Roughly 20 students at Siena College were “temporarily dismissed” from campus housing last week in Loudonville, NY, after school officials caught wind of the Sept. 5 event celebrating the Kentucky Derby horse race on the lawn of the MacClosky Square Townhouses, which students say drew a crowd of 80 to 100.
After six years on the job, Kathryn Garcia is considering a mayoral run. In an exit interview, she discourages layoffs, updates waste zone timing and says “zero waste” by 2030 is likely unattainable.
New York Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia is stepping down as the city continues to work through many pandemic challenges at a potential inflection point in its waste history.
Since being appointed to run the nation’s largest sanitation department (DSNY) in March 2014, managing approximately 10,000 employees, Garcia said she has worked to ensure “a lot of pieces of different puzzles really came together” for city waste infrastructure. This included overseeing the construction of delayed marine transfer stations, signing major disposal contracts, supporting the passage of long-debated legislation, making internal systems paperless, launching a procurement program to support businesses owned by people of color and women, and more.
But she has also seen setbacks in her tenure, with progress toward a 2030 “zero waste” goal hard to achieve in recent years and what was once the nation’s largest curbside organics collection program frozen amid $106 million in budget cuts. A major plan to reshape the city’s commercial waste sector has also been delayed multiple times due to the pandemic’s economic disruptions. Now, the threat of even more cuts is looming in the months ahead.
Garcia tendered her resignation to term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, calling cuts and layoffs at the agency so far “unconscionable,” according to multiple reports. Now, she may run for mayor in 2021 and would draw on a long resume at multiple city agencies, beginning with her days as a DSNY intern.
Waste Dive recently spoke with the commissioner ahead of her final week on the job.
ALAMEDA, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Things aren’t smoothing out in the nation’s first attempt at virtual asbestos trials in Alameda County, Calif.
The county is attempting to run two trials on Zoom but has run into technical problems, juror inattention and even one plaintiff being left alone with jurors to have a friendly chat.
The latest problem? Fire. Last week, one of plaintiff Ronald Wilgenbusch’s lawyers, Will Ruiz of Maune Raichle, took a day off from the trial to evacuate his home because of the current California wildfires.
And this week, one juror told the court she had been evacuated from her home and couldn’t be present for the trial.
This comes after two other jurors were excused from the trial, which has survived three motions for mistrial already.
One excused juror said she was having coronavirus symptoms while the other had connection problems, even after the court sent an iPad to his home. Only two alternate jurors remain, and there will possibly be only one if the woman who had to evacuate her home can’t find a way to attend.
The Wilgenbusch trial started with online jury selection during which members of Fryer-Knowles’ defense team complained they were put on mute and unable to object. It also claimed one prospective juror was working out and another was possibly asleep.
When a jury was selected, the court then attempted in-person proceedings. However, a juror reported a fever, moving the trial online and prompting the second mistrial motion, this one from defendant Metalclad.
“(T)he Court has indicated that unless it receives some outside information from a higher authority compelling it to stop, the Court intends to compound the prejudice and move to a fully remote trial proceeding post haste… The Court’s plan to proceed with this trial is – and always has been – unfair and untenable,” Metalclad wrote.
PHILADELPHIA, PA (August 24, 2020) – More than 30 non-profit organizations from across Pennsylvania submitted a letter to the Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell today demanding the DEP immediately and permanently revoke all Mariner East construction permits and prohibit the issuance of any future permits.
The letter comes in the wake of a recent spill of over 8,000 gallons of horizontal directional drilling (HDD) fluid, and industrial waste, into Marsh Creek Lake, a reservoir for much of Chester County’s drinking water. The release occurred during Sunoco’s drilling of the Mariner East hazardous liquids pipeline system, the path of which is slated to run through the headwaters of Marsh Creek Lake. Over 200 spills have occurred across Pennsylvania since Mariner East construction began in 2017.
The organizations represent a diverse array of environmental organizations as well as conservation groups, grassroots community organizations, civic associations, faith-based groups, and legislative action groups. The groups stated that DEP has failed to protect the public and environment by allowing Sunoco to continue construction despite numerous permit violations and that “Sunoco/ Energy Transfer has lost its social license to operate in Pennsylvania.” The groups caution that previously issued fines have not deterred this pipeline operator from further repeated violations.
“Energy Transfer has determined that it is uninterested in complying with Pennsylvania law and would rather pay fines as a cost of doing business,” said Joseph Otis Minott, Esq., Executive Director and Chief Counsel. “Energy Transfer has forced the hands of regulators, and at this point the only option is to shut this criminal enterprise down.”
