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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning that there have been reports of teens experiencing seizures after they vape.
“Seizures or convulsions are known potential side effects of nicotine poisoning and have been reported in scientific literature in relation to intentional or accidental swallowing of nicotine-containing e-liquids,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday in an agency news release. Now, an agency review has unearthed 35 reported cases of seizures following the use of e-cigarettes between 2010 and early 2019.
“While 35 cases may not seem like much compared to the total number of people using e-cigarettes, we are nonetheless concerned by these reported cases,” Gottlieb added. “We also recognize that not all of the cases may be reported. We believe these 35 cases warrant scientific investigation into whether there is in fact a connection.”
Gottlieb stressed that health officials don’t yet know for sure that vaping can trigger seizures, but “we’re sharing this early information with the public because as a public health agency, it’s our job to communicate about potential safety concerns associated with the products we regulate….”
With the 35 seizure cases, there is no clear pattern, Gottlieb noted.
“For example, seizures have been reported among first-time e-cigarette users and experienced users,” he said. “In a few situations, e-cigarette users reported a prior history of seizure diagnosis. A few reported cases indicated that the seizures occurred in association with the use of other substances such as marijuana or amphetamines. Seizures have been reported as occurring after a few puffs or up to one day after use.”
One tobacco expert said the link is worth investigating.
“Research demonstrates that high concentrations of nicotine can cause significant health effects, including seizures,” said Andrea Spatarella, a doctor of nursing practice from the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health, in Great Neck, N.Y.
“The user of the vaping device may be unaware or mislead about the actual concentration of nicotine, putting them at potential risk,” she said.
“Further investigation about a possible connection between nicotine overdosing from vaping devices and the development of seizures may provide additional clarity about the safety of these devices,” Spatarella added.
A neurologist said physicians will now be alert for this potential vaping danger.
When someone has a seizure, “the medical community will ask about triggers,” said Dr. Derek Chong, who helps direct neurology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The new FDA warning “will result in the medical community now adding e-cigarettes and what was in them, and how much was used, to that list of things we will specifically ask about when assessing someone who has had a seizure,” he said.
This isn’t the first health concern tied to e-cigarettes. Issues around lung health have already been raised about the chemicals in the vapor that are inhaled while using e-cigarettes, Gottlieb noted. And research published in January suggested that vaping may raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
For the past two years, the FDA has been trying to stem huge spikes in vaping among teens.
Just last month, the agency announced it would go ahead with efforts to restrict sales of some types of flavored vaping products to minors.
Under the new rules, most forms of flavored e-cigarettes would only be sold in stores that verify a customer’s age when he or she enters the store, or the store should have a special age-restricted area set aside for vaping products. Companies that fail to comply could see their products pulled from the market, the agency said at the time.
“We know that nicotine isn’t a harmless substance, especially in the developing brains of our youth,” Gottlieb said Tuesday. “We know that initiation to, and addiction to, nicotine by never-smokers — predominantly youth and young adults — raises public health concerns. These risks are among the many reasons why we so strongly believe that no child should be using any tobacco product.”
The FDA encouraged the public to report cases of people who have used e-cigarettes and have had a seizure by going to the FDA website.
Source: NewsMax America
FILE PHOTO: A worker pushes a trolley loaded with goods past a construction site in the central business district (CBD) of Sydney in Australia, March 15, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
April 4, 2019
By Colin Packham
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia’s opposition Labor party on Thursday promised sweeping tax cuts for low-income workers and more spending on healthcare as it sought to outflank the government on key battleground issues ahead of an election to be held within weeks.
The center-left party is well ahead in the polls after six years of a conservative government that has been riddled with internal ructions that have toppled two prime ministers. An election must be held by mid-May and could be called as soon as this week.
Replying to the government’s pre-election budget unveiled earlier this week, Labor promised to match tax cuts for middle-income Australians, people earning between A$48,000-A$126,000 ($34,123-$89,573).
But Labor said higher earners would receive less benefits than what the government proposed to fund bigger concessions for people on less than A$45,000.
