The Akron Legal News

Akron Legal News

Business

Companies are still committing to net-zero emissions, even if it's a bumpy road – here's what the data show

(THE CONVERSATION) Companies around the world are increasingly committed to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions to slow and ultimately reverse climate change.
One indicator is the number of companies that have set emissions targets as part of the Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, a global nonprofit organization. That ... (full story)

Stock buybacks explained

Q: Is there an upside for shareholders if a company repurchases its stock? -- C.B., North Carolina
A: There definitely can be, because when the number of shares is reduced, each remaining share of stock has a bigger stake in the company. Imagine a pizza cut into eight slices and one cut into six slices. The second pizza's slices ... (full story)

Regulators approve North Dakota section of planned 5-state Midwest carbon dioxide pipeline

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota utility regulators granted approval for a span of a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline that would cross five Midwestern states — a key victory for the company that has faced vociferous landowner objections and various hurdles and setbacks in its plans.
The state Public Service Commiss ... (full story)

Local

Legal complications await if OpenAI tries to shake off control by the nonprofit that owns the rapidly growing tech company

(THE CONVERSATION) OpenAI, the tech company that created the popular ChatGPT chatbot, is at a crossroads.
It began as a nonprofit dedicated to developing artificial intelligence systems smarter than humans. Since its founding, OpenAI has boasted that it was upholding its nonprofit goal – "to build artificial general i ... (full story)

Asking ChatGPT vs. Googling: Can AI chatbots boost human creativity?

(THE CONVERSATION) Think back to a time when you needed a quick answer, maybe for a recipe or a DIY project. A few years ago, most people's first instinct was to "Google it." Today, however, many people are more likely to reach for ChatGPT, OpenAI's conversational AI, which is changing the way people look for information.< ... (full story)

State

JD Vance is leaving the Senate for the vice presidency. That's set off a scramble for his Ohio seat

COLUMBUS (AP) — JD Vance's election as vice president has opened up one of Ohio's U.S. Senate seats for the third time in as many years, setting off a scramble for the appointment among the state's ruling Republicans.
GOP Gov. Mike DeWine is tasked with filling the vacancy, giving the pragmatic center-right politician a ha ... (full story)

Here's how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to remake the nation's top health agencies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and environmentalist, for years gained a loyal and fierce following with his biting condemnations of how the nation's public health agencies do business.
And that's put him on a direct collision course with some of the 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors ... (full story)

Whistleblower sounds alarm about destruction of tribal sites in North Carolina

Spear points, hammer stones and picks lost to history under layers of leaves, roots and rocks — it was the evidence Scott Ashcraft was looking for.
The ancient tools were inadvertently unearthed in 2021 by a bulldozer fighting a wildfire along a steep slope in western North Carolina. Ashcraft, a career U.S. Forest Service ... (full story)

An Indian family froze to death crossing the Canada-US border, a perilous trip becoming more common

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — On the last night of their lives, Jagdish Patel, his wife and their two young children tried to slip into the U.S. across a near-empty stretch of the Canadian border.
Wind chills reached minus 36 Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius) that night in January 2022 as the family from India set out on foot to meet a w ... (full story)