A California city is moving to tax its residents for conserving TOO MUCH water.
“During the drought, many water agencies raised rates on Bay Area residents who used too much water,” reports CBS San Francisco. “Now, customers of the San Jose Water Company may soon pay more because they didn’t use enough.”
People responded to warnings telling them water was scarce by using less.
“We tried the best we could with a family of five,” one San Jose resident admitted to CBS. “It’s a little tough but I think we did OK with it.”
But because people changed their water use habits, the city’s water utility company found it was unable to fund operational costs.
“We don’t sell the amount of water that was projected because people are changing their behavior and using less water,” San Jose Water spokesperson Jayme Ackemann explained. “And because of that, unfortunately, we can’t cover our costs.”
Now the company is running a $9 million deficit, and is asking the city’s Public Utilities Commission to approve a surcharge of as much as seven percent, nearly $2 on average, to residents’ bills.
Residents interviewed by CBS did not like the idea of being taxed for doing their part during a water emergency.
“You know we ask our family our kids to be careful with the water usage, and now to hear that we’re gonna have to pay extra for doing that doesn’t seem to fair,” one resident said.
“Yeah, we’re going to punish you for doing your duty,” expressed another resident. “You know, making good on the environment and everything? I just don’t get it anymore.”
The company says they overestimated the amount of water people would use and “set the per gallon price too low,” according to CBS.
San Jose residents can protest the surcharge through April 18. If approved, the charge will begin appearing on bills starting July 1.
FILE PHOTO: European conservative party leader Manfred Weber gives a news conference inside the main synagogue in Budapest, Hungary, March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
March 15, 2019
BERLIN (Reuters) – Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban still needs to do more to avoid the expulsion of his anti-immigration Fidesz party from the main European conservative group, its leader was quoted on Friday as saying.
Thirteen conservative parties have demanded Fidesz be expelled from the European People’s Party (EPP) over an anti-immigration and anti-EU campaign that attacked European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a fellow EPP member, and U.S. philanthropist George Soros.
Orban, a strident nationalist, has written letters of apology to EPP politicians but Manfred Weber, the German who leads the grouping in the European Parliament, said the Hungarian prime minister had to do more.
“If Viktor Orban doesn’t manage to create trust in coming days among the EPP parties and his critics, then things will be difficult,” Weber told Der Spiegel, according to extracts of an interview published on Friday.
Tearing down the posters “is a start, but no more”, he said, referring to Orban’s move to take down posters that suggest Juncker and Soros are conspiring to flood Europe with illegal immigrants from Muslim countries.
The EPP, made up of the main center-right parties from across Europe, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, is the largest grouping in the European Parliament.
With the EPP preparing now for EU elections in May, Weber – accused by some of having been too conciliatory toward Orban and Fidesz – hopes to replace Juncker later this year as president of the Commission, the EU executive.
The EPP gains from an electorally successful central European party like Fidesz in its ranks, while Orban benefits from having a large group in the European Parliament to shield him from censure there.
However, his anti-immigrant and anti-EU rhetoric has infuriated many moderate conservatives around Europe. The EPP will hold a secret ballot next Wednesday to decide whether to expel Fidesz from the grouping.
The EU has long criticized Fidesz over policies it says threaten the rule of law by imposing party control over the judiciary, media and other institutions. Fidesz rejects this.
Some European politicians also condemn Orban’s attacks on Soros, who is Jewish, as anti-Semitic, which Fidesz also rejects.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Traffic is seen between office buildings at sunset in downtown Hong Kong, China June 29, 2017. Picture taken June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Bobby Yip
February 27, 2019
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s economy grew 3 percent in 2018, the government said on Wednesday, slightly slower than its forecast, as a bruising trade war between Washington and Beijing weighs and poses greater risks to the city this year.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan, in his budget speech, forecast growth of 2-3 percent for this year.
The government said the fourth quarter expanded 1.3 percent from a year earlier.
Chan had said in a blog post this month the economy grew less than 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter against 2.9 percent growth in the previous three months. Some economists had estimated 2 percent annual growth, while the government had forecast 3.2 percent.
(Reporting by Anne Marie Roantree and Twinnie Siu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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BEIRUT – The Latest on the Syria conflict (all times local):
3:15 p.m.