“The Liberals talk so much about being back in the black but the budget papers reveal a much paler shade of grey,” Labor leader Bill Shorten told Australia’s parliament.
“We believe that Australia does best when working class and middle-class Australia gets a fair go.”
The government’s budget promised A$158 billion in tax cuts though the bulk was set to come after 2023 by reducing higher tax brackets. The government also said 94 percent of Australians would pay a flat tax rate of 30 percent by July 1, 2024.
Shorten said Labor will not implement those changes.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison also promised record funding on healthcare and education, but Labor said it will outspend the conservative government in both.
Labor did not reveal specific funding but Shorten promised an extra A$2.3 billion for cancer treatment.
To fund the spending, Shorten committed to scrapping a favorable tax scheme for multiple property owners.
The policy is widely seen as contributing to higher house prices, leaving many younger voters unable to get into the market.
Tapping into concerns about inequality, Shorten rejected calls to defer a Labor plan to restrict the concessions to properties purchased only after Jan 1, 2020.
“A government must be brave enough and decent enough to stop the bias against first home buyers and young Australians and we will be that government,” said Shorten.
(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: An anti-Brexit protester waves flags outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez/File Photo
April 4, 2019
By Saikat Chatterjee
LONDON (Reuters) – Brexit is so confusing it’s even confounding the robots.
Machine-driven trading systems in the $5.1 trillion-a-day global currency market are struggling to cope with the blizzard of headlines about Britain’s efforts to extricate itself from the European Union, making it more expensive and risky to bet for or against sterling.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s failure, after three attempts, to get her divorce deal with Brussels through parliament has sent the UK’s planned departure careering off-piste, raising questions over who is in charge and when, how or even if the UK will actually leave.
As a divided government battles a divided parliament over a way forward, the chorus of characters who can now influence events has grown, flummoxing news-reading algorithms, or ‘algos’, which are designed to parse phrases from recognized speakers before executing a trade.
“The model signals are more quantitative driven and rely on historical data feeds,” said Neil Jones, head of hedge fund currency sales at Mizuho in London. “Brexit headlines have thrown a spanner in their works for the sheer number of characters moving the currency on a daily basis.”
News-reading algos are a growing part of a wider revolution on the trading floor of banks and asset managers, where machines have supplanted swathes of human traders, slashing costs and boosting the speed at which deals are done – sometimes down to millionths of a second.
Traditionally designed to process economic data or central bank policy statements, some computer trading models have evolved to allow for split-second analysis of news headlines or Twitter storms before executing a buy or sell order.
The problem for the computers is that Brexit is producing too many headlines for them to process. Reuters, for instance, has published up to 400 news headlines on Brexit per day in recent weeks, up from around 15 on British politics before it became an issue.
Rival Bloomberg has also pumped up the volume of Brexit content by four times since last autumn, running more than 1,000 headlines some days – such as on March 12 when May’s deal was defeated a second time, according to a spokeswoman.
HAND SIGNALS
The mechanics of how Brexit may be hammered out have also made it more difficult for the computers.
Obscure British parliamentary procedures are now at the center of policymaking and people who typically would not feature in a computer trading model are suddenly taking center stage.
John Bercow, the speaker of the House of Commons, for example, sent sterling skidding last month when he stopped May from bringing forward a vote on her deal.
So sensitive is the currency to developments that even a hand signal can affect the price.
On November 6, Britain’s then Brexit Minister Dominic Raab, pushed the pound up simply by giving a “thumbs up” after a cabinet meeting — a visual cue that would outfox machines programmed to analyze words.
Raab’s market-moving gesture came after the pound had fallen on a tweet warning of a no-deal Brexit from Jeffrey Donaldson, one of 10 Democratic Unionist Party lawmakers whose support May needs.
(GRAPHIC: Day in the life of sterling – https://tmsnrt.rs/2IauH3h)
Data is elusive on algorithms’ exact share in sterling trade, it likely mirrors broader trends — around 70 percent of orders in all currencies on the EBS platform, a major trading venue, are submitted via algorithms, the Bank of International Settlements estimated last September.
