After 2 years of investigations and deliberation, the oil giant BP is to pay a record $4.5 Billion dollar fine, over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, when 4.9 million barrels of oil escaped into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days, contaminating shorelines from Texas to Florida. BP agreed to criminal charges, and will go down in history, as the company that had to pay the biggest penalty ever imposed by the US Justice Department so far. Previously the record penalty fine was held by no other than Pfizer, which paid a $1.3 billion dollar fine in 2009 for marketing fraud, in connection to its Bextra pain medication. BP however still has to battle with the government over civil penalties for the pollution it caused when the drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel took on Russian president Vladimir Putin at a Russian-German forum in Moscow, where Merkel clearly stated that in Germany the Pussy Riot girls would not have received such a heavy sentence as President Putin deemed necessary. Two members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, are currently serving two-year sentences in prison camps for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for the performance in Moscow’s main cathedral. Putin took issue with German criticism of Russia’s treatment of the women, two of whom have begun two-year sentences for performing an anti-Putin song in a church. Finally the spokes country of Europe is standing up for what’s right, instead of sweeping everything under the carpet when it comes to Putin’s antics.
No more Twinkies! Hostess Brands, the maker of iconic treats such as Twinkies and traditional pantry staple Wonder Bread, is closing its plants and firing about 18,000 workers, in a move to liquidate the 82-year-old business. Hostess Brands has sought a U.S. court’s permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers. Hostess blamed heavy wage and pension obligations for its financial troubles. It said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which began last week, was the latest of a series of labor troubles that had crippled the company’s ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities, so Chapter 11 it is.
After 2 years of investigations and deliberation, the oil giant BP is to pay a record $4.5 Billion dollar fine, over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, when 4.9 million barrels of oil escaped into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days, contaminating shorelines from Texas to Florida. BP agreed to criminal charges, and will go down in history, as the company that had to pay the biggest penalty ever imposed by the US Justice Department so far. Previously the record penalty fine was held by no other than Pfizer, which paid a $1.3 billion dollar fine in 2009 for marketing fraud, in connection to its Bextra pain medication. BP however still has to battle with the government over civil penalties for the pollution it caused when the drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel took on Russian president Vladimir Putin at a Russian-German forum in Moscow, where Merkel clearly stated that in Germany the Pussy Riot girls would not have received such a heavy sentence as President Putin deemed necessary. Two members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, are currently serving two-year sentences in prison camps for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for the performance in Moscow’s main cathedral. Putin took issue with German criticism of Russia’s treatment of the women, two of whom have begun two-year sentences for performing an anti-Putin song in a church. Finally the spokes country of Europe is standing up for what’s right, instead of sweeping everything under the carpet when it comes to Putin’s antics.
No more Twinkies! Hostess Brands, the maker of iconic treats such as Twinkies and traditional pantry staple Wonder Bread, is closing its plants and firing about 18,000 workers, in a move to liquidate the 82-year-old business. Hostess Brands has sought a U.S. court’s permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers. Hostess blamed heavy wage and pension obligations for its financial troubles. It said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which began last week, was the latest of a series of labor troubles that had crippled the company’s ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities, so Chapter 11 it is.