NBC News
May 25, 2023, 7:29 PM EDT
By Katarina Sabados, Kenzi Abou-Sabe and Hannah Rappleye

This story was produced in partnership with the Global Reporting Centre.

MONACA, Pa. — Shell has agreed to pay $10 million to Pennsylvania for exceeding emissions limits during the troubled launch of its massive new plastics plant in Beaver County. The sum includes a nearly $5 million civil penalty and another $5 million to fund local environmental projects.

“With this agreement, the Department of Environmental Protection is taking steps to hold Shell accountable and protect Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to clean air and water while encouraging innovation and economic development in the Commonwealth,” said acting Secretary Rich Negrín.

The “ethane cracker,” as the plant is called, is a 384-acre-wide industrial complex that heats ethane — a byproduct of fracking in the region — and “cracks” it under high pressure into ethylene to produce polyethylene pellets, a building block for plastic.

...

The enforcement action comes three weeks after NBC News and the Global Reporting Centre first started asking Shell and DEP questions about the plant, and not long after environmental advocacy groups sued Shell over its excess emissions. The agency’s consent order details a range of violations. In addition to repeatedly breaching emissions limits for VOCs, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and “hazardous air pollutants” — otherwise known as air toxics — DEP cited a slew of malfunctions at the plant dating back to June 2022.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pennsylvania-cracks-down-shell-plastics-cracker-plant-rcna82750

NBC News

By J.J. McCorvey

“We’ve been hiding in plain sight all along,” Tarren Bragdon said of his 12-year-old nonprofit, the Foundation for Government Accountability.

The Naples, Florida-based think tank has been publicly cheerleading GOP efforts to tighten work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid as part of high-wire debt ceiling talks in Washington. But without the clout or funding of major conservative K Street institutions that also support shrinking the federal safety net, the FGA has largely pursued a state-level strategy that has been quietly racking up wins.

As a result, low-income Americans in many states face narrowing access to key benefits programs, regardless of whether the curbs House Republicans passed in their debt ceiling bill last month wind up in a final deal with Democrats and the White House.

In recent interviews, half a dozen hunger relief groups across the country named the FGA as their top adversary in an escalating policy fight over safety net benefits, citing the group more frequently than any other. One aid organization feared drawing attention to its efforts, worried about triggering an FGA lobbying blitz to curb food stamp payments in its home state.

More:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/foundation-government-accountability-debt-ceiling-food-stamps-snap-rcna81369

By NBC New York Staff and Brian Thompson

There are now some answers regarding a fascinating macaroni mystery in a New Jersey town that has captivated the internet.

It all started when hundreds of pounds of pasta was found by a city council candidate along the banks of the Iresick Brook in a wooded part of Old Bridge. Keith Rost, who lives nearby, said there was likely about 200 pounds of alphabet noodles and spaghetti just left there, with no explanation given.

No meatballs and no sauce were included, just mounds and mounds of pasta.

And while the pasta appeared to be wet and limp in pictures, it wasn't like that when it was dumped there. The pasta was raw, but then the heavy rains over the weekend came, making the mounds look like they had been cooked before being dumped in the in Middlesex County town.

More
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/mystery-of-who-dumped-huge-mounds-of-pasta-next-to-a-stream-in-a-nj-town-is-solved/4305212/

According to the story, the pasta was dumped by a guy who was clearing out his late mother's house. The town public works department cleaned up the mess.

Source: Associated Press

MOULTRIE, Ga. (AP) — Four people were killed Thursday in a small city in rural south Georgia, including a fast food worker and two relatives of a gunman who took his own life, the local coroner said.

The shooter killed his mother and grandmother at two neighboring homes and killed a woman at a McDonald’s restaurant in downtown Moultrie, Colquitt County Coroner C. Verlyn Brock told The Associated Press. He said the gunman then killed himself.

Brock did not provide the identities of the shooter or victims. He said he did not know whether the gunman and the McDonald’s worker knew each other.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement only that there had been “multiple fatalities” at different crime scenes in the area.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/georgia-multiple-killings-mcdonalds-c4da2529ff38308a0b0bd5b4f6eca185