The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Pennsylvania

  • Bill Cosby to be sentenced for sexual assault

    Bill Cosby is due to be sentenced for his sexual assault conviction from earlier this year in a two-day proceeding starting on Monday.

    The 81-year-old star of The Cosby Show was found guilty in April of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.

    The court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, has scheduled two days for the sentencing, to give witnesses the opportunity to speak before the judge.

    Cosby, who has been under house arrest since his conviction, will also be offered the chance to make a statement before Judge Steven O’Neill hands him his sentence.

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    His lawyers have said he will appeal the conviction, which observers say could push the case up to Pennsylvania’s highest court and take several years.

    More than 50 women have come forward to publicly accuse Cosby of sexual assault spanning several decades.

    But Cosby’s conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault refers solely to accusations from Constand, a former employee at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater.

  • CAMPUSLIFE man completes U.S. fellowship

    CAMPUSLIFE man completes U.S. fellowship

    A 300-Level student of the Lagos State University (LASU), Pelumi Olugbenga, has been named a fellow of Hesselbein Global Academy for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, United States (U.S.).

    Pelumi, a CAMPUSLIFE reporter in LASU, was among the five African students selected to participate in the leadership programme on scholarship.

    In the course of the programme, the participants went through series of leadership and civic engagement learning sessions, which were facilitated by business professionals, senior officers in the U.S. Army and top executive officers of organisations.

    After the training session, Pelumi volunteered to work with Rise Against Hunger, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in New York in the task of packaging thousands of meals that would feed over 10,000 children in poverty-stricken countries across the world.

    In carrying out his civic engagement exercise, Pelumi worked with four other Hesselbein fellows from other countries at the American Red Cross in Western Pennsylvania to generate ideas that would help the humanitarian body to be more effective in its operations.

    After completing his projects, Mr Pelumi was honoured with a medal for his contributions at an award held at the University of Pittsburgh, which was attended by the President of the school, Chancellor Patrick Gallagher.

  • US election: Long queue at swing-state polling stations

    US election: Long queue at swing-state polling stations

    Americans going out to polling sites Tuesday were reporting lengthy lines and hours-long wait times, especially in the toss-up states that will determine who becomes president.

    Some polling sites in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania described turnout as “unprecedented,” with voters waiting several hours to even enter the buildings, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

    Questlove, best known for being the drummer and frontman of the band The Roots, said on Instagram he was expecting a two-hour wait in Philadelphia.

    He posted an image of Netflix television titles and wrote underneath: “Welp, Netflix about to be my friend in this two-hour wait of a line … Happy to see this positive turnout.”

    However, voters at other places in Philadelphia reported breezing through the poll sites.

    Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, must hold onto the urban and college-educated voters of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in order win Pennsylvania, where Republican Donald Trump has had success with working-class voters.

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    In the north-eastern swing-state of New Hampshire, Twitter users posted images of lines stretching far outside polling places in the state’s biggest city, Manchester, even before they officially opened at 6 am (1100 GMT).

    There were concerns ahead of Tuesday about voter intimidation tactics from supporters of Trump, who has repeatedly called the election is “rigged” despite no evidence to support the claim.

    Political provocateur and Trump backer Roger Stone had called on people to descend on polling places as independent poll watchers as part of an effort dubbed “Stop the Steal.”

    Kristen Clark, the president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a group running an independent effort to address voter complaints, said it had received scattered reports of voter intimidation in parts of the battleground state of Florida.

    But if there was trouble at the polls, the cause often was often due to technical issues.

    The worst appeared to be in Durham County, North Carolina, where officials decided to extend opening times there by one and a half hours after computer failures at six sites prevented workers from checking the voter registration.

    North Carolina has been one of the most highly contested states in this election. The state’s many African American voters pushed it to the Democrats in 2008, but it returned to Republicans four years later.

    Turnout among African-American voters had trailed during early voting, providing a worrying sign for Democrats.