That compares to a quarter in 2008.
(GRAPHIC: Share of Etrading in FX – https://tmsnrt.rs/2V0Z8fV)
There is no official data on what proportion of trade in foreign exchange is carried out by news-reading algos, but three currency traders at London-based banks estimated it was less than 10 percent.
Given the complexities of Brexit, that proportion is likely to be even lower for trading sterling right now.
Some hedge funds have opted out of trading sterling altogether because the usual models they rely on don’t work in the current climate, according to one FX trader at a major UK investment bank.
Their models are based around economic data and expectations for Bank of England rate changes, but those have become secondary drivers compared with political news, he said.
He declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about clients.
Some banks are ensuring that trading the pound is not left completely to the machines while other banks are using tiny orders within narrow trading ranges to prevent large losses.
“If it was your job and given the complexity of the Brexit story, do you really want to precode something to automatically infer and put material risk on the back of that,” said David Leigh, global head of FX spot and electronic trading at Deutsche Bank.
“Probably not.”
TURMOIL AND RISK AVERSION
Market makers who provide liquidity by offering to buy and sell currencies on their own account also use algorithms to set bids and offers. But confusion around Brexit has made that more difficult too.
To reduce the risk of getting caught on the wrong side of a headline, market makers are programming algorithms to offer a wider spread between the price they will buy, the bid, and sell, the offer.
But a wider spread makes it more expensive to deal in pounds. Rob Turner, a quantitative trader at RBC Capital Markets said the average cost of trading, by taking into account the spreads, for sterling in a usual 10 million ticket jumped last week to 2.9 pips from 1.9 pips in October.
“That shows that the price at the very best moment for executing a sterling trade last week was still a lot worse than the worst moment in a normal week,” Turner said.
(GRAPHIC: Implied volatility in pound and euro – https://tmsnrt.rs/2V2lT2S)
The upshot is less volume as investors stay on the sidelines and wait for the political drama to end. Daily cash volumes for sterling were around $65 billion in February, around 35 percent less than $100 billion traded before the Brexit referendum in June 2016, according to CLS, a major settler of foreign exchange trades.
Sterling volatility, meanwhile, is at the highest levels in more than two years, having more than tripled from end-February lows, even while volatility elsewhere has declined.
Overall, sterling has fallen 13 percent against the dollar since Britons voted to leave the European Union but the market is confused about its future direction.
Buford Scott, managing partner at Stelrox Capital Management, a London-based family office which made money trading sterling during the Brexit referendum, said he was steering clear for now.
“Pound trading is characterised by turmoil and risk aversion resulting in wide ranges and largely directionless markets proving to be generally unprofitable for systematic strategies,” Scott said.
(GRAPHIC: Sterling ranges – https://tmsnrt.rs/2HN5z3o)
(Reporting by Saikat Chatterjee; Additional reporting by Tommy Wilkes; Graphic by Ritvik Carvalho; Editing by Sujata Rao and Carmel Crimmins)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO – Flowers and signs are seen at a memorial site for victims of the mosque shootings, at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su
April 4, 2019
By Byron Kaye and Tom Allard
SYDNEY (Reuters) – From its clubhouses in Melbourne and Sydney, the Lads Society promotes drug-free living and exercise, as well as “white resistance” and Islamophobia, according to online statements and interviews with two of its leaders.
One of Australia’s most high profile extremist groups, its members last year infiltrated the youth arm of the National Party, part of the ruling coalition government, before being exposed and ejected due to their far right views.
Now, the group has come to prominence again – and to the attention of security agencies – after a gunman shot 50 people dead at two New Zealand mosques.
In the hours after the shootings, the Lads Society’s private Facebook page lit up as its members discussed the attack and the man arrested and charged with murder, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, according to five screenshots of the Facebook messages which were provided by a person with access to the group and reviewed by Reuters.
“He had been on the scene for a while,” said Tom Sewell, founder of the Lads Society, according to the previously undisclosed messages on the Lads Society’s Facebook page.
