strike appeared to be unintentional and was probably launched by Ukraine as it tried to shoot down Russia missiles or drones.

    ———

    Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.

    ————

    Follow all AP stories about the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

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  • Justices asked to hear dog toy dispute. Will they bite?

    Justices asked to hear dog toy dispute. Will they bite?

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    WASHINGTON — The company that makes Jack Daniel’s is howling mad over a squeaking dog toy that parodies the whiskey’s signature bottle. Now, the liquor company is barking at the door of the Supreme Court.

    Jack Daniel’s has asked the justices to hear its case against the manufacturer of the plastic Bad Spaniels toy. The high court could say as soon as Monday whether the justices will agree. A number of major companies from the makers of Campbell Soup to outdoor brand Patagonia and jeans maker Levi Strauss have urged the justices to take what they say is an important case for trademark law.

    The toy that has Jack Daniel’s so doggone mad mimics the square shape of its whisky bottle as well as its black-and-white label and amber-colored liquor while adding what it calls “poop humor.” While the original bottle has the words “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey,” the parody proclaims: “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet.” Instead of the original’s note that it is 40% alcohol by volume, the parody says it’s “43% Poo by Vol.” and “100% Smelly.”

    The back of the toy, which retails for about $13 to $20, says in small font “this product is not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”

    The toy’s maker says Jack Daniel’s can’t take a joke. “It is ironic that America’s leading distiller of whiskey both lacks a sense of humor and does not recognize when it — and everyone else — has had enough,” lawyers for Arizona-based VIP Products wrote the high court. They told the justices that Jack Daniel’s has “waged war” against the company for “having the temerity to produce a pun-filled parody” of its bottle.

    But Jack Daniel’s lead attorney, Lisa Blatt, made no bones about the company’s position in her filing.

    “To be sure, everyone likes a good joke. But VIP’s profit-motivated ‘joke’ confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill,” she wrote for the Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp., Jack Daniel’s parent company.

    Blatt wrote that a lower court decision provides “near-blanket protection” to humorous trademark infringement. And she said it has “broad and dangerous consequences,” pointing to children who were hospitalized after eating marijuana-infused products that mimicked candy packaging.

    If VIP Products is allowed to confuse consumers with dog toys, “other funny infringers can do the same with juice boxes or marijuana-infused candy,” Blatt wrote.

    The toy is part of a line of VIP Products called Silly Squeakers that mimic liquor, beer, wine and soda bottles. They include Mountain Drool, which parodies Mountain Dew, and Heini Sniff’n, which parodies Heineken. A court in 2008 barred the company from selling its Budweiser parody, ButtWiper.

    After the company began selling its Bad Spaniels toy in 2014, Jack Daniel’s told the company to stop, but VIP went to court to be allowed to continue to sell its product. Jack Daniel’s won the first round in court but lost an appeal. The case reached the Supreme Court at an earlier stage, but the justices didn’t bite.

    Bad Spaniels isn’t the only parody puppy toy to draw the ire of the brand it imitated. Luxury bag maker Louis Vuitton sued the makers of Chewy Vuiton over their plush purse dog toys. In 2007 a federal appeals court sided with the chew toy’s manufacturers, Nevada-based Haute Diggity Dog. Louis Vuitton didn’t appeal to the Supreme Court.

    The case is Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, 22-148.

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  • Justices asked to hear dog toy dispute. Will they bite?

    Justices asked to hear dog toy dispute. Will they bite?

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    WASHINGTON — The company that makes Jack Daniel’s is howling mad over a squeaking dog toy that parodies the whiskey’s signature bottle. Now, the liquor company is barking at the door of the Supreme Court.

    Jack Daniel’s has asked the justices to hear its case against the manufacturer of the plastic Bad Spaniels toy. The high court could say as soon as Monday whether the justices will agree. A number of major companies from the makers of Campbell Soup to outdoor brand Patagonia and jeans maker Levi Strauss have urged the justices to take what they say is an important case for trademark law.

    The toy that has Jack Daniel’s so doggone mad mimics the square shape of its whisky bottle as well as its black-and-white label and amber-colored liquor while adding what it calls “poop humor.” While the original bottle has the words “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey,” the parody proclaims: “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet.” Instead of the original’s note that it is 40% alcohol by volume, the parody says it’s “43% Poo by Vol.” and “100% Smelly.”

    The back of the toy, which retails for about $13 to $20, says in small font “this product is not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”

    The toy’s maker says Jack Daniel’s can’t take a joke. “It is ironic that America’s leading distiller of whiskey both lacks a sense of humor and does not recognize when it — and everyone else — has had enough,” lawyers for Arizona-based VIP Products wrote the high court. They told the justices that Jack Daniel’s has “waged war” against the company for “having the temerity to produce a pun-filled parody” of its bottle.

    But Jack Daniel’s lead attorney, Lisa Blatt, made no bones about the company’s position in her filing.

    “To be sure, everyone likes a good joke. But VIP’s profit-motivated ‘joke’ confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill,” she wrote for the Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp., Jack Daniel’s parent company.

    Blatt wrote that a lower court decision provides “near-blanket protection” to humorous trademark infringement. And she said it has “broad and dangerous consequences,” pointing to children who were hospitalized after eating marijuana-infused products that mimicked candy packaging.

    If VIP Products is allowed to confuse consumers with dog toys, “other funny infringers can do the same with juice boxes or marijuana-infused candy,” Blatt wrote.

    The toy is part of a line of VIP Products called Silly Squeakers that mimic liquor, beer, wine and soda bottles. They include Mountain Drool, which parodies Mountain Dew, and Heini Sniff’n, which parodies Heineken. A court in 2008 barred the company from selling its Budweiser parody, ButtWiper.

    After the company began selling its Bad Spaniels toy in 2014, Jack Daniel’s told the company to stop, but VIP went to court to be allowed to continue to sell its product. Jack Daniel’s won the first round in court but lost an appeal. The case reached the Supreme Court at an earlier stage, but the justices didn’t bite.

    Bad Spaniels isn’t the only parody puppy toy to draw the ire of the brand it imitated. Luxury bag maker Louis Vuitton sued the makers of Chewy Vuiton over their plush purse dog toys. In 2007 a federal appeals court sided with the chew toy’s manufacturers, Nevada-based Haute Diggity Dog. Louis Vuitton didn’t appeal to the Supreme Court.

    The case is Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, 22-148.

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  • George Lois, icon of ads and magazine covers, dead at 91

    George Lois, icon of ads and magazine covers, dead at 91

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    NEW YORK — George Lois, the hard-selling, charismatic advertising man and designer who fashioned some of the most daring magazine images of the 1960s and popularized such catchphrases and brand names as “I Want My MTV” and “Lean Cuisine,” has died. He was 91.

    Lois’ son, the photographer Luke Lois, said he died “peacefully” Friday at his home in Manhattan.

    Nicknamed the “Golden Greek” and later (to his displeasure) an “Original Mad Man,” George Lois was among a wave of advertisers who launched the “Creative Revolution” that jolted Madison Avenue and the world beyond in the late 1950s and ’60s. He was boastful and provocative, willing and able to offend, and was a master of finding just the right image or words to capture a moment or create a demand.