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  • Delta deal to bring U.S. crude to Pennsylvania Refinery

    Delta Air Lines Incorporated (DAL), the largest United States  carrier by market value, is trying to cash in on the biggest oil boom in the nation’s history by bringing more domestic crude to its refinery near Philadelphia.

    The Atlanta-based airline signed a five-year agreement with Addison, Texas-based midstream company Bridger LLC to supply the Trainer, Pennsylvania, refinery with 65,000 barrels of crude a day, more than a third of the plant’s capacity.

    Delta is hoping that greater use of domestic crude will help it turn a profit at the refinery, which it bought from ConocoPhillips in 2012 in an attempt to control prices and supplies for its fleet. U.S. crude production has risen 55 percent since the start of 2010, making prices cheaper than in the rest of the world.

    “We definitely believe domestic crude will be competitive versus foreign alternatives,” Graeme Burnett, Delta’s senior vice president for fuel optimisation, said by phone July 18. “We want to push the levels of domestic crude as high as we can.”

    Trainer is 100 miles (160 kilometers) from New York Harbor, the delivery point for gasoline and diesel futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Delta imported about 140,000 barrels of crude a day to feed the plant in April, mostly from Nigeria and Norway.

     

     

  • Pennsylvania pension-fix impasse punishes investors

    Pennsylvania, which shoulders one of the biggest pension burdens among United States, is bucking the wave of local governments trimming the benefits. Its bondholders are paying the price.

    Since 2011, seven of the 10 states with the nation’s largest retirement liabilities as measured by Moody’s Investors Service have cut the costs. Pennsylvania, ranked eighth, has made no progress in that span, after lawmakers last year failed to pass Republican Governor Tom Corbett’s proposal to curb the expense.

    In the $3.7 trillion local-debt market, the state may see its relative borrowing costs double within two years and its credit grade weaken without a fix, said Adam Mackey, head of munis at PNC Capital Advisors LLC. In 2013, Pennsylvania bonds fared worse than those of Massachusetts, which has credit grades one step higher, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Obligations of Illinois, which last month broke an impasse to bolster its pensions, outperformed both states last quarter.

    “We don’t want Band-Aids,” said Mackey, who helps oversee $6.5 billion in munis, including Pennsylvania debt, from Philadelphia. Pennsylvania “needs to legislatively get some stuff done” on pensions or it may see its AA credit grade drop three levels, he said.

    Growing hurdle

    Financing retiree benefits is a deepening challenge for localities nationwide as they recover from the 18-month recession that ended in 2009. States’ median pension-funding ratio fell to 69 per cent in 2012, from about 83 per cent five years earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

    The payments are taking money from needs such as schools, according to a January 14 report from a privately funded panel of budget analysts led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and ex-New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch.

    Pennsylvania’s unfunded liability is set to grow by 38 per cent to $65 billion in 2018, according to state estimates. It has the eighth-highest pension burden as a percentage of revenue, at 105 percent, compared with the U.S. state median of 45 per cent, according to Moody’s. Massachusetts placed ninth.

    In trading last year, the extra yield that investors demand to hold Pennsylvania obligations fell by 50 percent, to about 0.14 percentage point at year-end, Bloomberg data show. That trailed the 77 percent decline for the Massachusetts spread, to 0.08 percentage point. Mackey at PNC Capital said he compares Massachusetts and Pennsylvania debt for relative value.

    2010 Changes

    Pennsylvania’s most recent pension changes, in 2010, extended the practice of paying less into the systems than actuarially required, according to Standard & Poor’s.

    Massachusetts in 2011 raised the retirement age for most workers to 60 from 55 and reduced benefits for new public-safety officers, according to data from the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.

    Corbett, 64, who is running for re-election this year, plans to discuss the need for action in his February 4 budget address, said Charles Zogby, budget secretary for the sixth-most-populous state.

    Zogby said he expects the Republican-controlled legislature will propose bills this year that shift new workers to a defined-contribution plan, similar to a 401(k), from the current plan that guarantees specific benefits.

    Ratings companies have cited pension funding as a concern, Zogby said.