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National News Briefs: 3/24/2012
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NEW YORK -- Facebook has taken steps in recent days to address more worries about privacy, warning employers not to ask prospective employees for their passwords to the site so they can poke around on their profiles.
The company threatened legal action against applications that violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords.
The company action came after The Associated Press documented cases of job applicants who were asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their online profiles.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority last year in revoking water pollution permits that another agency had issued for one of West Virginia's largest mountaintop removal coal mines, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Friday.
In siding with St. Louis-based Arch Coal, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson declared the permits were valid. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had issued the permits for the 2,300-acre Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County.
The EPA in January 2011 used its veto power for only the 13th time since 1972 to overturn a permit the corps had issued under the federal Clean Water Act.
WASHINGTON -- A former MF Global executive appears to contradict testimony from Jon Corzine, saying the former senator and New Jersey governor ordered the transfer of $200 million last fall out of a customer account days before the brokerage firm collapsed, according to an email obtained by congressional investigators. and released Friday.
Edith O'Brien, MF Global's former assistant treasurer, says Mr. Corzine ordered the money shifted to one of the firm's bank accounts overseas on Oct. 28 to cover an overdraft, according to a memo that cited the email.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 31. About $1.6 billion of customers' money hasn't been recovered.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A former California food company owner pleaded guilty to racketeering Thursday in a tomato price-fixing plot that authorities said drove up costs to consumers across the nation.
Frederick S. Salyer, 56, was charged with bribing purchasing managers at food giants including Kraft Foods Inc. and Frito-Lay to buy tomato products from his company, Monterey-based SK Foods. Prosecutors said he and his co-conspirators fixed prices and rigged bids for the sale of tomato products to McCain Foods USA Inc., ConAgra Foods Inc. and Kraft.
Mr. Salyer pleaded guilty in federal court in Sacramento to two charges: racketeering and price fixing. Under a plea agreement Mr. Salyer is expected to face four to seven years behind bars.
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, posing a potential challenge for the Las Vegas Democrat running for Senate this fall in a closely watched race that could determine which party controls the chamber.
Ms. Berkley came under scrutiny last fall after a report in The New York Times said that her husband's medical practice benefited after she led efforts to prevent a kidney transplant program at University Medical Center in Nevada from being shut down by federal regulators.
First Published March 24, 2012 12:11 am
