Editor’s note: The Hufman’s well was contaminated with two chemicals that can form as dry cleaning fluid breaks down. An earlier version of the article incorrectly stated the type of the contamination.
The state allowed hundreds of residents in two Wichita-area neighborhoods to drink contaminated water for years without telling them, despite warning signs of contamination close to water wells used for drinking, washing and bathing.
In 2011, while investigating the possible expansion of a Kwik Shop, the state discovered dry cleaning chemicals had contaminated groundwater at 412 W. Grand in Haysville.
It didn’t test private wells less than a mile away. Nor did it notify residents that their drinking wells could be contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals, known as perchloroethylene, so they could test the water themselves.
“We didn’t find out for 7 years,” said Joe Hufman, whose well was contaminated by a Haysville dry cleaner. “Haysville knew it. KDHE knew it. Kwik Shop knew it.”
It had happened at least once before, at a dry cleaning site near Central and Tyler in Wichita, where the state waited more than four years between […]
Credit: Stanford Graduate School of Business
Chuck Jay worked as a coal miner for nearly three decades before he decided to start his own solar panel installation company just outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 2012. He had put panels on his own home a few years before and got hooked by the technology — not to mention the money he saved on his electric bill.
But just as his business was getting off the ground, Jay and a new customer were blindsided by a new charge from Alabama Power, the state utility company. To stay connected to the power grid — allowing households to sell back excess electricity on sunny days or draw power on rainy dark days — the customer would have to pay an extra $25 to $30 a month in fees.
Jay finished the installation, but the new fees have cramped his business. The extra charge eats up nearly all the money his customers would save by going solar. “It changed the dynamic totally of what I was doing,” […]
U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledges supporters during a Make America Great Again rally at the Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia, U.S., August 21, 2018. Reuters/Leah Millis
On Wednesday morning, the lead story on FoxNews.com was not Michael Cohen’s admission that Donald Trump had instructed him to violate campaign-finance laws by paying hush money to two of Trump’s mistresses. It was the alleged murder of a white Iowa woman, Mollie Tibbetts, by an undocumented Latino immigrant, Cristhian Rivera.
On their face, the two stories have little in common. Fox is simply covering the Iowa murder because it distracts attention from a revelation that makes Trump look bad. But dig deeper and the two stories are connected: They represent competing notions of what corruption is.
Cohen’s admission highlights one of the enduring riddles of the Trump era. Trump’s supporters say they care about corruption. During the campaign, they cheered his vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. When Morning Consult askedAmericans in May 2016 to explain why they disliked Hillary Clinton, the second-most-common answer […]
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Credit: Edward Pentin
In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.
Archbishop Viganò said in his written statement, simultaneously released to the Register and other media, (see full text below) that Pope Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.” Viganò said that the former archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to […]
California Professional Firefighters, which represents more than 30,000 first responders, announced its support for the state’s net neutrality bill this week.
Credit: @CAFirefighters/Twitter)
After Verizon “dramatically” slowed the internet service of firefighters battling the largest wildfire in California’s history earlier this summer, the statewide union for firefighters is urging California lawmakers to support a bill that advocates call the “gold standard” of state-level net neutrality legislation.
“Whether it’s real-time medical response information or connecting the vast expanse of a massive wildfire, firefighters need to communicate quickly because every second counts.”
—CPF
“Nowhere is effective, timely, and stable communication more critical than in the area of public safety and emergency response. Whether it’s real-time medical response information or connecting the vast expanse of a massive wildfire, firefighters need to communicate quickly because every second counts,” the California Professional Firefighters (CPF) said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement stressed that firefighters “cannot afford the added danger” of “unnecessary interferences” with “key communication resources,” especially while facing the “often unpredictable and uncontrollable” conditions created by the “new […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