“He made heaps on Bitcoin and paid for his own holidays, I spoke to him back in 2017 when he was donating money to everyone,” added Sewell.
In a later public statement, Sewell said he and Lads Society leaders were interviewed about the Christchurch attacks by the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country’s domestic spy agency.
ASIO said it does not comment on specific individuals, intelligence or operational matters but was alert to the threat from people with “extreme right-wing ideologies”. The Australian Federal Police also declined to comment when asked about any ties Tarrant had to the Lads Society.
Sewell declined to comment on Tarrant or whether he knew him, and his messages provided no further details.
Tarrant, who is now in custody and has said he plans to represent himself, was not available for comment.
The Lads Society’s page was shut down after Facebook targeted white nationalists in the wake of the Christchurch massacre. Reuters was unable to verify the claims on the since-deleted Facebook page.
However, Sewell’s messages to the private group on the Lads Society Facebook page, which carried the same profile photo as a photo posted on Sewell’s Instagram account, add to evidence Tarrant was engaged with Australia’s far right.
On the 8Chan message board minutes before the attack, Tarrant posted links to a livestream video of the attack and said: “You are all top blokes and the best bunch of cobbers a man could ask for.” Cobber is Australian slang for friend, and a term popular among Australian white nationalists.
As Australia confronts the uncomfortable truth that Tarrant was one of its own, the country has been gripped by acrimonious debate about both its past race policies and whether recent political discourse about immigration and Islam had any role to play in his radicalisation.
In the space of a few minutes outside a Sydney mosque the day after the Christchurch shootings, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison encapsulated the country’s contradictory identity.
“We are a tolerant, multicultural society, the most successful immigration country on the planet,” he said, before pivoting to a darker undercurrent. “These white supremacist, white separatist views, are not new. I mean, these sentiments have sadly existed in Australia for hundreds of years.”
OFF THE RADAR
Tarrant grew up in the small Australian city of Grafton, where he worked as a gym instructor and developed a passion for gaming and computers, according to local media reports citing the gym owner and his grandmother.
In a “manifesto” distributed online just before the attack, Tarrant said he formed his racist beliefs on the internet and downplayed his links to Australia, saying he was radicalised abroad.
He acted alone, the manifesto said, although he said he had donated to far-right groups from an inheritance and a cryptocurrency windfall.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz last week confirmed his country’s far-right Identitarian Movement had received 1,500 euros ($1,690) from Tarrant.
Most of his past nine years was spent traveling across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Tarrant was “on nobody’s radar, anywhere,” said Morrison, spending only 45 days in the past three years in Australia.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing archives of the deleted Facebook account of the United Patriots Front (UPF), another Australian far-right group, Tarrant described one of that group’s leaders, Blair Cottrell, as “Emperor”. Reuters was unable to independently verify that detail.
Cottrell – a muscle-bound, blond-haired carpenter – founded the UPF alongside Sewell. Sewell later started Lads Society in 2017, with Cottrell’s promotional support. Cottrell, described by sources as the movement’s main figurehead in Australia, still heads UPF and appears in Lads Society photos and videos but holds no formal position in that group.
Cottrell told Reuters that, as best he could tell, Tarrant had donated only once to groups he was associated with – A$50 to the UPF.
“I don’t believe I influenced Tarrant much at all. Maybe three years ago, he was in support of our specific opposition to that mosque development in Bendigo.”
In 2017, Cottrell and two other UPF members were found guilty of inciting contempt of Muslims after they filmed a mock beheading outside council offices to protest a mosque development in the small Victorian city.
GOING MAINSTREAM
White extremists gained momentum in 2014 after an Islamist gunman took a group of hostages in a Sydney cafe, analysts and members of the movement say.
The following year, thousands of people attended rallies arranged by anti-Islam group Reclaim Australia, and some far-right politicians spoke at the events.
Suspicions about the presence of Lads Society members in the youth wing of the National Party first emerged after officials of the rural-based party noted an influx of new members from cities.
After ties to the Lads Society were revealed in local media, the National Party expelled 19 people, saying in a statement in November it “would not rest until every last one of these extremists have been identified and removed.”