Federal prosecutors in New York unsealed criminal charges Thursday against Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, and three other men they alleged defrauded donors to a massive crowdfunding campaign that claimed to be raising money for construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a news release, prosecutors said Bannon and another organizer, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, lied when they claimed they would not take any compensation as part of the campaign, called “We Build the Wall.” Bannon, prosecutors alleged, received more than $1 million through a nonprofit entity he controlled, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage while keeping a “substantial portion” for himself.
The campaign, publicly supported by several of the president’s allies, raised more than $25 million through hundreds of thousands of donors, the news release states.Trump says he ‘didn’t like’ Bannon projectPresident Trump responded Aug. 20 to news of the arrest of his ex-political adviser Steve Bannon, saying he hadn’t worked with Bannon for “years.” (The Washington Post)
Prosecutors alleged that Bannon and Kolfage along with two others — Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea — routed payments from the crowdfunding campaign through the nonprofit and another shell company, disguising them with fake invoices to help keep their personal pay secret.
All four were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. They were expected to make court appearances later in the day.
Bannon, a law enforcement official said, was taken into custody off the coast of Westbrook, Conn., while aboard a 150-foot yacht owned by a friend, Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui — who is wanted by authorities in Beijing on charges of fraud, blackmail and bribery. This official, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation.
Another law enforcement official said that Attorney General William P. Barr was briefed about the matter in advance.
Bannon, 66, served on Trump’s presidential campaign and then as the White House’s chief strategist. He was ousted in the summer of 2017 amid what appeared to be a major falling out with Trump, who derided his onetime confidant as “Sloppy Steve.” An attorney and a spokeswoman for Bannon did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Asked about the matter Thursday, Trump said he felt “very badly” but asserted of Bannon, “I haven’t been dealing with him for a very long period of time.” Trump said he felt the private fundraising effort was “something I very much thought was inappropriate to be doing.”
“I don’t like that project,” the president said. “I thought it was being done for showboating reasons.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump had “no involvement in this project” and pointed to a tweet he issued last month in response to a ProPublica story about a privately funded section of wall, saying: “I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads. It was only done to make me look bad, and perhaps it now doesn’t even work.”
“President Trump has always felt the Wall must be a government project and that it is far too big and complex to be handled privately,” McEnany said in a statement. During the last presidential campaign, Trump vowed that Mexico — not U.S. taxpayers — would fund the border wall.
Those involved in the project had close ties to the administration, and campaign memorabilia was often pictured on the privately built section of the border wall.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. was a guest at a symposium hosted by the We Build the Wall group in New Mexico in 2019, praising the organization as “private enterprise at its finest.”
“Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else,” he added.
One of the group’s advisers, Kris Kobach, is the former Kansas secretary of state known for his hard-line views of immigration and close ties to the Trump administration. Earlier this month, Kobach was defeated in a Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Kansas.
In January 2019, Kobach told the New York Times that he had described the organization to President Trump in a personal phone call and that he had given it his blessing.
“I talked with the president, and the We Build the Wall effort came up,” Kobach said. “The president said, ‘The project has my blessing, and you can tell the media that.’ ”
Other board members included Erik Prince, a conservative activist and defense contractor close to Bannon, as well as former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.).
In a statement, an attorney for Prince said he joined the group’s advisory board because he was a believer in its mission to build a wall on the southern border. “He had nothing to do with the conduct alleged in today’s indictment, was never contacted in connection with any investigation, and doesn’t know anything about it,” attorney Matthew L. Schwartz said.
Kobach and Tancredo could not be immediately reached for comment.
Bannon was brought in to lead Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 after it had cycled through two other campaign managers and was trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton in the polls. He was the impetus for some of Trump’s populist ideas and a provocateur, coming up with ideas such as bringing Bill Clinton’s accusers to a debate after damaging audio emerged of Trump suggesting he could sexually assault women. Before working for Trump’s campaign, Bannon had promoted many of the same ideas that Trump espoused during the race, via the conservative news site he had run, Breitbart.AD
Once joining the White House as the president’s top political strategist, he kept a whiteboard of campaign promises in his West Wing office, along with newspaper articles on which Trump had written messages to him with a Sharpie.
He was ousted after seven months in the White House, having clashed with a number of senior officials — most notably the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Bannon was frequently profane and was accused by a number of other administration officials of leaking damaging information about them.
But he kept a prominent role in Trump’s Washington, throwing parties at his Capitol Hill townhouse, which he called the “Breitbart Embassy,” and hosting prominent government officials and media figures.
In early 2018, Trump viciously attacked Bannon for his comments published in Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury,” which included on-the-record quotes by Bannon criticizing Trump’s family, the president and the White House’s operations.AD
He has slowly come back into Trump’s orbit, though he is not in regular touch with him. The president appreciated Bannon’s fierce defense of him during his impeachment, and Bannon hosted a pro-Trump podcast with Jason Miller, now a Trump campaign strategist, until earlier this year.
