Ohio House speaker, 4 others arrested in $60M bribery case
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The powerful Republican speaker of the Ohio House and four associates were arrested Tuesday in a $60 million federal bribery case connected to a taxpayer-funded bailout of Ohio’s two nuclear power plants.
Hours after FBI agents raided Speaker Larry Householder’s farm, U.S. Attorney David DeVillers described the ploy as likely the largest bribery and money-laundering scheme that had “ever been perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.”
Gov. Mike DeWine, also a Republican, called on Householder to resign immediately, saying it would be impossible for him to be an effective legislative leader given the charges against him. The head of the Ohio Republican Party, the state attorney general and the Senate president also urged Householder to step down. The leaders of the House Republican Caucus called the allegations shocking but stopped short of asking Householder to resign.
Householder was one of the driving forces behind the nuclear plants’ financial rescue, which added a new fee to every electricity bill in the state and directed over $150 million a year through 2026 to the plants near Cleveland and Toledo.
Also arrested were Householder adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, longtime Statehouse lobbyist Neil Clark, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges and Juan Cespedes, co-founder of The Oxley Group, a Columbus-based consulting firm.
Facing federal agents, Portland protests find new momentum
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mardy Widman has watched protests against racial injustice unfold in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, for more than seven weeks but stayed away because, at age 79, she feared contracting the coronavirus.
But that calculus changed for Widman when President Donald Trump sent federal law enforcement agents to the liberal city to quell violent demonstrations — a tactic he’s said he’ll use for other cities. On Monday, a masked Widman was in the street with more than 1,000 other Portland residents — a far larger crowd than the city had seen in recent days as it entered its eighth week of nightly protests.
“It’s like a dictatorship,” Widman, a grandmother of five, said, holding up a sign that read: “Grammy says: Please feds, leave Portland.”
“I mean, that he can pick on our city mostly because of the way we vote and make an example of it for his base is very frightening,” she said.
Far from tamping down the unrest, the presence of federal agents — and particularly allegations they have whisked people away in unmarked cars without probable cause — has given new momentum and a new focus to protests that had begun to devolve into smaller, chaotic crowds. The use of federal agents against the will of local officials has also set up the potential for a constitutional crisis, which could escalate if Trump sends federal agents elsewhere.
Tesla’s spent a year terrifying, electrifying Wall Street
DETROIT — Tesla’s losses were mounting last summer, massive debt payments were looming, and both Wall Street and federal regulators had run out of patience with the erratic behavior of CEO Elon Musk.
One year ago this week, shares plunged 14% after Tesla posted another quarterly loss, this one for $408 million, wiping out about $6 billion of the company’s worth.
Since then the stock has blasted off like a rocket at SpaceX, another Musk-led company. The electric car and solar panel maker has successfully opened a factory in China, introduced the Model Y electric SUV, made debt payments and posted profits for three straight quarters. Musk has also toned down his inflammatory posts on Twitter that had cost him and the company $40 million in penalties from U.S. securities regulators.
Today, Tesla’s market value is three times that of Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, combined. A single share of Tesla now goes for nearly $1,600 — a seven-fold increase from a year ago — making it one of the most expensive publicly traded shares in the world.
From wire sources
“Things just turned on a dime,” said Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA who specializes in the automotive industry. “It’s just been one positive announcement after another.”
Biden unveils caregiver plan, says Trump ‘quit’ on country
NEW CASTLE, Del. — Joe Biden offered a massive plan on Tuesday to create 3 million jobs and improve care for children and the elderly as he accused President Donald Trump of having “quit” on the country during a deadly pandemic.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee promised to spend more than three quarters of a trillion dollars — $775 billion over 10 years — to increase tax credits for low-income families, bolster care-giving services for veterans and other seniors and provide preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
“This is about easing the squeeze on working families” and showing families the “dignity and respect they deserve,” he said during a speech in New Castle, Delaware.
It’s the third plank of Biden’s larger economic recovery plan, following a $2 trillion environmental proposal he released last week and a $700 billion package unveiled the week before seeking to increase government purchasing of U.S.-based goods and invest in new research and development. Biden is attempting to illustrate for voters how the coronavirus can present opportunities for job growth and new policy priorities in contrast to Trump, who has promised to rebuild the economy stronger than ever but otherwise struggled to articulate what he hopes to accomplish with a second term.
“For all his bluster about his expertise about the economy, he’s unable to explain how he’ll help working families hit the hardest,” Biden said. He added that Trump “failed his most important test as an American president: the duty to care for you, for all of us.”
Cops: 14 injured after shooting outside Chicago funeral home
CHICAGO — Fourteen people were injured, one person was in custody and additional suspects were being sought after gunfire erupted outside a funeral home on Chicago’s South Side where at least one squad car was present, police officials said Tuesday.
First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said mourners outside a funeral home were fired upon from a passing SUV. Carter says several targets of the shooting returned fire. The SUV later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. One person of interest has been taken into custody. Carter says all the victims were adults.
The victims were taken by the Chicago Fire Department to nearby hospitals in serious condition, said spokesman Larry Langford.
Arnita Geder and Kenneth Hughes said they heard gunshots while in their home watching television, adding that they came outside to find bodies that were shot up and “laying everywhere.”
“We thought it was a war out here,” Geder told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s ridiculous all the shooting that’s going on out here, it really has to stop.”
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Virus antibodies fade fast but not necessarily protection
New research suggests that antibodies the immune system makes to fight the new coronavirus may only last a few months in people with mild illness, but that doesn’t mean protection also is gone or that it won’t be possible to develop an effective vaccine.
“Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity,” but antibodies are only part of the story, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He had no role in the work, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The immune system remembers how to make fresh antibodies if needed and other parts of it also can mount an attack, he said.
Antibodies are proteins that white blood cells called B cells make to bind to the virus and help eliminate it. The earliest ones are fairly crude but as infection goes on, the immune system becomes trained to focus its attack and to make more precise antibodies.
Dr. Otto Yang and others at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured these more precise antibodies in 30 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and four housemates presumed to have the disease. Their average age was 43 and most had mild symptoms.
