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Former Port of Seattle police chief awarded $24.2M in damages over wrongful firing
(The Center Square) – A King County Superior Court jury has awarded former Port of Seattle Police Chief Rod Covey $24.2 million in damages, but the port is considering an appeal. Covey sued the port in late 2022 for wrongful termination after he was fired that August, which marked a year after the Port placed him on administrative leave. Covey was placed on administrative leave in 2020 after an internal investigation found he had violated the port’s Code of Conduct and Human Resources policies after...
$7 billion dollar investment planned for Chicago’s West Side
(The Center Square) – A major development is planned for the land around Chicago’s primary Democratic National Convention site. United Center next-generation owners Michael Reinsdorf and Danny Wirtz announced The 1901 Project, a $7 billion private investment on Chicago’s West Side. Plans include a 6,000-seat music hall, an elevated park, hotel and retail programming. Michael...
U.S. House 3: Jack’s fundraising dwarfs Keller
(The Center Square) – Republican Brian Jack has raised $1.72 million more than his Democratic opponent Maura Keller. Both candidates are competing to represent Georgia's 3rd Congressional District, a heavily-Republican district. In the first six months in 2024, Jack’s campaign brought in $1,776,507. Over that same period, Keller’s campaign totaled $49,458. George Cantrell, an independent,...
New England states get $500M for heating pumps
(The Center Square) — New England states are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to “supercharge” efforts to get homeowners to ditch natural gas or oil heating systems and install electric heat pumps. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $450 million to Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island to accelerate a transition to heat pump technology in residential single-family homes and multifamily buildings across the region. ...
Recount sustains three-vote victory for Suckla in GOP primary for Colorado House
(The Center Square) – Three votes. Out of 12,977 votes cast in the Republican primary in Colorado’s House District 58 race, a recount found each candidate gained one vote, but the three-vote margin of victory remained for Larry Don Suckla. “We won by a landslide three votes,” Suckla posted on X on Monday, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “There has not been a state representative from Montezuma County for...
Illinois House hearing into how pharmacy benefit managers affect drug prices
(The Center Square) – Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, which negotiate the terms for prescription drug access for much of the country, was the focus of an Illinois House hearing Tuesday. PBMs have been in the spotlight in recent years, with the U.S. Congress seeking to increase transparency into the industry’s operations and their effect on prescription drug prices. Pharmacists have urged Illinois state lawmakers to enact legislation banning certain...
Reports: Cooper on short vetting list for Harris
(The Center Square) – Vetting for potential candidates to run alongside Kamala Harris in her bid for president includes North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, according to published reports. Cooper, longtime ally of the Biden administration, on Sunday was immediately in the list of potential vice president choices and his name in the reports is of no surprise. President Joe Biden on Sunday, by way of social media post, stepped away from his reelection campaign and endorsed his vice president. ...
Pennsylvania earmarks $11M to plug orphan and abandoned wells
(The Center Square) — Pennsylvania has spent more in recent years on plugging abandoned gas and oil wells, and the state budget will give the effort another boost. The budget, passed earlier in July, dedicated another $11 million “to plug as many wells as possible,” as the Shapiro administration noted in a press release. In March, the governor celebrated the 200th orphan well to be plugged. Abandoned wells are ones...
Cheatle resigns after Florida rep calls for criminal, contempt charges
(The Center Square) – The director of the U.S. Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned on Tuesday after Democrats and Republicans called for her to step down or be fired for the agency’s failure to protect former President Donald Trump from a would-be assassin on July 13. Cheatle's resignation Tuesday came after U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, asked the chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, to consider bringing criminal charges for perjury and contempt against her, saying she believes Cheatle...
Washington AGO tasked with investigating $42 million tort claim filed against it
(The Center Square) – A recent $42 million tort claim filed against the State Attorney General’s Office and its client Washington State University stemming from a police use of force database project has been handed over to the AGO’s Tort Claim Division to investigate. In his tort claim filed to the Department of Enterprise Services' Office of Risk Management, Police Strategies CEO Bob Scales accused the AGO and WSU of numerous illegal acts, including racketeering, to ensure that the university received a $15 million contract...