    His Esquire magazine covers, from Muhammad Ali posing as the martyr Saint Sebastian to Andy Warhol sinking in a sea of Campbell’s tomato soup, defined the hyper spirit of the ’60s as much as Norman Rockwell’s idealized drawings for the Saturday Evening Post summoned an earlier era. As an ad man, he devised breakthrough strategies for Xerox and Stouffer’s and helped an emerging music video channel in the 1980s by suggesting ads featuring Mick Jagger and other rock stars demanding, with mock-petulance, “I Want My MTV!”

    Lois boiled it down to what he called the “Big Idea,” crystallizing “the unique virtues of a product and searing it into people’s minds.” He was inducted into numerous advertising and visual arts halls of fame, and in 2008 his Esquire work was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Martin Scorsese, Tina Brown and Graydon Carter were among his admirers.

    His legacy was vast, although the actual dimensions are disputed. His claims to developing the 1960s “I Want My Maypo” breakfast ads and to inspiring the creation of New York magazine have been widely contradicted. Some former Esquire colleagues would allege that he exaggerated his role at the expense of other contributors, such as Carl Fischer, who photographed many of the magazine’s famous covers. But his overpowering energy and confidence were well recorded.

    In her memoir “Basic Black,” former USA Today publisher Cathie Black recalled bringing in Lois in the early 1980s to propose a new advertising approach for a publication that struggled at first over how to identify itself. Lois’ idea was to champion USA Today’s dual appeal as a newspaper and magazine, proposing the slogan, “A lot of people are saying USA Today is neither fish nor fowl. They’re right!” Before a gathering of the publication’s, including founder Al Neuharth, Lois gave an Oscar-worthy performance, Black wrote, “bounding in like a 6-foot-3 teenager hopped up on Red Bull.”

    “He flung his jacket to the floor, tore off his tie, then flashed one prototype ad after another, prancing around the room and keeping up a running monologue sprinkled with jokes and profanity. It was epic, almost scary. I was thrilled. When he was finished, the room sat absolutely silent.” All eyes turned to Neuharth, who sat “absolutely still, his expression hidden behind his dark aviator glasses.” Neuharth paused, removed his glasses and smiled. “We’ve got it,” he said.

    Lois’ longtime wife, Rosemary Lewandowski Lois, died in September. A son, Harry Joseph Lois, died in 1978.

    Lois, the son of Greek immigrants, was born in New York City in 1931 and would cite the racism of his Irish neighborhood for his drive “to awaken, to disturb, to protest.” He liked to say that a successful advertiser absorbed as many influences as possible, and he prided himself on his knowledge of everything from sports to ballet. He was a compulsive drawer and for much of his life made weekly visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    He enrolled in Pratt Institute, soon met his future wife and eloped with her before either had graduated. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he joined the advertising and promotion department of CBS and in 1960 helped found the advertising agency Papert Koenig Lois. Two years later he was recruited by Esquire editor Harold Hayes and remained until 1972, the same year Hayes left.

    Esquire was a prime venue for the so-called New Journalism of the 1960s, nonfiction stories with a literary approach, and the magazine would publish such celebrated pieces as Gay Talese’s portrait of Frank Sinatra and Tom Wolfe’s “The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!” But to read the words, you had to buy the magazine, and Lois’ covers launched countless conversations.

    For a cover story on “The New American Woman,” he featured a naked model folded into a garbage can. A notorious 1970 cover showed a grinning Lt. William Calley, the serviceman later found guilty of murdering unarmed civilians in the My Lai Massacre, with his arms around a pair of Vietnamese children, two other kids behind him.

    In the mid-1970s, Lois was among the public figures who led efforts to free the boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter from prison. Carter’s conviction for murder was later overturned, and he was released in 1985. Lois also wrote several books and was featured in the 2014 documentary about Esquire, “Smiling Through the Apocalypse.”

    Interest in Lois was renewed through the popularity of the AMC series “Mad Men,” but he was not flattered, writing in his book “Damn Good Advice” that the show was “nothing more than a soap opera set in a glamorous office where stylish fools hump their appreciative, coiffured secretaries, suck up martinis, and smoke themselves to death as they produce dumb, lifeless advertising.”

    “Besides,” he added, “when I was in my 30s I was better looking than Don Draper.”

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  • Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

    Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Intel’s announcement earlier this year of a $20 billion manufacturing operation bringing thousands of jobs to rural Ohio was greeted as an economic boon.

    But behind that enthusiasm lurked a pressing question.

    “Where are we putting everybody?” asked Melissa Humbert-Washington, vice president of programs and services at Homes for Families, which helps low-wage workers find housing in a region already suffering a major shortage.

    Intel says its initial two computer chip factories will employ 3,000 people when the operation is up and running in 2025. The project is also expected to employ 7,000 construction workers. And none of that includes the hundreds of additional jobs as Intel suppliers move in, along with the expected boom in the service sector.

    Such housing challenges are playing out across the country as companies increasingly come under fire for failing to consider the shelter needs of their new employees or the impact big developments will have on already tight housing markets.

    Experts agree that years of underbuilding dating to the Great Recession of 2008 has caused widespread housing shortages. Nationally, the country is short about 1 million homes, according to Rob Dietz, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders. The National Apartment Association estimates a rental shortage of about 600,000 units.

    “We have underbuilt housing by millions of homes over the past 15 years,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. “So when a big company comes into a community that is supply constrained, the demand that they’re going to inject … is going to affect home prices and rental prices because there’s more demand than supply.”

    For a big company’s impact on housing, look no farther than Intel’s own operations in Chandler, Arizona, which grew from a small agricultural city of about 30,000 in 1980 when the company built its first factory to a high-tech metropolis of 220,000 today. That was accompanied by tremendous housing growth, and today Chandler is running out of developable land, with nearly 95% of the area built out with residential, office, industrial and retail projects, according to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

    Housing is also more expensive in Chandler, with a median home sale price of $525,000 compared to $455,000 in greater Phoenix, and median rents of $2,027 compared to $1,950 in Phoenix.

    The challenge for areas like rural Ohio is that they don’t have local employees to build or staff a large project, said Mark Stapp, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at Arizona State University. There’s neither the housing nor the infrastructure to accommodate the thousands of new arrivals, increasing housing prices and possibly forcing existing residents out.

    “It’s economic development. It’s going to employ people. But you are probably going to have to bring a lot of people into the area,” he said. And “those jobs require housing.”

    “If you don’t recognize that and don’t properly plan infrastructure, land use policies and manage that growth, it can be a big problem. The great opportunity turns into a big problem.”

    In central Ohio, the Intel site is rising on hundreds of acres of rural land once occupied by farm fields and modest homes where large business parks have also sprung up near major thoroughfares. The region has averaged about 8,200 building permits per year for both single-family and multi-unit buildings, even as job and population growth estimates predating the Intel project called for more than twice that, according to the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio.