In Australia’s latest census, about 90 percent nominated their ancestry as Australian or European, while 2.5 percent were recorded as Muslims.
Just under a quarter of Australians have a “negative attitude” to Muslims, according to a 2018 report from the Scanlon Foundation, a group that tracks social cohesion.
FAR-RIGHT SENATOR
In the wake of the Christchurch attacks, Australia’s Islamophobes flooded social media with memes and messages in support of Fraser Anning, the Australian senator who blamed the bloodshed on “an immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand”.
In an interview with Reuters, Anning said he was “completely opposed” to the attacks in Christchurch.
However, he echoed the “replacement theory” embraced by Tarrant and the global white supremacist movement. Muslims, he said, “are going to outbreed us very quickly”.
Anning has picked up 28,600 Facebook followers in the past four weeks, data provided by his office shows, and now has more than 122,000 followers.
Sewell and Cottrell in statements and interviews with Reuters and other media, also said they were appalled by the attacks on the mosques.
“Politically motivated violence is not in the interest of our organization or our community,” Sewell said in his since-deleted Facebook statement on March 20.
In his interview with Reuters, Sewell said further that Tarrant’s violence had caused governments to become “extremely reactionary”, passing legislation “without thinking it through”.
New Zealand moved swiftly to ban the kinds of semi-automatic weapons used in the attacks.
“We have a new level of totalitarian thought crime legislation across New Zealand and shortly here in Australia too,” Sewell added.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye, Tom Allard and Jonathan Barrett. Editing by John Chalmers and Lincoln Feast.)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of Facebook logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
April 4, 2019
By Colin Packham
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia will fine social media companies up to 10 percent of their annual global turnover and imprison executives for up to three years if violent content is not removed “expeditiously” under a new law passed by the country’s parliament on Thursday.
The new law is in response to a lone gunman attack on two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, killing 50 people as they attended Friday prayers.
The gunman broadcasted his attack live on Facebook and it was widely shared for over an hour before being removed, a timeframe Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described as unacceptable.
Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with one murder following the attack and was remanded without a plea. He is due back in court on April 5, when police said he was likely to face more charges.
It is now an offence in Australia for companies, such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet’s Google, which owns YouTube, not to remove any videos or photographs that show murder, torture or rape without delay.
Companies must also inform Australian police within a “reasonable” timeframe.
“It is important that we make a very clear statement to social media companies that we expect their behavior to change,” Mitch Fifield, Australia’s minister for communications and the arts, told reporters in Canberra.
Juries will decide whether companies have complied with the timetable.
A spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on the legislation specifically, but said the company has already taken action to limit violent content on its platforms.
A spokeswoman for Facebook was not immediately able for comment.
Facebook said last week it was exploring restrictions on who can access their live video-streaming service, depending on factors such as previous violations of the site’s community standards.
Australia’s opposition Labor party backed the legislation, but said it will consult with the technology industry over possible amendments if it wins power at an election due in May.
Australia’s parliament will rise until after the election. The newly elected lawmakers will not sit until at least July.
Critics of the legislation said the government moved too quickly, without proper consultation and consideration.
“Laws formulated as a knee-jerk reaction to a tragic event do not necessarily equate to good legislation and can have myriad unintended consequences,” said Arthur Moses, head of the Australian Law Council.
(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Michael Perry)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The Weeknd performs at the Global Citizen Festival concert in Central Park in New York City, New York, U.S., September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
April 4, 2019
(Reuters) – Canadian singer The Weeknd has been sued by three British songwriters over allegations he copied their work to produce his hit “A Lonely Night,” according to U.S. court documents.
Songwriters William Smith, Brian Clover and Scott McCulloch sued the Weeknd, Universal Music Group Inc and others in a Los Angeles federal court. The song in question appears on The Weeknd’s Grammy-award winning album “Starboy.”
The British songwriters heard “I Need to Love,” recognizing it as their song “A Lonely Night,” the lawsuit said.
The UK songwriters are seeking unspecified damages.