Syrian opposition activists and paramedics say two bomb blasts in the northwestern city of Idlib have inflicted casualties.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blasts in the Qusour neighborhood during rush hour wounded about 30 people. It said there were unconfirmed reports of deaths.
The Local Coordination Committees and the Syrian Civil Defense, a group of first responders, also reported casualties. The bombs went off in the same area, just seconds apart.
The city of Idlib is controlled by al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has wide influence in northern Syria.
The city has been hit with bombings in recent months that killed or wounded scores of people.
The Observatory and the Syrian Civil Defense earlier reported government shelling of rebel-held towns south of Idlib, saying several people were wounded.
___
12:30 p.m.
More than 300 Islamic State militants who are holed up in a tiny area in eastern Syria are refusing to surrender to U.S.-backed Syrian forces and are trying to negotiate an exit.
A person familiar with the negotiations says the militants are asking for a corridor to the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the talks, which he described as taking place indirectly.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group that monitors the civil war in Syria, says another request by the Islamic State group to be evacuated to neighboring Iraq was also rejected.
The militants are making their last stand in eastern Syria, hiding among hundreds of civilians.
Democratic strategist Zach Friend said Thursday that the party's presidential candidates may yet “find a way not to win” the 2020 election.
Appearing on "Your World with Neil Cavuto,” he said, "This is the one that I think is a very winnable race for Democrats and we might still find a way to not win it based on some of the things that we're doing,” Friend said.
Friend, who worked for the Barack Obama and John Kerry presidential campaigns, was discussing candidates who've been pushing for tax hikes to pay for costly government programs.
Cavuto asked Friend which candidate he had “hooked up with.”
Friend said he hadn’t aligned himself yet.
In another exchange, he voiced his opinion that were Obama running today, a win would be far from assured. “I've got to say this, that I don't think that Barack Obama would get through the 2020 primary,” Friend said.
“I think the circular firing squad comment he made is spot on,” Friend said.
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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.
News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.
The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.
“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.
“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.
British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.
Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.
“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”
Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.
There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.
(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
April 26, 2019
SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.
Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.
Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.
Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.
Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.
Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.
A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.
The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.
The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.
Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.
The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.
Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
April 26, 2019
By James Oliphant
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.
In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.
The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.
But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.
“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”
Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.
Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.
Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.
“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”
Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”
Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”
PAST VS. FUTURE
Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.
Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.
Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.
“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.
Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.
Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.
“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.
Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.
But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.
Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.
“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”
‘ONE OF US’
Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.
The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.
Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.
“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”
Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.
“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”
(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)
A man looks out at a flooded residential area in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
April 26, 2019
MONTREAL/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Rising waters were prompting further evacuations in central Canada on Thursday, with the mayor of the country’s capital, Ottawa, declaring a state of emergency and Quebec authorities warning that a hydroelectric dam was at risk of breaking.
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared the emergency in response to rising water levels along the Ottawa River and weather forecasts that called for significant rainfall on Friday.
In a statement on Twitter, Watson asked for help from the Ontario provincial government and the country’s military.
He warned that “flood levels are currently forecasted to exceed the levels that caused significant damage to numerous properties in the city of Ottawa in 2017.”
Spring flooding had killed one person and forced more than 900 people from their homes in Canada’s Quebec province as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, according to a government website.
Ottawa has received 80 requests for service related to potential flooding such as sandbagging, a city spokeswoman said.
The prospect of more rain over the next 24 to 48 hours triggered concerns on Thursday that the hydroelectric dam at Bell Falls in the western part of Quebec could be at risk of failing because of rising water levels.
Quebec’s provincial police said 250 people were protectively removed from homes in the area as of late afternoon in case the dam on the Rouge River breaks.
The dam is now at its full flow capacity of 980 cubic meters per second of water, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for the province’s state-owned utility, Hydro Quebec. He said Hydro Quebec expected the flow could rise to 1,200 cubic meters per second of water over the next two days.
“We have to take the worst-case scenario into consideration, since we`re already at the maximum capacity,” Labbé said by phone.
The dam is part of a power station that no longer produces electricity, but is regularly inspected by Hydro Quebec, he said.
(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Ljunggren and Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)
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