    “We’re not building enough of anything,” said the group’s executive director Jon Melchi. Central Ohio, with about 2.4 million residents today, will grow to at least 3 million by 2050, the group said.

    The central Ohio shortage includes the “missing middle” of workforce housing, or homes up to $250,000, said Tre’ Giller, CEO and president of Metro Development, one of Ohio’s largest apartment developers. A recent Zillow search showed only about 570 listings for homes $250,000 or less in the area.

    The housing pressure is especially intense for low-wage workers. Central Ohio already has about 71,000 households considered “severely rent burdened” — families spending more than half their income on housing, said the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. The region has only 34 affordable units available for every 100 low-rent households, it said.

    The problem is even more severe in Licking County, home to the future Intel plants, where more than one in five renters are considered severely rent burdened.

    Affordable housing is crucial for the low-wage workers who keep the economy running, from pre-school teachers to medical assistants, said COHIO executive director Amy Riegel. But housing also has to be viewed on a spectrum: Without enough higher-end properties to purchase, buyers will snap up rentals, which then shuts out workers of limited means.

    “Housing is definitely an ecosystem,” Riegel said. “If you add housing at one end, and don’t take care of the other end, it has an impact and a ripple effect through the whole system.”

    On the Nov. 8 ballot, Columbus voters approved a $200 million bond issue aimed at increasing the city’s affordable housing stock for homeowners earning less than $50,000 annually. “We simply do not have enough places for people to live,” Mayor Andrew Ginther said in announcing the issue in July.

    Janna Sharrett is grateful for her apartment in an affordable housing complex in suburban Columbus as the region braces for Intel’s arrival and its real estate impact. The 60-year-old customer service rep works from home and earns just $14.94 an hour. Her rent on the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her dog, Bella, and cat, Daisy, is $695.

    The $6.5 million, 28-unit building where Sharrett lives was developed by Homeport, a Columbus-based nonprofit that works to expand affordable housing. Sharrett moved in two years ago seeking relief from a $1,000 rent payment, and today isn’t sure what she’d do without it.

    She worries about the needs of people like herself as the region grows through projects such as Intel.

    “Rent is outrageous. Prices of homes are outrageous. And my income is not outrageous,” Sharrett said.

    Across the country, a growing number of companies are responding to housing concerns by rolling out ambitious plans for thousands of units of new housing — though efforts fall far short of actual needs.

    In 2021, Amazon launched its $2 billion Housing Equity Fund to create over 8,000 affordable homes across three regions where it operates: the Puget Sound in Washington state; Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.

    In 2019, Apple said it would commit $2.5 billion toward easing California’s housing crisis, one of a number of initiatives by high tech companies. This month Walt Disney World picked a developer to construct affordable housing on 80 acres of its land in Orange County, Florida.

    Intel, too, looks forward to partnering with Ohio community leaders to prepare for the increased housing demand over the next few years, said Intel spokesperson Linda Qian, without providing details.

    Experts say it’s in Intel’s best interest to contribute toward alleviating the region’s housing shortage. Employers in greater Columbus already blame high worker turnover and reduced productivity on long commute times, according to a report by the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio.

    “Without the housing product it can easily stifle the workforce needs of Intel and others,” said Jamie Green, a Columbus-based planning consultant.

    As the Intel project unfolds, it highlights the challenges ahead, said Leah Evans, president and CEO of Homeport, which developed Sharrett’s affordable apartment complex.

    “This just brought to light that for every one job you create, you’ve got a commute and you’ve got a housing unit” need, Evans said. “You have to be thinking about all those things.”

    ———

    Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

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  • Man gets jail for joining Capitol riot after Tinder date

    Man gets jail for joining Capitol riot after Tinder date

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    A Delaware business owner has been sentenced to 30 days of incarceration for storming the U.S. Capitol after seeing the riot erupt on a Tinder date’s television and taking an Uber ride to join the mob’s attack, court records show.

    U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also on Friday ordered Jeffrey Schaefer to pay a $2,000 fine and $500 in restitution for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in Washington.

    On the eve of then-President Donald Trump‘s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, Schaefer drove from Delaware to northern Virginia to spend the night at the home of a woman whom he had met on the Tinder online dating app. The next day, he decided to take an Uber ride to the Capitol after seeing the riot unfold on TV at his date’s home in Alexandria.

    “He had the Uber driver drop him off near the west front of the Capitol and he approached the Capitol from that drop off point,” Justice Department prosecutor Anita Eve wrote in a court filing.

    Schaefer entered the Capitol though a broken window near the Senate Wing doors, joined other rioters in chanting and spent approximately 28 minutes inside the building before leaving through a door, prosecutors said. He posted several images of the riot on Facebook, including one showing a pile of destroyed media equipment.

    Schaefer, 36, of Milton, Delaware, was arrested in January 2022, He pleaded guilty in August to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum sentence of six months behind bars.

    Defense attorney Joshua Insley noted that Schaefer wasn’t accused of engaging in any violence or destructive conduct on Jan. 6, when Congress had convened a joint session to certify the results of President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

    Schaefer owns a charter transportation company based in Milton. Once a “committed supporter” of Trump, Schaefer now believes he was “manipulated and used by those who hold power and will never face any consequences,” his lawyer said.

    “While Mr. Schaefer accepts responsibility for his actions, he was guided and urged every step of the way by no less of an authority than the President of the United States and a majority of Republican Senators and Congressman that continued to repeat the ‘Big Lie’ that the election had been stolen by the Democrats,” Insley wrote.

    More than 900 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 460 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses. Over 320 of them have been sentenced, with roughly half of them receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

    ———

    For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

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  • Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

    Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Intel’s announcement earlier this year of a $20 billion manufacturing operation bringing thousands of jobs to rural Ohio was greeted as an economic boon.

    But behind that enthusiasm lurked a pressing question.

    “Where are we putting everybody?” asked Melissa Humbert-Washington, vice president of programs and services at Homes for Families, which helps low-wage workers find housing in a region already suffering a major shortage.

    Intel says its initial two computer chip factories will employ 3,000 people when the operation is up and running in 2025. The project is also expected to employ 7,000 construction workers. And none of that includes the hundreds of additional jobs as Intel suppliers move in, along with the expected boom in the service sector.

    Such housing challenges are playing out across the country as companies increasingly come under fire for failing to consider the shelter needs of their new employees or the impact big developments will have on already tight housing markets.

    Experts agree that years of underbuilding dating to the Great Recession of 2008 has caused widespread housing shortages. Nationally, the country is short about 1 million homes, according to Rob Dietz, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders. The National Apartment Association estimates a rental shortage of about 600,000 units.

    “We have underbuilt housing by millions of homes over the past 15 years,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. “So when a big company comes into a community that is supply constrained, the demand that they’re going to inject … is going to affect home prices and rental prices because there’s more demand than supply.”

