According to Senator Udall, the Gold King Mine Spill Recovery Act does three things. It “requires the EPA to compensate New Mexico communities that were impacted. It requires the EPA to keep monitoring the water quality in the Animas and San Juan rivers, and it would help prevent future disasters.”
The city is blaming Wells Fargo for the loss of millions of dollars of potential tax revenue, leading to budgetary limits for services like parks, policing, and libraries. City attorney Barbara Parker said in a statement after the filing, “Wells Fargo’s discriminatory conduct devastated individuals and communities, increasing poverty and wiping out or drastically reducing wealth for minority communities while bankers prospered.”
Parnell was convicted on multiple charges including knowingly shipping peanut products that were tainted with salmonella to merchants throughout the country. An ensuing outbreak between 2008 and 2009 in 46 states contributed to over 700 illnesses and at least nine deaths. Judge Sands also sentenced Parnell’s brother, 56 year-old Michael Parnell, a peanut broker, to 20 years and the plant’s quality assurance manager Mary Wilkerson to five years. Stewart Parnell’s 28 year sentence is the longest ever given for a food poisoning-related offense.
Tangible damage has already begun on a grand scale for the company since the announcement, as its stock has plunged over 35 percent by midday trading on Tuesday, including closing down 18 percent on Monday, already dropping the company’s value by nearly $17 billion even before Tuesday’s announcement. The scandal and costs associated with EPA-ordered recall will likely cost the company at least that much factoring in federal penalties from the U.S. as well as in other nations. In addition, the amount of civil liability and class-action lawsuits could also range in the billions.
In total, the researchers from the nation’s largest brain bank examined 165 brains of people who played football professionally, semi-professionally, or in college or high school while living. The brain bank is run as a joint venture between the VA and the university. They found 131 of the brains showed some evidence of CTE, including the 87 NFL pros.
Najib and Malaysian authorities have undergone exhaustive means to curtail the domestic investigation into allegations that the prime minister funneled money from the fund into his personal account through Swiss banks and the Middle East. The regime gutted the committee appointed to investigate the allegations, shut down a news source, replaced the deputy prime minister and attorney general, and arrested former members of Najib’s political party, including Khairuddin Abu Hassan as he was preparing to travel to the U.S. to urge investigators to help with the probe.
Soble ruled that the ballots will not be counted, writing, “As a result of the employer’s unlawful support and assistance, I am setting aside the decertification election and dismissing the decertification petition.” Gerawan attorney Ron Barsamian admitted to the violation, however claiming that it was not the crux of the issue, saying “The payment to the decertification petitioners to go to Sacramento was from a source outside Gerawan and may be a technical violation, but it also fails to consider the fact that they were going anyway. The money didn’t make them decide.” The case became the lengthiest labor hearing ever in the state of California, involving over 100 witnesses and six months of testimony.
Dr. Califf, a cardiologist, has been serving as the FDA’s deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco since he joined the agency in February, divesting interest in his pre-FDA activity. Although he has donated his proceeds from private industry to nonprofit groups since the mid-2000s, Dr. Califf has taken some form of financial support from over 20 companies according to a disclaimer added to the end of a European Heart Journal article he penned last year. His financial disclosure form for 2014 alone lists consulting fees provided to him from seven companies, and his salary at Duke was funded in part by drugmakers Merck, Novartis and Eli Lilly.
The company faces a potential $37,500 fine by the EPA for each Clean Air Act violation. That could lead to the automaker facing as much as $18 billion in federal penalties in total. To put that in comparison, General Motors just agreed to a $900 million federal penalty on Thursday after a Justice Department criminal investigation over its ignition-switch defect that led to at least 124 deaths, and Toyota agreed to a $1.2 billion penalty last year after several deaths were attributed to an acceleration defect.
The bill is expected to easily pass the Republican-led House, however it faces a much stronger challenge after that. President Barack Obama has refused to lend his support to the bill, stating that oil-export decisions are made by the executive-controlled Department of Commerce, and that the Department can decide on its own to lift the ban. Still, the president has loosened restrictions in recent months, allowing Shell to drill in a new area off of the Alaska coast and allowing additional oil trade to Mexico. The bill may not reach Obama’s desk anyway, as key Senate Democrats are poised to prevent it from being brought to a vote in that chamber.