Corruption Ledger

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered Norfolk Southern on Tuesday to pay for the cleanup of the East Palestine, Ohio train wreck and chemical release as federal regulators took charge of long-term recovery efforts and promised worried residents they wouldn’t be forgotten.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to CBS television on Sunday of information that China was “considering providing lethal support” to Russia. When asked what he meant by that, Blinken replied, “Weapons, primarily weapons.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday he had ordered the formation of a new volunteer territorial defense so everyone knows how to “handle weapons” and be ready to respond to an act of aggression and keep public order in peacetime.

Below-normal rainfall is expected over the next three months in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

“If Mr. Schultz believes that a multibillion-dollar corporation like Starbucks can break federal labor law with impunity, he is mistaken,” Sanders said.

A nationwide injunction restrains the company from dismissing labor organizers and could help reinstate ousted workers more quickly. A federal judge in Michigan issued an injunction on Friday banning Starbucks from firing U.S. workers because they seek to form a union or engage in other collective activities. The move is the first nationwide judicial mandate related to the labor campaign…

KPMG has settled a £1.3bn lawsuit brought by Carillion’s liquidators, who claimed the auditor was negligent and missed serious red flags in the outsourcing firm’s accounts ahead of its disastrous collapse in 2018. The lawsuit – which related to audits of Carillion accounts between 2014 and 2016 – had been launched by Britain’s official receiver, which is attempting to recoup…

SAO PAULO, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Germany’s Bayer has been ordered by Brazil’s Supreme Court to return to Brazilian soybean farmers the royalties they were charged for a GMO soybean seed, the Mato Grosso farmer lobby Aprosoja-MT said in a statement on Friday. The Feb. 13 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Nunes Marques relates to a GMO technology commercially known…

Home security provider Vivint Smart Home Inc owes rival CPI Security Systems Inc $189.7 million for tricking its customers into moving to Vivint’s service, a North Carolina jury decided Friday. The federal jury in Charlotte found Vivint sales representatives unlawfully deceived CPI customers into signing contracts with Vivint by falsely claiming that Vivint had bought the company. The jury said…

Former Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has broken her two-year silence, saying she has “a very different story” to tell about the Brittany Higgins rape scandal. The former Liberal cabinet minister was Ms Higgins’ boss when the political staffer alleges she was raped in Parliament House in 2019. In a four-hour interview with The Weekend Australian, Senator Reynolds claimed to be…

Binance is considering ending business relationships with banks and services firms amid heightened scrutiny.

Critics questioned the timing of the searches, which came after BBC aired show critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

  A Brisbane-based digital lender has been slapped with two infringement notices by ASIC for its false and misleading repayment estimate calculator. The corporate watchdog took action against Jaracanda Finance, which offered loans up to $15,000, typically for 12 to 36 months, because it was concerned that the credit licensee’s repayment estimate calculator: used an annual percentage rate that was…

The crackdown on opponents of President Saied has sparked international criticism and fears of a return to autocracy.

Saturday’s move by North Korea comes ahead of upcoming US-South Korea joint drills in Washington next week.