Author: completebodyneeds

A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850,000 to a former reporter at its weekly newspaper to end her federal lawsuit over a police raid of the paper’s offices in 2023 that ignited a national furor over press freedom. Now-retired Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn said in her lawsuit that the raid violated press freedoms and protections from unreasonable law enforcement searches guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. She also said it almost immediately led to health problems, causing the return of potentially life-threatening seizures that had been controlled for years with medication. Zorn’s attorney, Randy Rathbun, and an…

Less than two years after opening, a liquefied natural gas terminal near New Orleans is seeking a multi-billion-dollar expansion under a new Trump administration “emergency” permitting process that shortens environmental review and may weaken protections for surrounding wetlands and waterways. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Plaquemines LNG, on the Mississippi River between Myrtle Grove and Port Sulphur, fast-tracked permitting under a ” national energy emergency ” President Donald Trump declared last year. The agency cut the public comment period from the typical 30 days to just 10, ending July 2, and is expected to move quickly to approve…

After a years-long investigation involving state and local law enforcement teams, Florida authorities have charged seven people in a $100 million workers’ compensation payroll scheme that paid workers in cash and defrauded insurers of premiums. “This criminal enterprise systematically exploited Florida’s workers’ compensation system for personal gain,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a statement. “They undercut legitimate contractors, defrauded insurance companies, and operated an illegal money-service operation that moved nearly $100 million.” The defendants allegedly created a number of shell companies that obtained minimal workers’ compensation insurance coverage by greatly underreported payroll. They then “rented” their certificates of…

Hawaii is in line for a rare hurricane strike as Tropical Storm Lala grazes the Big Island, while severe storms threaten more flooding and outages across Indiana. Tropical Storm Lala may grow into a hurricane as it grazes the Big Island of Hawaii Saturday, bringing dangerous flooding, the National Hurricane Center said. This would be the first hurricane strike anywhere in Hawaii since Iniki in 1992. A hurricane warning has been issued for the island. Lala, with winds of 60 miles (97 kilometers) per hour, was 435 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, and moving west-northwest in the latest hurricane center…

Two slicks have appeared in Iranian waters, satellite imagery and video verified by Reuters show, as tit-for-tat attacks on oil tankers and other vessels by Iran and the United States spark concerns about environmental damage to the Gulf. A potential environmental disaster is already unfolding off Oman outside of the Strait of Hormuz where a grounded tanker, the Caroline Bezengi, is leaking Russian crude oil in a protected marine area and has created a massive slick some estimates put at 2,000 square km. The Caroline Bezengi incident has not been linked to the Iran war. The two latest slicks are…

The U.S. agency that enforces laws banning workplace discrimination has dropped a lawsuit seeking to enforce a subpoena in an investigation of Nike’s treatment of white employees, saying the company has handed over a trove of information. U.S. District Judge Cristian Stevens in St. Louis, Missouri, granted the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s motion on Thursday to dismiss the lawsuit it filed in February, after the agency in a filing late Wednesday said Nike had complied with its subpoena. The commission had claimed the footwear and apparel company refused to comply with demands for information such as data on the…

Harvard University won dismissal of a federal lawsuit claiming that it had “turned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis,” marking another setback in the Trump administration’s campaign against the school. US District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston ruled that the Justice Department didn’t sustain its claims that Harvard violated a civil rights law by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students after the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel. The US focused “almost entirely” on the 2023-24 school year and cited only three incidents after that to support its claims that Harvard violated Title…

More than 2,000 people evacuated their homes in western Germany on Friday, after a wildfire near the Belgian border spread towards a village, local authorities said. Residents were asked to leave their homes in the village of Gey at around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) and go to an assistance center set up at a primary school in a nearby village, they said in a statement. They were urged to carry only essential belongings, identification papers and necessary medicines. “This forest fire threatens to hit the local community hard,” Mona Neubaur, deputy premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, posted on…

Aviva Plc is on track to achieve its profitability targets for the year despite its exposure to wildfires in the UK and Canada, according to its chief executive officer. The British insurer is in contact with customers impacted by the fires in Stourbridge, England to find alternate accommodation, Amanda Blanc said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Friday. Blanc said Aviva has also seen impacts across its customer portfolio in Canada, with the third quarter being the main season for wildfires in the country. “So we will be seeing that,” Blanc said, adding that the company’s projection for profitability for…

A prolific hacking group known for exploiting software vulnerabilities to attack multiple targets simultaneously claimed it had stolen large volumes of data from nearly 50 companies worldwide, including Philips, Shell, Fiserv and GE, according to a posting on the group’s website. Philips said it had been targeted by Cl0p while Shell said it was aware of a recent “possible incident,” confirming an earlier report on Thursday by Dutch media outlet BNR. “We are working with our security teams and relevant experts to investigate the situation,” a Shell spokesperson said. “Philips has identified and contained an attempted cybersecurity compromise of a…