Category: Uncategorized

PepsiCo Inc said on Thursday it will withdraw its lawsuits against a number of Indian potato farmers accused of infringing its patent.

After suing four farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, grown exclusively for PepsiCo’s popular Lay’s potato chips, the snack food and drinks maker said last week it wanted to “amicably settle” the issue.

Other than filing the lawsuit against the four farmers in April, PepsiCo had also sued five other potato growers.

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A former middle school teacher who admitted paying for sex with a 14-year-old girl who was trafficked on Backpage.com has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, prosecutors said on Tuesday, in the latest criminal case stemming from the now-shuttered site.

Backpage.com was the dominant Internet marketplace for buying and selling sex in the United States before federal authorities seized it in April 2018 as part of an investigation into human trafficking and child prostitution.

Continue reading “Florida man imprisoned for trafficking girl, 14, via Backpage.com”

The White House has refused a request for President Donald Trump’s top immigration aide to testify to Congress, its latest salvo against efforts by Democratic lawmakers to examine the policies of the Trump administration.

In a letter on Wednesday to the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, the White House said Stephen Miller would not testify before the committee about Trump immigration initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant children from their parents and his threat to send illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities.

Continue reading “White House to Congress: top Trump immigration aide won’t testify”

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc said on Thursday it received another subpoena from U.S. federal prosecutors, seeking information related to an outbreak that left hundreds of people sick last year in one of its Ohio restaurant.

Shares of the burrito chain fell 5 percent following the disclosure and after analysts said they see limited valuation even as the company posted better-than-expected quarterly sales and profit on Wednesday.

“Its not a new incident but (the subpoena) is enough to shake off some of the more skittish bulls on the story,” said Maxim Group analyst Stephen Anderson.

Continue reading “Latest subpoena sours Chipotle’s quarterly beat”

South Carolina’s Republican-majority Senate advanced a measure on Wednesday that would require the state to block new infrastructure to transport or process offshore oil and gas as state lawmakers fear the Interior Department will open the Atlantic coast to offshore drilling.

Republican State Senator Chip Campsen introduced a provision to the state budget that prohibits the state from approving any activity that would facilitate drilling offshore. This would effectively kill plans to drill off South Carolina’s coastline even if it is included in Interior’s Outer Continental Shelf leasing plan, which is due to be released in the coming weeks.

Continue reading “South Carolina aims to bar offshore drilling with budget proposal”