pelespirit

On Tuesday, both a federal district court in Oregon and a state court in Washington blocked the $24.6 billion deal, saying it would reduce competition, which would harm shoppers.

By Wednesday morning, Albertsons abandoned the merger and filed a lawsuit against Kroger, alleging a willful breach of contract for not doing enough to win regulatory approval for the merger. Kroger, in a statement in response, said Albertsons is deflecting its own responsibility.

The two are likely headed for a new bitter legal fight with money at stake. Albertsons is seeking "billions of dollars" in damages for lost shareholder value, legal costs and time in limbo. It also wants the $600 million merger break-up fee, to which Kroger says Albertsons is "not entitled."

Wray said he would resign by the end of President Joe Biden’s administration.

“My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day,” he told employees. “In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.”

The trove of tax records behind ProPublica’s “Secret IRS Files” series contains plenty of examples of billionaire financiers who avoided Medicare tax despite earning huge amounts from their companies. In 2016, Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, paid $0. So did Stephen Schwarzman, head of the investment behemoth Blackstone. Bill Ackman, the headline-grabbing hedge fund manager, was able to shield almost all his income from the tax.

But by the 1970s, creative uses of limited partnerships proliferated. One variety caught Congress’ attention. Government employees were covered by public pensions and thus were not eligible for Social Security, but brokerages were pitching these employees on limited partnerships as a way around that. The government workers could buy a small share of a business and receive self-employment income that qualified them for future Social Security benefits.

After a grueling hearing that stretched over two days, a federal bankruptcy judge declined to approve the sale of Infowars to Global Tetrahedron, LLC, the Onion’s parent company late on Tuesday.

Last month, Infowars was sold at bankruptcy auction to the company; Onion CEO Ben Collins said they planned to relaunch the conspiracist site as a parody of itself. Instead, the ruling by Christopher Lopez, a bankruptcy judge in Texas’ Southern District, means the auction will be overturned and no new auction will be held. The judge ordered the US trustee who oversaw the bankruptcy process and auction to report back to the court in 30 days with a new plan to bring the case to a close.

Despite a good faith effort by the trustee to maximize profits for the Sandy Hook families, who are Jones’ biggest creditors, in making his ruling Lopez held that “the process fell down.”

To help reverse those dire trends, Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services launched the Nest in August 2023, the first guaranteed income program in the United States that specifically serves Native communities.

Under the program, 150 pregnant people who identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander were selected to receive $1,250 a month, no strings attached.

Participating parents — some of whom already have children or live with older relatives — started receiving the money during pregnancy or just after giving birth. They will continue getting payments until their child’s third birthday, meaning a family may receive as much as $45,000 by the time they exit the program.

In April, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection filed its formal intent to issue the oil and gas drilling permit to the Louisiana-based Clearwater Land & Minerals FLA, LLC.

The company wants to drill an exploratory well roughly 14,000 feet into the earth, according to filings, and the state agency indicated it aims to let them. Less than two months later, the nonprofit Apalachicola Riverkeeper launched a legal challenge against the environmental agency and urged a judge to deny the permit over potential harm to the Apalachicola river basin and the surrounding economies that depend on the healthy river for jobs, like shellfish farming and angling.

Leaders of centers in five states told me the VOCA cuts are also forcing them to cut personnel or left them unable to fill vacant positions, leading to longer wait times for children in need of services and burnout for existing staff. And even for organizations that have managed to avoid the worst-case scenario—closing their doors—they are bracing for more funding cuts to come.

The funds mostly come from financial penalties levied in corporate criminal cases. But as federal prosecutors have pursued more deferred and non-prosecution agreements—which allow defendants more time to pay up or avoid charges entirely if they cooperate with the government—deposits into the Crime Victims Fund have shrunk from about $6.6 billion in 2017 to $2.5 billion this year. (Because of caps set by Congress since 2000 to manage fluctuations in the fund, the amount of money disbursed has been even lower.) The funds are distributed to states based on their population size, and then to eligible programs.

The announcement includes the complete ban of trichloroethylene—also known as TCE—a substance found in common consumer and manufacturing products including degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. In addition, the agency banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of Perc—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.

Earlier this fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported data showing that adult obesity rates—long trending upwards—had fallen modestly over the past few years, from 41.9 to 40.3 percent. The decline sparked discussion on social media and in major news outlets about whether the US has passed so-called “peak obesity”—and whether the growing use of certain weight-loss drugs might account for the shift.

Still, it is premature to declare that GLP-1s have caused overall declining obesity rates in the US. There are a number of ways to interpret the CDC data, and not all of them suggest that obesity rates have actually fallen. Further, recent evidence indicates that GLP-1s might not be as effective for weight loss as initially thought. And there are reasons to question the comparison to cigarette sales. Taken together, all of this suggests that we may need to wait to understand how this new class of drugs affects weight loss at the population level.

The United States Department of Agriculture will begin mandatory testing of US milk supplies for bird flu. The Friday announcement was a break from the previously voluntary testing program for the bird flu virus known as H5N1.

This strain of bird flu was first found in US dairy cattle in March, according to the USDA. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement that the testing program “will give farmers and farmworkers better confidence in the safety of their animals and ability to protect themselves, and it will put us on a path to quickly controlling and stopping the virus’ spread nationwide.”

Three low-income school districts in Texas have granted more than $2 billion in tax relief to new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals on the Gulf Coast, according to a report released Monday by the Sierra Club, which tallied publicly available data on agreements between companies and local public entities.

Those tax breaks, intended to attract investment and employment opportunities, totaled about $4 million per permanent post-construction job promised by developers of the gas projects, said the 34-page report, “The People Always Pay: Tax Breaks Force Gulf Communities to Subsidize the LNG Industry.”

Sierra Club researchers compiled dozens of different tax agreements from 15 LNG projects in Texas and Louisiana that are currently operating, under construction or planned. Proponents of such incentive programs say offering tax breaks supports big business that fuels the economy, attracts investment and upholds American energy dominance. Critics say the tax breaks deprive local communities of important revenue.

If it's just a random person having fun, don't worry as much about it. This will help with 2 things:

• Not as much disinformation
• Less political rage bait