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  July 24, 2014 Like TTLA on Facebook Follow TTLA on Twitter

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Texas Tribune Daily Brief

 
The Brief for July 24
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Compilation of Texas news by John Reynolds at the Texas Tribune.
John Reynolds, Texas Tribune 07/24/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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Issues

 
Texas Slams EPA Website that Compares State Pollution Enforcement
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Compared to other states, Texas has a consistently higher percentage of major industrial plants with "high priority violations" of air pollution laws. Yet, compared to other states, Texas does far fewer comprehensive inspections of polluting facilities. Or at least, that's what data seem to show on website run by the EPA. The site is called ECHO for Enforcement and Compliance History Online. The EPA launched it in 2002. The goal was to give the public access to data on how state and federal regulators were enforcing pollution laws. The site not only allows access to detailed compliance reports for specific facilities, it also allows a comparison of enforcement action by state. An audit of the site in 2010 found that its data were "91.5 percent" accurate. The EPA updated ECHO in 2011 and again this year.
Dave Fehling, StateImpact Texas (NPR), Texas Tribune 07/24/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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GM Sets Aside at Least $400 Million to Pay Recall Victims
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General Motors Co., posting a second-quarter profit that missed analyst estimates, said it will spend at least $400 million to pay victims of the 2.59 million compact cars with a potentially faulty ignition switch linked to at least 13 deaths.
Tim Higgins , Bloomberg 07/24/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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Laws/Cases

 
Lawsuit Accuses Austin Police Officer of Excessive Force
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A recently filed lawsuit in Texas accuses an Austin police officer of using excessive force when he responded to a domestic disturbance call. The lawsuit alleges that the officer ended up kicking in a door and used a Taser gun twice on the couple's neighbor while he was responding to the call. The officer, who joined the Austin Police Department in April 2010, is reported to have used force 50 times in the last four years of working at the department. The police department states that officers used force 3,321 times in 2012, the most recently reported year.
Jade Mingus, KVUE-TV 07/23/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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$5.3M Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Filed Against Former Scout Leader
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A $5.3 million lawsuit filed on Wednesday alleges that a former Boy Scout leader, who was previously banned for giving alcohol to minors, sexually abused a man from Portland, Ore. when he was a child in the 1970s. In addition to the alcohol charges, the lawsuit alleges that the Scouts were also aware that the Scout leader had sexually abused another boy in California. The defendant led Boy Scouts on trips to Washington and California and the lawsuit contends that he continued giving alcohol to the minors, "to the point of gross intoxication." The defendant served as a Boy Scout leader for over a decade in Oregon, Washington, Montana, California, Alabama, Germany and Switzerland.
Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian 07/23/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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Sex Abuse Lawsuit Filed Against Church and Pastor
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A lawsuit has been filed against the Highland Park Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, along with its children's pastor who was charged this year with 36 counts of child sexual abuse. The sexual abuse lawsuit was filed in Birmingham on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Western Division. The lawsuit contends that "sexual abuse took place at Highland Park Baptist Church, in [the defendant's] office and attached storage closet, and on church-sponsored trips to Earle Trent Assembly Camp, sleepovers at Eddie's home and on the church van when [the defendant] drove youth to church-sponsored events." The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
Greg Garrison, AL.com 07/23/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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WV Man Files Suit Against GM, Delphi Automotive and Ramey Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge.
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Jason Vest filed the lawsuit last week in Mercer Circuit Court against General Motors, Delphi Automotive and Ramey Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge. The lawsuit alleges that a faulty ignition switch, manufactured by Delphi Automotive, in his wife's vehicle caused a crash and prevented airbags from deploying, resulting in her death. The company knew about the defective switches as early as 2001 but failed to act or inform the public until 2014, according to the lawsuit.
Ashley B. Craig,, Charleston Daily Mail 07/24/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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Travelers Ordered to Pay Over $500M in Asbestos Case
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A federal appeals court ordered Travelers Cos Inc to pay more than $500 million to thousands of asbestos victims in a case stemming from the insurer's coverage of Johns-Manville Corp, an insulation maker that spent six years in bankruptcy during the 1980s. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York reversed a February 2012 ruling in which U.S. District Judge John Koeltl said conditions under three settlement agreements in 2004 that required Travelers to make the payment had not been satisfied.
Reuters, Reuters 07/24/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
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Products

 
GM Issues 6 More Safety Recalls
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GM issued six more recalls on Wednesday, bringing its annual total to 60 recalls covering almost 30 million vehicles. The latest recalls cover nearly 823,000 cars, trucks and SUVs mostly in North America but including a small number of exports. The largest is for faulty seats in just over 475,000 cars and small SUVs. Other problems include incomplete welds on seat brackets, turn signal failures, power steering failures, loose suspension bolts and faulty roof rack bolts.
Associated Press, The Washington Post 07/24/2014   Facebook iconTwitter iconLinkedIn Icon
Read Article: The Washington Post    



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