Leading the discussion: The Baton Rouge Area Chamber has released the lineup of speakers for the Regional Canvas Benchmarking Workshop taking place May 20-22 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The lineup includes Steve Leeper, president and CEO of Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation, and Wendy Lea, CEO of Centrifuse, a public-private partnership designed to build a tech-based economy in the Greater Cincinnati Region. The three-day workshop will expose participants to prominent business and community leaders in Cincinnati. See the full lineup of speakers and get more information. Registration ends Friday, April 20.
Sued: Facebook faces two new federal lawsuits for allegedly violating the trust of the millions of users whose personal data was shared with the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica. A California suit filed Monday seeks a court order to halt what it calls Facebook’s unfair and deceptive business practices. A Delaware case filed today contends Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. It also names Cambridge Analytica and its business partners as defendants, alleging they committed fraud by improperly obtaining personal data on at least 80 million Facebook users. Both are seeking class-action status. The Associated Press has the full story.
Cleaning up: Federal environmental regulators have reached a long-awaited agreement with the owners of a polluted toxic waste site in Texas that was damaged during Hurricane Harvey, releasing dangerous chemicals into a river. The Environmental Protection Agency says it reached an agreement with International Paper Co. and McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corp. to design a plan to remove dioxin-contaminated materials from the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund site in the Houston area. The estimated cost for the project is $115 million and is expected to take more than two years. More than a dozen Superfund sites were flooded by Harvey, damaging infrastructure meant to contain pollutants at least two of the sites. Read more.
