2024-10-10 21:23

BRASILIA, Oct 10 (Reuters) - A millionaires tax is one of four scenarios being evaluated by Brazil's government to compensate for proposed tax exemptions for the lowest earners, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Thursday. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pledged to send an income tax reform to Congress, including a proposal to extend an income tax exemption to those earning up to 5,000 reais ($895.8) a month. The current upper limit for the exemption is 2,824 reais per month. Haddad told journalists on Thursday that the reform must be "neutral," meaning measures aimed at increasing government tax revenues would have to compensate the effects of proposed exemptions. Local newspaper Folha de S. Paulo first reported on Wednesday that the government was mulling the creation of a minimum tax on individual millionaires, which would be set between 12% and 15% of income. Under the rules being discussed, according to the report , millionaires who currently do not pay the minimum percentage would have to contribute further until they reach the target. Asked about the report, Haddad said that "it's one of the scenarios" under consideration. The reform would be the government's latest change on taxes after Congress approved last year a major overhaul on consumption levies, although lawmakers still need to green light bills with regulations needed to implement the measures. ($1 = 5.5819 reais) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-minister-says-taxing-millionaires-is-one-option-under-income-tax-reform-2024-10-10/

2024-10-10 21:08

NEW YORK, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab, Alphabet (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab, Meta (META.O) , opens new tab, Amazon (AMZN.O) , opens new tab, along with other companies, have proposed an alternative framework for how data centers pay for power in Ohio, according to documents filed with regulators on Thursday. The companies had been fighting a proposal brought by utility AEP Ohio in May that would require data centers and cryptocurrency miners to provide pre-payments and other financial assurances for their massive energy needs. AEP said at the time it was overloaded with requests from those two groups. A growing number of U.S. states are receiving an influx of power demand from data centers as Big Tech rushes to acquire large amounts of electricity to expand technology such as generative AI. The Ohio dispute is among the regulatory battles underway that may set precedents for how the U.S. power industry will manage the fast-moving expansion of data centers and who will pay to accommodate their demand. The explosion in power requests prompted AEP Ohio this year to pause new contracts for data centers, the company said when it filed for the tariffs. Big Tech, power companies, including Constellation Energy (CEG.O) , opens new tab and One Energy Enterprises, along with others, later opposed AEP. Some of those companies have now offered to settle the case by laying out their own set of rules before regulators. Those terms include broadening the range of customers that would fall under AEP's rules to include any industry with loads of more than 50 megawatts at a single location. The proposal also changes the circumstances under which big new power customers must pay for costs such as transmission upgrades. The PUC of Ohio would have to approve any settlement. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/big-tech-proposes-power-rate-terms-ohio-data-center-fight-2024-10-10/

2024-10-10 20:56

HOUSTON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab on Thursday lost a bid to have U.S. regulators allow it to view nonpublic commissioning documents related to Venture Global LNG's Calcasieu Pass facility, a setback in a broader dispute over access to cargoes from the plant. Shell, BP (BP.L) , opens new tab, Galp (GALP.LS) , opens new tab, Repsol (GALP.LS) , opens new tab, Orlen (PKN.WA) , opens new tab and Edison (EDNn.MI) , opens new tab have launched contract arbitration cases in the U.S. and Europe with over the status of the plant and their inability to obtain contract cargoes for more than two years. Shell and others say they have lost billions of dollars in profit from gas promised under long-term contracts but was not delivered. Venture Global LNG contends it has not fully commissioned the Louisiana plant. The buyers have challenged that contention by initiating arbitration and regulatory proceedings and in their regulatory battle have won access to some confidential commissioning documents filed with the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC's ruling on Thursday allows the parties to see nonpublic documents from Jan. 1, 2022, before the plant started operations. But the administrative law judge appointed by FERC rejected the request for all nonpublic documents, including those that precede the January 2022 deadline, to be turned over to Shell. Judge Matthew J. Vlissides Jr. ruled that Venture Global LNG is not required to serve nonpublic documents filed with the Commission other than those from Jan. 1, 2022. Neither Venture Global nor Shell was immediately available for comment. The judge also noted that Shell was the only company that requested documents dated before January 2022. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-regulator-denies-shells-request-older-venture-global-lngs-documents-2024-10-10/