    For a big company’s impact on housing, look no farther than Intel’s own operations in Chandler, Arizona, which grew from a small agricultural city of about 30,000 in 1980 when the company built its first factory to a high-tech metropolis of 220,000 today. That was accompanied by tremendous housing growth, and today Chandler is running out of developable land, with nearly 95% of the area built out with residential, office, industrial and retail projects, according to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

    Housing is also more expensive in Chandler, with a median home sale price of $525,000 compared to $455,000 in greater Phoenix, and median rents of $2,027 compared to $1,950 in Phoenix.

    The challenge for areas like rural Ohio is that they don’t have local employees to build or staff a large project, said Mark Stapp, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at Arizona State University. There’s neither the housing nor the infrastructure to accommodate the thousands of new arrivals, increasing housing prices and possibly forcing existing residents out.

    “It’s economic development. It’s going to employ people. But you are probably going to have to bring a lot of people into the area,” he said. And “those jobs require housing.”

    “If you don’t recognize that and don’t properly plan infrastructure, land use policies and manage that growth, it can be a big problem. The great opportunity turns into a big problem.”

    In central Ohio, the Intel site is rising on hundreds of acres of rural land once occupied by farm fields and modest homes where large business parks have also sprung up near major thoroughfares. The region has averaged about 8,200 building permits per year for both single-family and multi-unit buildings, even as job and population growth estimates predating the Intel project called for more than twice that, according to the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio.

    “We’re not building enough of anything,” said the group’s executive director Jon Melchi. Central Ohio, with about 2.4 million residents today, will grow to at least 3 million by 2050, the group said.

    The central Ohio shortage includes the “missing middle” of workforce housing, or homes up to $250,000, said Tre’ Giller, CEO and president of Metro Development, one of Ohio’s largest apartment developers. A recent Zillow search showed only about 570 listings for homes $250,000 or less in the area.

    The housing pressure is especially intense for low-wage workers. Central Ohio already has about 71,000 households considered “severely rent burdened” — families spending more than half their income on housing, said the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. The region has only 34 affordable units available for every 100 low-rent households, it said.

    The problem is even more severe in Licking County, home to the future Intel plants, where more than one in five renters are considered severely rent burdened.

    Affordable housing is crucial for the low-wage workers who keep the economy running, from pre-school teachers to medical assistants, said COHIO executive director Amy Riegel. But housing also has to be viewed on a spectrum: Without enough higher-end properties to purchase, buyers will snap up rentals, which then shuts out workers of limited means.

    “Housing is definitely an ecosystem,” Riegel said. “If you add housing at one end, and don’t take care of the other end, it has an impact and a ripple effect through the whole system.”

    On the Nov. 8 ballot, Columbus voters approved a $200 million bond issue aimed at increasing the city’s affordable housing stock for homeowners earning less than $50,000 annually. “We simply do not have enough places for people to live,” Mayor Andrew Ginther said in announcing the issue in July.

    Janna Sharrett is grateful for her apartment in an affordable housing complex in suburban Columbus as the region braces for Intel’s arrival and its real estate impact. The 60-year-old customer service rep works from home and earns just $14.94 an hour. Her rent on the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her dog, Bella, and cat, Daisy, is $695.

    The $6.5 million, 28-unit building where Sharrett lives was developed by Homeport, a Columbus-based nonprofit that works to expand affordable housing. Sharrett moved in two years ago seeking relief from a $1,000 rent payment, and today isn’t sure what she’d do without it.

    She worries about the needs of people like herself as the region grows through projects such as Intel.

    “Rent is outrageous. Prices of homes are outrageous. And my income is not outrageous,” Sharrett said.

    Across the country, a growing number of companies are responding to housing concerns by rolling out ambitious plans for thousands of units of new housing — though efforts fall far short of actual needs.

    In 2021, Amazon launched its $2 billion Housing Equity Fund to create over 8,000 affordable homes across three regions where it operates: the Puget Sound in Washington state; Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.

    In 2019, Apple said it would commit $2.5 billion toward easing California’s housing crisis, one of a number of initiatives by high tech companies. This month Walt Disney World picked a developer to construct affordable housing on 80 acres of its land in Orange County, Florida.

    Intel, too, looks forward to partnering with Ohio community leaders to prepare for the increased housing demand over the next few years, said Intel spokesperson Linda Qian, without providing details.

    Experts say it’s in Intel’s best interest to contribute toward alleviating the region’s housing shortage. Employers in greater Columbus already blame high worker turnover and reduced productivity on long commute times, according to a report by the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio.

    “Without the housing product it can easily stifle the workforce needs of Intel and others,” said Jamie Green, a Columbus-based planning consultant.

    As the Intel project unfolds, it highlights the challenges ahead, said Leah Evans, president and CEO of Homeport, which developed Sharrett’s affordable apartment complex.

    “This just brought to light that for every one job you create, you’ve got a commute and you’ve got a housing unit” need, Evans said. “You have to be thinking about all those things.”

    ———

    Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

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  • Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

    Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Intel’s announcement earlier this year of a $20 billion manufacturing operation bringing thousands of jobs to rural Ohio was greeted as an economic boon.

    But behind that enthusiasm lurked a pressing question.

    “Where are we putting everybody?” asked Melissa Humbert-Washington, vice president of programs and services at Homes for Families, which helps low-wage workers find housing in a region already suffering a major shortage.

    Intel says its initial two computer chip factories will employ 3,000 people when the operation is up and running in 2025. The project is also expected to employ 7,000 construction workers. And none of that includes the hundreds of additional jobs as Intel suppliers move in, along with the expected boom in the service sector.

    Such housing challenges are playing out across the country as companies increasingly come under fire for failing to consider the shelter needs of their new employees or the impact big developments will have on already tight housing markets.

    Experts agree that years of underbuilding dating to the Great Recession of 2008 has caused widespread housing shortages. Nationally, the country is short about 1 million homes, according to Rob Dietz, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders. The National Apartment Association estimates a rental shortage of about 600,000 units.

    “We have underbuilt housing by millions of homes over the past 15 years,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. “So when a big company comes into a community that is supply constrained, the demand that they’re going to inject … is going to affect home prices and rental prices because there’s more demand than supply.”

    For a big company’s impact on housing, look no farther than Intel’s own operations in Chandler, Arizona, which grew from a small agricultural city of about 30,000 in 1980 when the company built its first factory to a high-tech metropolis of 220,000 today. That was accompanied by tremendous housing growth, and today Chandler is running out of developable land, with nearly 95% of the area built out with residential, office, industrial and retail projects, according to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

    Housing is also more expensive in Chandler, with a median home sale price of $525,000 compared to $455,000 in greater Phoenix, and median rents of $2,027 compared to $1,950 in Phoenix.

    The challenge for areas like rural Ohio is that they don’t have local employees to build or staff a large project, said Mark Stapp, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at Arizona State University. There’s neither the housing nor the infrastructure to accommodate the thousands of new arrivals, increasing housing prices and possibly forcing existing residents out.

    “It’s economic development. It’s going to employ people. But you are probably going to have to bring a lot of people into the area,” he said. And “those jobs require housing.”

    “If you don’t recognize that and don’t properly plan infrastructure, land use policies and manage that growth, it can be a big problem. The great opportunity turns into a big problem.”