Arizona officials, business leaders trek to Taiwan
(The Center Square) – Arizona officials and business community leaders are visiting Taiwan on a trip as the state continues to develop its own semiconductor industry. Although the city of Phoenix says around 20 Asian companies have chosen to call the city home, the region as a whole has been closely watching the development of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s plant in north Phoenix, as well as other companies that make chips, like Intel, pouring money into the Grand Canyon State. ...
Spokane pushes for public safety tax increase after eyeing $9M cut to police
(The Center Square) – The City of Spokane’s elected officials approved Mayor Lisa Brown’s Community Safety Sales Tax on Monday night, sending it to the ballot for voters to decide in November. Brown proposed the one-tenth of 1% sales tax increase earlier this month in an effort to plug some of the city’s approximately $50 million deficit. The mayor previously pushed for another much larger property tax but pulled the measure, in part because the city council said it didn't have enough information about the...
PASSHE Chancellor Greenstein resigns after six years
(The Center Square) — Pennsylvania higher ed will go through a leadership change in the fall as PASSHE Chancellor Dan Greenstein announced he will resign in October to “work nationally.” Greenstein, serving as chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education since 2018, led the system through a consolidation that merged six campuses into two and looked to pivot the system after years of student enrollment declines. “This has...
California receives $12.6 billion federal grant to expand hydrogen production
(The Center Square) - California received a $12.6 billion federal grant to expand its hydrogen production and distribution capacity as the first approved national hydrogen hub. California currently has only 55 hydrogen stations, with another 108 in development, suggesting the state’s hydrogen sector would need to dramatically scale in size to become useful for more commercial and consumer transportation. The grant is part of the federal government’s Hydrogen Earth Shot Challenge, with aims to bring hydrogen prices down by 80% within a decade, from $5...
Kemp: S&P has reaffirmed Georgia's AAA rating
(The Center Square) — S&P Global Ratings has reaffirmed its "AAA with a stable outlook" rating of Georgia, the governor said Tuesday. FitchRatings and Moody's Investors Service, the other two top credit rating agencies, did not issue formal reports on the Peach State's bond ratings because the state did not issue new general obligation bonds for the current fiscal year, officials said. According to a news release, the two agencies previously gave Georgia the highest possible ratings in their state creditworthiness analyses. ...
Wisconsin congressman calls for Harris to invoke 25th
(The Center Square) – A Western Wisconsin’s Republican congressman is pushing Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Biden, immediately. Congressman Derrick Van Orden said Harris should invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Biden from office. Also on Monday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey renewed his call for Harris to invoke the amendment and take over as president. ...
Election integrity efforts underway as IL early voting begins in two months
(The Center Square) – With early voting for the Nov. 5 election beginning in just over two months in Illinois, the political parties are putting out their election integrity teams. Early voting in Illinois begins 40 days before the November election in Illinois, or around Sept. 26. Former Illinois GOP Chairman Don Tracy said Illinois voting needs reforms. “You know it used to be we had election day, now we...
Tennessee approves two $1M incentives; Lee on UK economic development trip
(The Center Square) – Tennessee’s State Funding Board approved a nearly $1 million FastTrack Job Training Grant each for Wal-Mart Associates e-commerce fulfillment center in Lebanon and Hyla Mobile in Mount Juliet at its Monday meeting. The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development grant approval came the same day as Gov. Bill Lee and TNECD Commissioner Stuart McWhorter were in the United Kingdom on what Lee’s staff called a “strategic economic development trip” that was the third international trip Lee has taken with the...
Fate of Detroit Library rests with property tax vote
(The Center Square) – The fate of Detroit Public Library's funding relies upon Proposal L, a property tax proposal that makes up 85% of its budget. Prop L would renew 3.994 mills for the next 10 years. One mill equates to a 10th of a cent, which would be applied to Detroit residents’ property value. For example, a home with a $50,000 taxable value would pay about $199.72 in taxes per year. The tax would continue to be applied to the main library and its...
Former zoo CEO pleads guilty to 15 felony counts
(The Center Square) – A fourth former executive with the Columbus Zoo pleaded guilty to 15 felony counts connected to a scandal that uncovered funds used for vacations, vehicles, concerts, sporting events and other things over a decade. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Tuesday that ex-CEO Tom Stalf pleaded guilty to 15 felonies, including aggravated theft, conspiracy, telecommunications fraud and tampering with records. Stalf agreed to pay more than...
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