2024-10-10 20:55

Tornadoes from Hurricane Milton kill five in St. Lucie County Some 19 confirmed tornadoes in Florida by Wednesday, 45 reported throughout the day Residents begin cleanup, expressing shock at the extent of damage LAKEWOOD PARK, Florida, Oct 10 (Reuters) - As a tornado whipped up by Hurricane Milton approached, Crystal Coleman raced with her 17-year-old daughter to hide in the bathroom of her home in Lakewood Park in Florida's hard-hit St. Lucie County on the eastern coast. "That is when the roof started pulling off, I started seeing outside of the house," she said standing near her badly damaged home on Thursday, a few hours after the storm had passed. "It was devastating. It felt like the tornado was spinning on top of my house." Her curtains hung outside of her home's smashed-out windows, fluttering in the breeze. Coleman, 37, said that she had never been through anything like this before. "It felt like I was in a movie," she said. "I felt like I was about to die." Hurricane Milton, the fifth-most-intense Atlantic hurricane on record, came ashore on Florida's western coast on Wednesday evening, but some of its worst havoc was wrought more than 100 miles (km) away on the other side of the state along its eastern shore. In St. Lucie County, an advance flurry of tornadoes killed five people, including at least two in the senior-living Spanish Lakes communities, according to local officials. Search-and-rescue teams here are combing through hard-hit areas, including a mobile-home park. It is not unusual for tornadoes to form in the far outer rain bands of an approaching hurricane, but such tornadoes are typically weaker and shorter-lived than those that heralded Milton's arrival, according to Corene Matyas, a University of Florida geography professor. There were 19 confirmed tornadoes in Florida by the time Milton made landfall on Wednesday. Some 45 tornadoes were reported throughout the day. Calvin Lee Hamilton, 57, has lived in the St. Lucie County area for his entire life. A tornado touched down nearby and raced through his neighborhood, downing trees and ripping off roofs. "I was trying to get prepared for the hurricane and a tornado hit," he said, resting against the sawn-up limbs of a neighbor's downed tree. "The tornado hit before the hurricane. It was a double disaster." The center of Hurricane Milton eventually passed over the county on Thursday morning before heading out to the Atlantic Ocean. Across the county, concrete electric poles were snapped in half, trucks were overturned in ditches, and frazzled residents were beginning to clean up the debris littering the roads, using chainsaws to chop up large trees. Neighbors huddled, figuring out next steps and expressing bewilderment that this area was among the hardest hit by a hurricane that struck the opposite coast. The roof of the Lakewood Park Church was partially blown off and the bells in its belfry crushed like an aluminum can. As adult parishioners held their faces in their hands and stared at the destruction of the church, their children were nearby, playing and climbing thick trunks of trees downed nearby. "The main thing we need is to come together as people," Hamilton said before resuming his efforts to clear debris from his neighbor's yard. "I ain't even got my yard finished, you know, but I love my neighbors like that." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/double-disaster-florida-where-tornadoes-heralded-miltons-arrival-2024-10-10/

2024-10-10 20:52

Oct 10 (Reuters) - Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida's west coast on Wednesday evening before driving across the state's peninsula and blowing out to the Atlantic by morning. The storm damaged buildings and infrastructure and brought intense rainfall, but the catastrophic storm surge that had been feared never materialized. In central and eastern Florida, Milton triggered tornados that are believed to have killed at least four people. WHEN AND WHERE DID HURRICANE MILTON MAKE LANDFALL? After rapidly intensifying to a rare Category 5 hurricane followed by a gradual weakening to a Category 3 in the Gulf of Mexico, the eye of Milton made landfall at about 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday near Siesta Key in Sarasota County on Florida's western coast, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Siesta Key is south of the densely populated Tampa Bay area, which authorities feared would sustain a direct hit, its first in about 100 years. WHERE IS HURRICANE MILTON NOW AND WHERE IS IT HEADING? Milton spent about 12 hours crossing central Florida, and as of Thursday morning had left the state's east coast and was heading over the Atlantic Ocean where it will dissipate. It is forecast to move north of the Bahamas later on Thursday, where some northwestern islands in the archipelago will experience tropical-storm conditions. WHAT DAMAGE HAS HURRICANE MILTON CAUSED IN FLORIDA? Tornados spawned by Milton killed four people in St. Lucie on Florida's east coast, including at least two people in a retirement community. More than 3.4 million customers were without power on Thursday, according to the tracking service PowerOutage.us. State and local officials are assessing the damage, but as of Thursday morning Milton was known to have destroyed at least 100 homes and left a gaping hole in the fabric roof of Tropicana Field, the baseball stadium in St. Petersburg. It toppled a construction crane in St. Petersburg. WHAT ARE THE FIVE MOST-INTENSE ATLANTIC HURRICANES? The lower a hurricane's minimum central pressure, the more intense it is. Milton is the fifth-most-intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic - which includes the Gulf of Mexico - although it weakened significantly before making landfall. The most-intense hurricane on record is Wilma in 2005, followed by Gilbert in 1988, the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, and Rita in 2005. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-damage-did-florida-sustain-hurricane-milton-2024-10-10/

2024-10-10 20:47

CHICAGO, Oct 10 (Reuters) - California on Thursday confirmed a fourth case of bird flu in a person who had contact with infected dairy cattle. Nationwide, 18 people this year have tested positive for the virus, which has been confirmed in dairy herds in 14 states. All but one of the people were known to be exposed to sick cattle or poultry. The four people who tested positive in California, the most populous U.S. state, were exposed to infected cows at four separate farms, the California Department of Public Health said. The department added that it was notified of two additional possible human cases. People who tested positive in California suffered mild symptoms, including eye redness or discharge, and were not hospitalized, the department said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-confirms-fourth-human-case-bird-flu-2024-10-10/