    In central Ohio, the Intel site is rising on hundreds of acres of rural land once occupied by farm fields and modest homes where large business parks have also sprung up near major thoroughfares. The region has averaged about 8,200 building permits per year for both single-family and multi-unit buildings, even as job and population growth estimates predating the Intel project called for more than twice that, according to the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio.

    “We’re not building enough of anything,” said the group’s executive director Jon Melchi. Central Ohio, with about 2.4 million residents today, will grow to at least 3 million by 2050, the group said.

    The central Ohio shortage includes the “missing middle” of workforce housing, or homes up to $250,000, said Tre’ Giller, CEO and president of Metro Development, one of Ohio’s largest apartment developers. A recent Zillow search showed only about 570 listings for homes $250,000 or less in the area.

    The housing pressure is especially intense for low-wage workers. Central Ohio already has about 71,000 households considered “severely rent burdened” — families spending more than half their income on housing, said the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. The region has only 34 affordable units available for every 100 low-rent households, it said.

    The problem is even more severe in Licking County, home to the future Intel plants, where more than one in five renters are considered severely rent burdened.

    Affordable housing is crucial for the low-wage workers who keep the economy running, from pre-school teachers to medical assistants, said COHIO executive director Amy Riegel. But housing also has to be viewed on a spectrum: Without enough higher-end properties to purchase, buyers will snap up rentals, which then shuts out workers of limited means.

    “Housing is definitely an ecosystem,” Riegel said. “If you add housing at one end, and don’t take care of the other end, it has an impact and a ripple effect through the whole system.”

    On the Nov. 8 ballot, Columbus voters approved a $200 million bond issue aimed at increasing the city’s affordable housing stock for homeowners earning less than $50,000 annually. “We simply do not have enough places for people to live,” Mayor Andrew Ginther said in announcing the issue in July.

    Janna Sharrett is grateful for her apartment in an affordable housing complex in suburban Columbus as the region braces for Intel’s arrival and its real estate impact. The 60-year-old customer service rep works from home and earns just $14.94 an hour. Her rent on the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her dog, Bella, and cat, Daisy, is $695.

    The $6.5 million, 28-unit building where Sharrett lives was developed by Homeport, a Columbus-based nonprofit that works to expand affordable housing. Sharrett moved in two years ago seeking relief from a $1,000 rent payment, and today isn’t sure what she’d do without it.

    She worries about the needs of people like herself as the region grows through projects such as Intel.

    “Rent is outrageous. Prices of homes are outrageous. And my income is not outrageous,” Sharrett said.

    Across the country, a growing number of companies are responding to housing concerns by rolling out ambitious plans for thousands of units of new housing — though efforts fall far short of actual needs.

    In 2021, Amazon launched its $2 billion Housing Equity Fund to create over 8,000 affordable homes across three regions where it operates: the Puget Sound in Washington state; Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.

    In 2019, Apple said it would commit $2.5 billion toward easing California’s housing crisis, one of a number of initiatives by high tech companies. This month Walt Disney World picked a developer to construct affordable housing on 80 acres of its land in Orange County, Florida.

    Intel, too, looks forward to partnering with Ohio community leaders to prepare for the increased housing demand over the next few years, said Intel spokesperson Linda Qian, without providing details.

    Experts say it’s in Intel’s best interest to contribute toward alleviating the region’s housing shortage. Employers in greater Columbus already blame high worker turnover and reduced productivity on long commute times, according to a report by the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio.

    “Without the housing product it can easily stifle the workforce needs of Intel and others,” said Jamie Green, a Columbus-based planning consultant.

    As the Intel project unfolds, it highlights the challenges ahead, said Leah Evans, president and CEO of Homeport, which developed Sharrett’s affordable apartment complex.

    “This just brought to light that for every one job you create, you’ve got a commute and you’ve got a housing unit” need, Evans said. “You have to be thinking about all those things.”

    ———

    Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

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  • Leak at Pennsylvania gas storage well spewing methane

    Leak at Pennsylvania gas storage well spewing methane

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    A vent at an underground natural gas storage well in Western Pennsylvania has been spewing massive amounts of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere for more than 11 days and attempts to plug the leak have thus far failed.

    Owner Equitrans Midstream said the well at its Rager Mountain storage facility, located in a rural area about 1.5 hours east of Pittsburgh, is venting about 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, according to initial estimates.

    If accurate, that would total 1.1 billion cubic feet in emissions so far, equal to the greenhouse gas emissions from burning 1,080 rail cars of coal.

    Pennsylvania environmental regulators issued the company notice of five potential violations of state law. As a precaution, the Federal Aviation Administration has restricted aircraft from within a 1-mile radius of the leaking well.

    A written statement provided Friday by Equitrans spokeswoman Natalie Cox said “there are no immediate public safety concerns” and the company has been working with a specialty well services company to plug the leak, which was first reported Nov. 6.

    The Rager facility is in Jackson Township, at the heart of the Marcellus Shale formation that has seen a boom in gas production since the introduction of hydraulic fracturing more than a decade ago. Residents living as far as four miles away from the leak told The Associated Press on Friday they could hear the roar of pressurized gas escaping from the well and could smell the fumes.

    Tracey Ryan, who homeschools her two young children at her house about three miles away, said the air reeks of sulfur and the noise is so bad she has had trouble sleeping.

    “When you’re laying in bed at night, it sounds like a jet plane taking off,” said the 39-year-old mother. ”It’s unreal, the noise that’s coming, and it’s constant. … Everybody just keeps telling us we’re safe. But it doesn’t feel safe if you can hear it and smell it.”

    Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is colorless and odorless. But when the gas is processed for transport and sale, producers add a chemical called mercaptan to give it a distinctive “rotten egg” smell that helps make people aware of leaks.

    Methane’s earth-warming power is some 83 times stronger over 20 years than the carbon dioxide that comes from car tailpipes and power plant smokestacks. Oil and gas companies are the top industrial emitters of methane, which, once released into the atmosphere, will be disrupting the climate for decades, contributing to more heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and floods.

    The new leak comes as the Environmental Protection Agency on Nov. 11 updated proposed new rules intended to cut methane and other harmful emissions from oil and gas operations.

    The Rager facility has 10 storage wells with a total storage capacity of 9 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Equitrans announced Thursday the leak had been stopped when workers flooded the leaking well, but the hiss of venting gas returned early Friday morning.

    Cox cautioned the estimate of 100 million cubic feet of natural gas leaking per day is preliminary and the company would be unable to provide an accurate account of the gas lost until an inventory verification study is completed.

    The initial estimate would potentially put the Rager leak as smaller but comparable to the daily emissions from the worst uncontrolled gas leaks in U.S. history — a 2018 blowout at an Ohio gas well owned by a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and the 2015 disaster at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in California.

    The citations issued against the company by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection include failures to properly maintain and operate the gas facility, creating a public nuisance and producing a “hazard to public health a safety.” The company was also cited for failing to provide state inspectors “free and unrestricted access.”