In private, Bannon was often critical of the president’s focus and performance in the White House, people who know him say, though he has remained publicly supportive.
Kolfage, 38, of Miramar Beach, Fla., is a military veteran who in 2004 was severely injured in a rocket attack while he was stationed in Baghdad. According to the We Build the Wall website, he lost both of legs and his right arm instantly and was in a coma for three weeks. He would later take a civilian role in the Air Force, work on a veterans advisory committee for then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and found a coffee company.
Kolfage’s wife declined to comment.
In a 23-page indictment, prosecutors described how Kolfage and others in December 2018 launched the wall-building fundraising campaign to immediate success, raising almost $17 million in the first week — money they claimed would be given to the federal government. But with success came scrutiny, and GoFundMe, the site the group had been using to collect funds, suspended the campaign and warned Kolfage the donations would be refunded if he could not identify a legitimate nonprofit to which they would be transferred.
Around that time, Kolfage recruited Bannon and Badolato, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, prosecutors alleged. The two took significant control of the campaign’s day-to-day activities and oversaw creation of a nonprofit, We Build the Wall Inc., to which funds could be transferred and then spent on private construction of a border wall, prosecutors alleged.
The group claimed publicly and to the crowdfunding website through which it had initially raised funds that Kolfage would take no salary and that “100 percent” of the money raised would be spent on wall construction, prosecutors alleged. It also agreed that existing donors would have to opt in to having their funds transferred to the new nonprofit.
“I’m taking nothing! Zero,” Kolfage wrote on social media. He also wrote a mass email to donors asking them to buy from his coffee company because that was how he “keeps his family fed and a roof over their head.”
For his part, Bannon said during interviews, “we’re a volunteer organization,” prosecutors alleged.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was arrested Thursday after being charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors through his “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign.
Bannon and three associates were indicted in a federal investigation in the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors allege the four defrauded donors by raising “more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border of the United States,” but some of that money was used for personal gain.
The United States Postal Inspection Service assisted in the investigation.
Others in the indictment are Timothy Shea, a 49-year-old from Colorado accused of owning a shell company, Brian Kolfage, a disabled Iraq war veteran, and Andrew Badolato, who according to his own website was a contributor to Breitbart News, the conservative publication Bannon used to run.
The campaign was intended to raise money to help President Donald Trump fulfill a campaign promise to build a border wall. Instead, prosecutors allege that Bannon and his team profited off the arrangement.
A construction crew works on a bollard-type private border wall, crowd-funded by We Build The Wall group at Sunland Park, New Mexico, as pictured from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico May 30, 2019.Jose Luis Gonzalez | Reuters
The indictment said the defendants “collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds from ‘We Build the Wall,’ which they each used in a manner inconsistent with the organization’s public representations.”
“The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement. “While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle. We thank the USPIS for their partnership in investigating this case, and we remain dedicated to rooting out and prosecuting fraud wherever we find it.”
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New Jersey on Saturday reported seven more deaths attributed to the coronavirus and 464 new cases as the rate of transmission ticked up slightly but stayed below a key mark that shows how disease is spreading.
The Garden State’s death toll from COVID-19 now stands at 15,910 — 14,071 confirmed and 1,839 considered probable — in more than five months since the first case was reported March 4.
The state has announced 187,442 positive tests since the outbreak began out of more than 2.4 million tests administered in the state so far.
The governor said Friday that the state’s numbers “look very good,” though there was a bump in new cases this week.
The state on Saturday reported its latest transmission rate was 0.94, a slight increase after holding steady at 0.92 for three consecutive days.
Any number above 1 means each newly infected person is spreading the virus to at least one other person, on average. Anything below 1 means the outbreak is shrinking. The rate had been below 1 for weeks during the strictest parts of New Jersey’s coronavirus lockdowns but had fluctuated above and below 1 in July as the state took more reopening steps.
Saturday marks the 15th straight day New Jersey — an early coronavirus hotspot — has reported fewer than 15 deaths.
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the final risk evaluation for 1-bromopropane (1-BP). Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA is required to evaluate the risks associated with existing chemicals in commerce using the best available science before taking action to address any unreasonable risks. Today’s final risk findings complete the risk evaluation process required by TSCA for 1-BP.
EPA used feedback received from the public and the scientific peer review process carried out by the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals to inform the final risk evaluation. The final risk evaluation for 1-BP shows that there are unreasonable risks to workers, occupational non-users, consumers, and bystanders for 16 out of 25 conditions of use. EPA did not find unreasonable risks to the environment or to the general population for all conditions of use.
