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TVA coal ash spill has hundreds suing for damages
Areas of Focus |
2009/12/23 04:52
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Hundreds of people sued the Tennessee Valley Authority for damages before a one-year deadline to file personal injury claims related to the utility's huge coal ash spill at Kingston. Court clerks said 20 more federal lawsuits were filed in Knoxville on the final day before the Monday deadline, most of them seeking damages for multiple plaintiffs. TVA has filed motions that contend the nation's largest public utility was providing a government service and is immune from such damage claims. An attorney with clients seeking damages in 28 lawsuits, John Agee of Clinton, said Tuesday that instead of a court fight, some sort of administrative agency should be set up to deal with the claims. They stem from the Dec. 22, 2008 spill and TVA's continuing cleanup at the coal-fired plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville. |
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Lingle: Use hotel tax money for state budget
Legal Topics |
2009/12/23 04:51
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Faced with a $1.2 billion budget gap, Gov. Linda Lingle on Monday proposed the state take about $100 million in hotel taxes from Hawaii's four counties next year and delay the payment of some personal and corporate income tax refunds. The governor's supplemental budget for the 2011 fiscal year that begins July 1 does not call for wholesale layoffs or an increase in the number of furlough days state workers are already taking. It does call for a big increase in the tax that insurance salespersons pay on their commissions and the elimination of dozens of positions in agencies that focus on mosquito control, adult mental health, family health and agricultural statistics. But her proposal to swipe roughly between $99 million and $111 million in county hotel taxes in each of the next three fiscal years is likely to face opposition from the state's counties, which rely on the tourism-driven assessment. Honolulu County, where the bulk of the state's tourists visit, would lose almost $45 million in the 2011 fiscal year; Maui would lose nearly $23 million; the Big Island, $18.6 million; and Kauai, $14.5 million. The Legislature must approve the transfer. |
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Pittsburgh won't tax tuition; nonprofits to donate
Legal Topics |
2009/12/22 04:52
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Pittsburgh officials shelved an idea for a first-of-its-kind tax on college tuition after two universities and a nonprofit health insurer agreed on Monday to make large contributions to the city. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl hopes the contributions from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University or Highmark Inc. will serve as a catalyst to get other nonprofits to help the city financially. Ravenstahl had called for the 1 percent tuition tax on the city's 65,000 college students as a way of getting money to help pay for some $15 million a year for the city's pension obligations. Nonprofits are exempt from most taxes, but represent many of Pittsburgh's major employers and hold about one-third of the city's property value. Neither the mayor nor the three institutions would disclose how much they would give, but Ravenstahl said he was optimistic the money would help resolve the city's long-standing financial problems. |
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Citadel Broadcasting: court grants 1st-day motions
Areas of Focus |
2009/12/22 04:46
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Citadel Broadcasting Corp. said Monday that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has granted all of its first-day motions — including allowing the company access to over $36 million in cash it has on hand and cash it brings in from daily operations to pay workers and vendors. Citadel, the nation's third-largest radio broadcasting company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday in a move meant to restructure its heavy debt load. In court documents, the Las Vegas-based company listed its total assets as of Oct. 30 at $1.4 billion and total debt at $2.46 billion. The company has an agreement with more than 60 percent of its senior secured lenders as part of a pre-negotiated financial restructuring that will eliminate $1.4 billion of its debt. Citadel said Monday that having access to the funds will let it keep satisfying financial obligations as it restructures its business. The company received court approval to pay wages, salaries, health benefits and other obligations it has to employees as it restructures. The court is allowing it to keep honoring current customer programs as well, Citadel said. Citadel owns and operates 224 radio stations and produces radio programing for 4,000 station affiliates and 8,500 program affiliates. |
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Supreme Court halts release of 2 murderers
Headline Legal News |
2009/12/19 04:53
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North Carolina's Supreme Court has temporarily halted the release of two convicted murderers under life sentences. The court granted a request from the state attorney general's office Friday afternoon, shortly before Alford Jones and Faye Brown were set to go free. The ruling gives state attorneys another chance to make their arguments after two lower courts sided with the inmates. Gov. Beverly Perdue has said that she's disgusted with the state's legal system for saying the inmates should go free. State courts previously determined that life sentences imposed during a period in the 1970s could be no more than 80 years long. Two dozen inmates could be freed immediately because of sentence-reduction credits applied to their terms. |
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Bill would give undocumented legal status
Legal Topics |
2009/12/16 04:47
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Hispanic, black, Asian and other House lawmakers backing immigration overhaul called Tuesday for legalizing illegal immigrants in the U.S., despite a weakened economy and joblessness. The coalition of lawmakers said Tuesday immigration reform can protect American workers as well as bring into the mainstream economy productive immigrant workers who have lived in the shadows because of their illegal status. "For those who say that given the state of our economy, given the unemployment rate, this is not the time, I would say to you there is no wrong or right time. There is a moral obligation," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has become a leader of a multiethnic coalition of immigration reform backers, said immigration reform opponents "will use it as a wedge issue and will blame everything from unemployment to rising health care costs on immigrants." |
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Burglars hit offices of Blagojevich's legal team
Legal Topics |
2009/12/09 04:48
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Burglars broke into the offices occupied by two members of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's legal defense team overnight and stole eight computers and a safe, police said Friday. The break-in occurred at the South Side offices of veteran Chicago criminal defense lawyer Sam Adam and his son, Samuel E. Adam, police said. They are two of the three leading members of the team defending Blagojevich on charges that he schemed to sell or trade President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat. Chief of detectives Steve Peterson told a news conference that detectives don't know whether anything related to Blagojevich's federal fraud case was contained on the computers. But he said they are interviewing the attorneys. Even if the computers contained sensitive material related to the federal case against Blagojevich, the lawyers had all of its material in backup files on a master server elsewhere in the offices that was untouched by the burglars, according to an individual with knowledge of the legal defense team. |
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