They edited the two songs together in a sound clip https://youtu.be/y-WCCWWYsj0 they said showed the similarities.
Joel Zimmerman, who is listed as an agent for The Weeknd, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit said that in 2004 and 2005, the British artists pitched their song to various artists around the world. A division of Universal Music bought the rights to the song in 2008, the court document said.
In 2016, the songwriters were told by the label that the song had not been used and it was relinquishing all rights to their work, according to the lawsuit.
Two weeks later, The Weeknd and Universal released “Starboy.” Last year, The Weeknd was sued with an allegation that his song “Starboy” from the album of the same name, was a rip-off.
(Reporting By Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Grant McCool)
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A flare burns off excess gas from a gas plant in the Permian Basin oil production area near Wink, Texas U.S. August 22, 2018. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
April 3, 2019
By Scott DiSavino
(Reuters) – Next-day natural gas prices for Wednesday at the Waha hub in West Texas plunged to record negative levels – meaning some drillers are paying those with spare pipeline capacity to take the unwanted gas and are getting nothing for it.
The drop in prices has been caused by weak demand and recent equipment problems on a key pipeline in New Mexico, analysts said. But pipeline constraints in the Permian basin in West Texas have squeezed gas prices there for some time.
The Permian is the nation’s largest oil field, but it also produces large volumes of gas, and the region lacks pipelines to move it.
Spot prices at the Waha hub fell to minus $3.38 per million British thermal units for Wednesday from minus 2 cents for Tuesday, according to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) data. That beat the prior all-time next-day low of minus $1.99 for March 29.
Prices have been negative in the real-time or next-day market since March 22.
GRAPHIC: Texas natural gas prices turn negative, see: https://tmsnrt.rs/2HV1CJY
The fall in prices started after El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline declared force majeure on March 18 because of equipment problems at two compressor stations in New Mexico, which cut the amount of gas that could flow west from the Permian.
Waha prices remained negative even after El Paso, a unit of Kinder Morgan Inc, returned one compressor to service by March 31; the other is expected to be back on April 5.
In addition to the ongoing New Mexico pipeline constraint, Reza Haidari, director of natural gas research at Refinitiv, said the latest price drop was also due to declining heating demand and an increase in power from wind farms that is displacing gas-fired generation in the U.S. Southwest.
Production of both oil and gas has more than doubled to record highs over the past five years, but Permian pipeline infrastructure has not kept up with output growth. That has forced some producers to burn or flare off some of the gas associated with oil production.
Those constraints have depressed Waha prices, widening its discount to the U.S. Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana to a record. That spread reached $6.14/mmBtu on Wednesday, topping the prior all-time high of $5.85 in February 1996, according to ICE and Refinitiv Eikon data.
Several new pipelines are in the works, but those projects will not enter service until late 2019 and later.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Jonathan Oatis)
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FILE PHOTO: Actor Felicity Huffman departs an initial hearing for defendants in a racketeering case involving the allegedly fraudulent admission of children to elite universities, at the U.S. federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake
April 3, 2019
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) – Actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are among 15 wealthy parents due in Boston federal court on Wednesday to face charges that they participated in what prosecutors call the largest college admissions scam uncovered in U.S. history.
They are among 50 people federal prosecutors allege participated in schemes that involved cheating on college exams and paying $25 million in bribes to buy the children of affluent Americans seats in well-known universities including Yale, Georgetown and the University of Southern California.
The scam’s mastermind, California college admissions consultant Rick Singer, has pleaded guilty to overseeing a racketeering scheme in which parents paid to help their children cheat on admissions tests and bribe coaches to present them as elite prospects in sports including sailing, crew and water polo even if they had no athletic experience.
“Desperate Housewives” star Huffman and “Full House” actor Loughlin, along with a former chief executive and a major law firm’s onetime chairman, are part of the group scheduled to make their first appearances in Boston court.
Prosecutors allege that Loughlin and her husband, Los Angeles fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, agreed to pay $500,000 to have their two daughters named as recruits to USC’s crew team, even though they did not row competitively.