    Lauren Camarda, spokeswoman for the state environmental agency, said that when members of a state emergency response team first arrived at the site on Nov. 7 they were initially barred from entering and told “access was restricted to critical personnel only.”

    Cox said that when the state team arrived, Equitrans’ contractors were still in the process of implementing a safety boundary to avoid introducing a potential ignition source that could ignite the highly flammable methane leaking into the air.

    The gas is coming from a vent designed to relieve intense pressures building up in the well and prevent a blowout. Cox said the company is now withdrawing gas from four storage wells to reduce the overall pressure in the field. Efforts to plug the leak were expected to continue through the weekend, including attempts to plug the well with concrete.

    Nearby residents said a resolution can’t come soon enough.

    Edana Glessner, who runs a wedding venue 3.6 miles from the well site, said the smell was making her nauseous and impacted her business.

    “You could hear it during the last wedding we had,” she said. “And it smelled, but everybody was OK with it. We said we’re really sorry.”

    ————

    Biesecker reported from Washington and Rubinkam from northeastern Pennsylvania.

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  • Opponents file lawsuit targeting medication abortions

    Opponents file lawsuit targeting medication abortions

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    AUSTIN, Texas — Abortion opponents who helped challenge Roe v. Wade filed a lawsuit Friday that takes aim at medication abortions, asking a federal judge in Texas to undo decades-old approval of the drugs that have become the preferred method of ending pregnancy in the U.S.

    Even before the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion earlier this year, the use of abortion pills had been increasing in the U.S. and demand is expected to grow as more states seek abortion limits.

    The lawsuit was filed by the Alliance for Defending Freedom, which was also involved in the Mississippi case that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned. The lawsuit argues the U.S. Food and Drug Administration erred in approving the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol and overstepped its authority in doing so.

    Reached for comment, the FDA said it does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.

    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Amarillo, Texas. The state banned abortion after the Roe decision and is among the states where GOP lawmakers have banned mail delivery of the pills.

    The number of medication abortions has increased since regulators started allowing them and now account for roughly 40% of U.S. abortions. The medication can cost as little as $110 to get by mail, compared with at least $300 for a surgical abortion. Research has shown the pills are safe.

    However, people seeking abortion pills often must navigate differing state laws, including bans on delivery of the drugs and on telemedicine consultations to discuss the medication with a health care provider. And until Democrat Joe Biden became president, U.S. government policy banned mail delivery nationwide.

    Abortion medication is approved for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy. The pills may be taken in a doctor’s office or clinic, where patients sometimes have an ultrasound or lab tests beforehand.

    Mifepristone is taken first, swallowed by mouth. The drug dilates the cervix and blocks the effects of the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy.

    Misoprostol, a drug also used to treat stomach ulcers, is taken 24 to 48 hours later. The pill is designed to dissolve when placed between the gums and teeth or in the vagina. It causes the uterus to cramp and contract, causing bleeding and expelling pregnancy tissue.

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  • Missouri summer camp operators sued over abuse settlement

    Missouri summer camp operators sued over abuse settlement

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    A Tennessee man filed a lawsuit Friday claiming that operators of the Kanakuk Camps in Branson, Missouri, lied to him and his parents while persuading them to sign a settlement over sexual abuse by a camp counselor.

    Logan Yandell, 27, of Hendersonville, Tennessee, and his parents reached a confidential settlement with Kanakuk in 2010 that included a non-disclosure agreement after Yandell was abused by Peter Newman, who is serving two life sentences for sexually abusing multiple children while working for the Christian summer camps.

    The lawsuit names Kanakuk Ministries, Kanakuk CEO Joe White, Kanakuk Heritage Inc., Westchester Fire Insurance Company and a John Doe.

    A statement from Kanakuk said the company just received the lawsuit on Friday and does not comment on pending litigation.

    “We will respond further if or when appropriate,” the company said. “In the meantime, we continue to pray for all who have been affected by Pete Newman’s behavior.

    Yandell was sexually abused while attending the summer camp and other activities between 2005 and 2008.

    The lawsuit alleges that Kanakuk officials claimed they did not know about Newman’s sexual abuse of children prior to his arrest but the Yandell family later learned that wasn’t true.

    In December 2021, the conservative online news outlet The Dispatch reported that Newman’s supervisor, Will Cunningham, recommended in 2003 that Newman be fired because of reports of child sexual abuse, including participating in several activities with children while nude, “counseling” them in a hot tub and sleeping alone with children.

    The lawsuit filed Friday contains an affidavit from Cunningham confirming that he wanted Newman fired. Instead, White overruled the suggestion and promoted Newman to camp director, according to the lawsuit.

    The family would not have signed the settlement and non-disclosure agreement if they had known that Kanakuk officials had lied to them, Brian Kent, one of the family’s attorneys, said Friday.

    He said company officials took advantage of the family.

    “Knowing that the Yandells were really trying to deal with making sure their child is OK and getting him better, this was a clear effort by Joe White and Kanakuk to advise them this is something they should do. And they lied to them in order to get them to sign.”

    The lawsuit is not a class action but Kent said it’s possible more of Newman’s victims will file similar lawsuits because of the new information.

    The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual abuse but Yandell is named in the lawsuit and has publicly discussed his case.

    One of the reasons the family decided to file the lawsuit 12 years after signing the settlement was to allow Yandell to “get his voice back and have his voice heard,” Kent said.

    Newman is serving two life sentences plus 30 years in state prison after his 2010 sentencing on seven felony counts of sexually abusing boys while he was a Kanakuk counselor. The number of victims is believed to be in the hundreds, according to the lawsuit.

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  • How major US stock indexes fared Friday 11/18/2022

    How major US stock indexes fared Friday 11/18/2022

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    Stocks ended higher on Wall Street but still wound up with weekly losses after several days of bumpy trading.

    Some retailers posted big gains after reporting surprisingly strong quarterly results and giving investors encouraging forecasts. Gap, Ross Stores and Foot Locker all rose sharply. Energy stocks fell along with crude oil prices.

    The S&P 500 rose Friday. The Nasdaq ended just barely in the green and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which helps set mortgage rates, gained ground.

    On Friday:

    The S&P 500 rose 18.78 points, or 0.5%, to 3,965.34.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 199.37 points, or 0.6%, to 33,745.69.

    The Nasdaq rose 1.10 points, or less than 0.1%, to 11,146.06.

    The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 10.61 points, or 0.6%, to 1,849.73.

    For the week:

    The S&P 500 is down 27.59 points, or 0.7%.

    The Dow is down 2.17 points, or less than 0.1%.

    The Nasdaq is down 177.27 points, or 1.6%.

    The Russell 2000 is down 33.01 points, or 1.8%.

    For the year:

    The S&P 500 is down 800.84 points, or 16.8%.

    The Dow is down 2,592.61 points, or 7.1%.

    The Nasdaq is down 4,498.91 points, or 28.8%.

    The Russell 2000 is down 395.58 points, or 17.6%.