The next step in the process required by TSCA is developing a plan to reduce or eliminate the unreasonable risks found in the final risk evaluation. EPA is moving immediately to risk management for this chemical and will work as quickly as possible to propose and finalize actions to protect workers, occupational non-users, consumers, and bystanders.
There are several actions EPA could take to address these risks, including regulations on how the chemical is used, or limiting or prohibiting the manufacture, processing, distribution in the marketplace, use, or disposal of this chemical, as applicable. As with any chemical product, EPA strongly recommends that users of products containing 1-BP continue to carefully follow all instructions on the product’s label and safety data sheet. View the 1-BP final risk evaluation and supporting documents.
Background1-BP is used as a solvent in commercial and industrial applications and as a reactant in the manufacturing of other chemical substances. Common commercial uses of 1-BP are as a solvent in vapor degreasing, dry cleaning, spot cleaners, stain removers, adhesives, sealants, and automobile care products. Consumer uses include adhesives, degreasers, cleaners, and automobile care products.
Exposure to the general population from ambient air is not part of this risk evaluation. The agency will take a separate regulatory action to add 1-BP to the Clean Air Act list of Hazardous Air Pollutants. After 1-BP is added to the list, EPA may revise air toxic standards for source categories that emit 1-BP or add new source categories for sources of 1-BP emissions.
By John L. MicekTuesday Morning Coffee, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
(Screen Capture)
Good Tuesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Democratic 10th Congressional District candidate Eugene DePasquale is on the air with his first campaign ad, a biographical spot called “Restaurant,” that punches up his blue-collar roots as the son of a Pittsburgh bar owner.
“I grew up in a bar. My family was working class,” DePasquale says in the 30-second spot filmed inside a bar that should be plenty familiar to thirsty central Pennsylvanians — the Sturges Speakeasy on Forster Street in Harrisburg, across the street from the Capitol.
“When I wasn’t bussing tables, I umpired Little League games and worked as a janitor to pay for college,” he continues, wiping down the bar and pouring suds. “I learned a lot of life lessons from the people in my neighborhood.”
DePasquale told the Capital-Star that his family owned a bar in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood.
It was initially called Allie’s, before it changed its name to the Panther Hollow Inn in 1981. As the name suggests, the bar sat between the campuses of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. It has since closed, his campaign said.
The spot will start airing today in the greater Harrisburg media market, which includes all three counties in the district: Cumberland, Dauphin and York counties, and run through Election Day.
DePasquale’s campaign would only say it was “investing six figures a week,” on the spot, which will air on broadcast and cable outlets in the district, as well as online.
Congressman Scott Perry, R-10th District, answers a question at a Hummelstown public meeting with constituents on July 30th, 2019. (Capital-Star photo by Stephen Caruso)
While it doesn’t say it out loud, or mention his name, the ad feels like a deliberate attempt to neutralize some of the working class cred claimed by GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Perry. While overwhelmingly suburban, the district also takes in some of the more rural and blue-collar precincts of Cumberland and York counties.
In a 2018 interview with PennLive, Perry said he grew up the son of a single mother (who eventually remarried); had no relationship to speak of with his birth father, and grew up in a house without electricity or indoor plumbing. In fact, “for a period of several years, Perry has [2018] told campaign audiences, the family lived using a generator for power, taking their water from a pump, and making full use of an outhouse on the property,” PennLive reported.
Homes have been evacuated in Courmayeur in Italy’s Aosta valley, after a renewed warning that a huge portion of a Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapse.
The measures were introduced on Wednesday morning after experts from the Fondazione Montagne Sicura (Safe Mountains Foundation) said 500,000 cubic metres of ice was in danger of sliding off the Planpincieux glacier on the Grandes Jorasses park.
Some 65 people, including 50 tourists, have left homes in Val Ferret, the hamlet beneath the glacier. Roads have been closed to traffic and pedestrians.
“We will find [alternative] solutions for residents,” Stefano Miserocchi, the mayor of Courmayeur, told the Italian news agency Ansa. “The tourists will have to find other solutions.”
Glaciologists monitoring Planpincieux say a new section of ice is at risk of collapse. Homes were also evacuated in September last year following a warning that 250,000 cubic meters of ice could fall. The movement of the glacial mass was due to “anomalous temperature trends”, the experts said.
The glacier has been closely monitored since 2013 to detect the speed at which the ice is melting.
In August 2018, a heavy storm unleashed a debris flow, killing an elderly couple when their car was swept from the road that is currently closed.
In the event of a collapse, it would take less than two minutes for the mass to reach the municipal road below.