Prosecutors said Huffman, who is married to the actor William H. Macy, made a $15,000 contribution to Singer’s foundation in exchange for having an associate of Singer’s in 2017 secretly correct her daughter’s answers on an SAT college entrance exam at a test center Singer “controlled.”
Huffman later made arrangements to engage in the scheme again on her younger daughter’s behalf before deciding not to, prosecutors said.
Other accused parents expected to appear in court include Manuel Henriquez, the former chief executive of specialty finance company Hercules Capital Inc, and Gordon Caplan, the former co-chairman of the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
Henriquez resigned his position and Caplan was placed on leave after they were charged.
The U.S. Education Department has opened an investigation into eight universities linked to the scandal. Several of the schools have said they would revoke admissions offers to students who had gotten in fraudulently but not yet enrolled and would consider expelling students whose parents participated.
Prosecutors have not yet charged any applicants for illegal activity and said that in some cases the parents charged took steps to try to prevent their children from realizing they were benefiting from fraud.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; editing by Scott Malone and Susan Thomas)
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FILE PHOTO – Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison arrives for APEC CEO Summit 2018 at Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 17 November 2018. Fazry Ismail/Pool via REUTERS
April 3, 2019
By Colin Packham
CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia’s embattled government amended its annual budget on Wednesday, 12 hours after it was unveiled, extending an energy rebate to the unemployed after criticism it’s pre-election budget failed to adequately help those without a job.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government on Tuesday unveiled a 2019-20 budget ahead of an expected May election it is forecast to lose, promising a voter sweetener of $158 billion worth of tax cuts over the next 10 years.
The budget also contained a one-off cash rebate for pensioners of A$75 for an individual and A$125 for couples to assist with rising energy costs, but those on unemployment benefits were excluded.
“Being told you aren’t eligible for the same help with bills as others receiving income support is outrageous and must be remedied immediately,” Ian Yates, chief of the Council on the Ageing, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Opinion polls suggest the government is facing a heavy defeat at the election, due in May but not yet called, and it is banking on the budget and tax cuts to woo voters.
In announcing the extension of the energy rebate, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the move would cost about A$80 million.
“Last night, the prime minister, the finance minister and myself discussed the issue and we thought it was appropriate to extend it,” Frydenberg said in a National Press Club speech on Wednesday.
Frydenberg did not specify why the rebate was extended.
Haydon Manning, a professor of political science at Flinders University in South Australia, said the move was aimed at deflecting criticism of the budget which will be a major campaign platform.
“The government needs clear air, particularly this week when voter attention is on them. They are so far behind in the polls, they can not afford to be seen as confused,” said Manning.
An election must be held next month and there is speculation that Morrison could call it after parliament rises this week.
Morrison said in a television interview on Wednesday that he had yet to decide on a date, but he could choose from May 11, 18 and 25.
($1 = $1.0000)
(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Michael Perry)
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FILE PHOTO: Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) trucks are seen parked on a road between homes destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, California, U.S., October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
April 2, 2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) – PG&E Corp is expected to name Bill Johnson as chief executive of the bankrupt California energy company facing $30 billion in wildfire liabilities, as soon as Wednesday, a source familiar with the private negotiations said on Tuesday.
Johnson, who has been the CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority since 2013 and is retiring on Friday, would not comment on the PG&E rumors.
A group of investors, including Knighthead Capital Management, Redwood Capital Management and Abrams Capital Management, have been pushing for Johnson to be hired.
Before joining TVA, Johnson was the chairman, president and CEO of Progress Energy from 2007-2012 before it merged with North Carolina rival Duke Energy Corp.
Another hedge fund, BlueMountain Capital Management, announced a slate of 13 directors including hedge fund manager Jeff Ubben and former California treasurer Phil Angelides.
PG&E faces crushing liabilities related to deadly wildfires in 2017 and 2018 that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes.
A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered PG&E not to pay shareholders dividends and instead use the money to fund its plan for cutting down trees to reduce the risk its equipment will spark more destructive wildfires in wooded areas of California.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino and Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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