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  • Elizabeth Holmes faces sentencing for her Theranos crimes

    Elizabeth Holmes faces sentencing for her Theranos crimes

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    A federal judge on Friday will decide whether disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes should serve a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors and endangering patients while peddling a bogus blood-testing technology.

    Holmes’ sentencing in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where she was convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January marks a climactic moment in a saga that has been dissected in an HBO documentary and an award-winning Hulu TV series about her meteoric rise and mortifying downfall.

    U.S. District Judge Edward Davila will take center stage as he weighs the federal government’s recommendation to send Holmes, 38, to federal prison for 15 years. That’s less than the maximum sentence of 20 years she could face, but her legal team is asking for incarceration of no more than 18 months, preferably served in home confinement.

    Her lawyers have argued that Holmes deserves more lenient treatment as a well-meaning entrepreneur who is now a devoted mother with another child on the way. Their arguments were supported by more than 130 letters submitted by family, friends and former colleagues praising Holmes.

    A probation report also submitted to Davila recommended a nine-year prison sentence for Holmes.

    Prosecutors want Holmes to pay $804 million in restitution. The amount covers most of the nearly $1 billion that Holmes raised from a list of sophisticated investors that included software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and the Walton family behind Walmart.

    While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former U.S. Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz “for the fool.”

    Davila’s judgment – and Holmes’ reporting date for a potential stint in prison — could be affected by her second pregnancy in two years. After giving birth to a son shortly before her trial started last year, Holmes became pregnant at some point while free on bail this year.

    Although her lawyers didn’t mention the pregnancy in a 82-page memo submitted to Davila last week, the pregnancy was confirmed in a letter from her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, that urged the judge to be merciful.

    In that 12-page letter, which included pictures of Holmes doting on their 1-year-old son, Evans mentioned that Holmes participated in a Golden Gate Bridge swimming event earlier this year while pregnant. He also noted Holmes suffered through a case of COVID-19 in August while pregnant. Evans didn’t disclose Holmes’ due date in his letter.

    Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, predicted that Davila’s sentencing decision won’t be swayed by the pregnancy, but expects the judge to allow her to remain free until after the baby is born.

    “She will be no more of a flight risk after she is sentenced than she was while awaiting sentencing,” Levin said. “We have to temper our sentences with some measure of humanity.”

    The pregnancy makes it more likely Davila will be criticized no matter what sentence he imposes, predicted Amanda Kramer, another former federal prosecutor.

    “There is a pretty healthy debate about what kind of sentence is needed to effect general deterrence to send a message to others who are thinking of crossing that line from sharp salesmanship into material misrepresentation,” Kramer said.

    Federal prosecutor Robert Leach emphatically declared Holmes deserves a severe punishment for engineering a scam that he described as one of the most egregious white-collar crimes ever committed in Silicon Valley. In a scathing 46-page memo, Leach told the judge he has an opportunity to send a message that curbs the hubris and hyperbole unleashed by the tech boom of the past decade.

    Holmes “preyed on hopes of her investors that a young, dynamic entrepreneur had changed healthcare,” Leach wrote. “And through her deceit, she attained spectacular fame, adoration, and billions of dollars of wealth.”

    Even though Holmes was acquitted by a jury on four counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to patients who took Theranos blood tests, Leach also asked Davila to factor in the health threats posed by Holmes’ conduct.

    Holmes’ lawyer Kevin Downey painted her as a selfless visionary who spent 14 years of her life trying to revolutionize health care with a technology that was supposed to be able to scan for hundreds of diseases and other aliments with just a few drops of blood.

    Although evidence submitted during her trial showed the tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have steered patients in the wrong direction, her lawyers asserted Holmes never stopped trying to perfect the technology until Theranos collapsed in 2018. They also pointed out that Holmes never sold any of her Theranos shares — a stake valued at $4.5 billion in 2014 when Holmes was being hailed as the next Steve Jobs on the covers of business magazines.

    Defending herself against criminal charges has left Holmes with “substantial debt from which she is unlikely to recover,” Downey wrote, suggesting that she is unlikely ever to pay any restitution that Davila might order as part of her sentence.

    “Holmes is not a danger to society,” Downey wrote.

    Downey also asked Davila to consider the alleged sexual and emotional abuse Holmes suffered while she was involved romantically with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who became a Theranos investor, top executive and eventually an accomplice in her crimes. Balwani, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7 after being convicted in a July trial on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

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  • New CEO of FTX blasts its handling of financial information

    New CEO of FTX blasts its handling of financial information

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    The new CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy, said he has never seen such a “complete failure” of corporate control.

    John Ray III, in a filing with the U.S. bankruptcy court for the district of Delaware, said there was a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information.”

    “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray said. “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”

    Ray noted that many of the companies in the FTX Group, particularly those in Antigua and the Bahamas, didn’t have appropriate corporate governance and many had never held a board meetings. The group also had cash management procedural failures, including the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories. There was also insufficient attention paid to the creditworthiness of banking partners.

    Ray also addressed the use of corporate funds to pay for homes and other items for employees.

    “In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas,” he said.

    So far, debtors have found and secured “only a fraction” of the group’s digital assets that they hope to recover, with about $740 million of cryptocurrency secured in new cold wallets, which is a way of holding cryptocurrency tokens offline, said Ray.

    Ray was named CEO of FTX less than a week ago when the company filed for bankruptcy protection and its CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried resigned. The embattled cryptocurrency exchange, short billions of dollars, sought bankruptcy protection after the exchange experienced the crypto equivalent of a bank run.

    In its bankruptcy filing, FTX listed more than 130 affiliated companies around the globe. The company valued its assets between $10 billion to $50 billion, with a similar estimate for its liabilities.

    Bankman-Fried was recently estimated to be worth $23 billion. His net worth has all but evaporated, according to Forbes and Bloomberg, which closely track the net worth of the world’s richest people.

    FTX’s failure goes beyond finance. The company had major sports sponsorships as well, including Formula One racing and a sponsorship deal with Major League Baseball. Miami-Dade County decided Friday to terminate its relationship with FTX, meaning the venue where the Miami Heat play will no longer be known as FTX Arena. Mercedes was planning to remove FTX from its race cars starting last weekend.

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  • Ram heavy-duty diesel pickups recalled for engine fire risk

    Ram heavy-duty diesel pickups recalled for engine fire risk

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    DETROIT — Stellantis is recalling nearly 250,000 heavy duty diesel Ram pickup trucks in the U.S. because transmission fluid can leak and cause engine fires.

    The recall covers certain 2020 to 2023 Ram 2500 and some 2020 through 2022 Ram 3500 trucks. All have 6.7-liter Cummins diesel engines and 68RFE transmissions.

    The company says heat and pressure can build up in the transmission, expelling fluid from the dipstick tube. If the fluid hits a hot engine part, that can touch of a fire.

    Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, is still developing a repair. In the meantime the company says owners can still drive the trucks but drivers should contact a dealer if they see a dashboard warning light.

    The company says it has 16 reports of fires and 48 complaints, field reports and warranty claims due to the problem. It’s aware of one minor injury caused by the issue.

    Owners are to be notified by letter starting Dec. 30. They can contact Stellantis customer service at (800) 853-1403.

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  • Blizzard, NetEase gaming partnership in China to end

    Blizzard, NetEase gaming partnership in China to end

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    HONG KONG — American game developer Blizzard Entertainment said Thursday that it will suspend most of its game services in mainland China after current licensing agreements with Chinese games company NetEase end, sending NetEase’s shares tumbling.

    Blizzard, which partnered with NetEase in 2008 to offer popular games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo in mainland China, said in a statement the two companies did not reach a deal to renew the agreements “that is consistent with Blizzard’s operating principles and commitments to players and employees.”

    The partnership is set to expire in January next year. Blizzard said that new sales will be “suspended in the coming days.”

    NetEase shares plunged as much as 15% in Hong Kong following the news.

    In a statement, NetEase said that the expiration of its licenses with Blizzard would have “no material impact” on the company’s financial results.

    The company said revenues and income from the licensed Blizzard games represented “low single digits” as a total percentage of NetEase’s total revenues and income last year, and in the first three quarters of 2022.

    “We have put in a great deal of effort and tried with our utmost sincerity to negotiate with Activision Blizzard so that we could continue our collaboration and serve the many dedicated players in China,” William Ding, CEO of NetEase, said in the statement. “However, there were material differences on key terms and we could not reach an agreement.”

    Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Ybarra said that the firm is looking for alternatives to bring the games back to Chinese players in the future.

    “We’re immensely grateful for the passion our Chinese community has shown throughout the nearly 20 years we’ve been bringing our games to China through NetEase and other partners,” Ybarra said.

    The games affected by the suspension are World of Warcraft, the StarCraft series, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch and Diablo III.

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  • Arizona company adds $1B solar power parts plant in Alabama

    Arizona company adds $1B solar power parts plant in Alabama

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    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Arizona-based First Solar Inc. has selected Alabama as the site of a more than $1 billion factory that will manufacture modules that generate solar power, the company announced Wednesday.

    First Solar said in a statement that the plant, to be located in Lawrence County in the Tennessee Valley region, will create more than 700 jobs.

    The factory is part of a previously announced plan to increase First Solar’s U.S. manufacturing capacity to more than 10 gigawatts by 2025, the company said. It already has three factories in Ohio, one of which is expected to begin production next year.

    First Solar describes itself as the only major solar manufacturer that has headquarters in the United States and is not making components in China. The project will bring the company’s total investment in U.S. manufacturing to more than $4 billion, it said.

    A bill signed by President Joe Biden in August will direct spending, tax credits and loans to bolster technology like solar panels; consumer efforts to improve home energy efficiency; emissions-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-powered power plants; and air pollution controls for farms, ports and low-income communities.

    First Solar CEO Mark Widmar said that legislation “has firmly placed America on the path to a sustainable energy future” and the new plants will help with the transition toward cleaner energy, which supporters say will help stem climate change.

    ———

    This story has been corrected to reflect that the plant will be in Lawrence County.

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  • Musk testifies in lawsuit over Tesla compensation package

    Musk testifies in lawsuit over Tesla compensation package

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    WILMINGTON, Del. — Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the witness stand Wednesday to defend himself in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by the company’s board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion.

    Musk denied that he dictated terms of the compensation package or attended any meetings at which the plan was discussed by the board, its compensation committee, or a working group that helped develop it.

    “I was entirely focused on the execution of the company,” he said.

    Plaintiff’s attorney Greg Varallo spent much of his early cross-examination trying to draw Musk into admitting that he controls Tesla to such an extent that he can sway the board to do his bidding. Among other things, Varallo questioned Musk about his title of “Technoking,” a role that Musk has previously noted comes with “panache” and “great dance moves.”

    “I think comedy is legal,” Musk told Varallo, who had questioned whether Musk was “stone-cold sober” when he came up with the title.

    Varallo also suggested that one of the reasons that Musk developed a “master plan” for Tesla was to let people know he was in charge. He also noted that Musk makes recommendations regarding compensation for senior executives, and that he unilaterally made the decision to pause Tesla’s policy of accepting bitcoin from vehicle purchasers.

    “You’re asking complex questions that can’t be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Musk said when Varallo asked whether he came up with the vision for Tesla.

    The lawsuit alleges that the performance-based stock option grant was negotiated by the compensation committee and approved by Tesla board members who had conflicts interest due to personal and professional ties to Musk, including investments in his companies. It also alleges the shareholder vote approving the compensation plan was based on a misleading proxy statement.

    The shareholder plaintiff alleges that the proxy wrongly described members of the compensation committee as “independent,” and characterized all of the milestones that triggered vesting in the stock options as “stretch” goals meant to be difficult to achieve, even though internal projections indicated that three operational milestones were likely to be achieved within 18 months of the stockholder vote.

    Attorneys for the defendants have noted that two institutional proxy advising firms that urged shareholders to reject the plan nevertheless noted that it would require “significant and perhaps historic achievements” and require growth that “appear stretching by any benchmark.”

    The plan called for Musk to reap billions if Tesla hit certain market capitalization and operational milestones. For each incidence of simultaneously meeting a market cap milestone and an operational milestone, Musk, who owned about 22% of Tesla when the plan was approved, would get stock equal to 1% of outstanding shares at the time of the grant. His interest in the company would grow to about 28% if the company’s market capitalization grew by $600 billion.

    Each milestone in the plan includes growing Tesla’s market capitalization by $50 billion and meeting aggressive revenue and pretax profit growth targets. Musk would receive the full benefit of the pay plan, $55.8 billion, only if Tesla hit a market capitalization of $650 billion and unprecedented revenue and earnings within a decade.

    To date, Tesla has achieved all 12 of the market capitalization milestones and 11 operational milestones, resulting in the vesting of 11 of the grant’s 12 tranches and providing Musk over $52.4 billion in stock option gains, according to the lawsuit. Since the grant was awarded, Tesla’s market capitalization has increased from $59 billion to more than $613 billion now, having briefly hit $1 trillion early this year. Musk has sold Tesla stock to finance the Twitter purchase, adding downward pressure on the shares.

    Shares of Tesla and other automakers have been battered this year, but the Austin, Texas, company earned $5.5 billion in 2021, blowing away the previous year’s profit of $721 million. It also produced a record 936,000 vehicles, nearly double vehicle production in 2020.

    Attorneys for the plaintiff have suggested that incentivizing Musk to remain at Tesla’s helm by offering a huge compensation package was unnecessary, because he’s never suggested that he might leave. They’ve also suggested that Musk’s true motive in negotiating the package was to fund his dream to colonize Mars.

    In a November 2017 email to former Tesla General Counsel Todd Maron, Musk expressed optimism that the compensation package would be seen in a favorable light.

    “Given that this will all go to causes that at least aspirationally maximize the probability of a good future for humanity, plus all Tesla shareholders will be super happy, I think this will be received well,” he wrote, adding that “it should come across as an ultra bullish view of the future.”

    While on the stand, Musk also said that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.

    “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time,” Musk said, according to multiple media reports.

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