Cheney daughter seeks Senate seat
Cheney daughter seeks Senate seat
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney will run against Wyoming’s senior U.S. senator in next year’s Republican primary, her campaign said Tuesday.
Liz Cheney, 46, is the elder of Dick Cheney’s two daughters. Her announcement is a political challenge unlike anything Wyoming has seen for years, maybe decades.
Republicans in the state rarely challenge incumbents of their own party in national office. All three members of the state’s congressional delegation and all statewide elected officials are Republican.
Liz Cheney is married and has five children. She hasn’t been a longtime Wyoming resident but she and her husband bought a home in the posh northwest Wyoming community of Jackson Hole last year.
“I am running because I know, as a mother and a patriot, we can no longer afford simply to go along to get along. We can’t continue business as usual in Washington,” Cheney said in a statement.
Meanwhile, apparently aware that Cheney’s announcement was imminent, Sen. Mike Enzi announced his bid for a fourth term. He made the announcement more than six months earlier in the political cycle than he has in the past.
Enzi said he would continue to “do the job I was already elected to do.”
Stocks decline on earnings reports
NEW YORK (AP) — A string of lackluster earnings reports from companies including Coca-Cola and Charles Schwab ended an eight-day winning streak for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
Coca-Cola, the world’s largest beverage maker, fell after the company said it sold less soda in its home market of North America. Retail brokerage Charles Schwab’s second-quarter earnings fell short of what analysts were expecting. Marathon Petroleum fell after the fuel refiner forecast weak earnings and said its business was being hurt by renewable fuels laws.
“The expectations out there for earnings overall, they’re pretty modest,” said Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo. “Earnings season is not going to be what drives the market from here.”
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 32.41 points, 0.2 percent, to 15,451.85. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index declined 6.24 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,676.26. The Nasdaq composite dropped 8.99 points, or 0.3 percent, to 3,598.50.
Eight of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 fell. The declines were led by materials companies.
Horse slaughter
sites aim to open
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The attorney representing newly licensed horse slaughterhouses in New Mexico and Iowa says the plants are set to open Aug. 5.
But lawyer Blair Dunn says those plans hinge on an Aug. 2 court date before a federal judge in New Mexico overseeing a lawsuit by animal protection groups.
The Humane Society of the United States, Front Range Equine Rescue of Larkspur, Colo., and others filed the suit against the Department of Agriculture, alleging it failed to conduct the proper environmental reviews before issuing permits for Valley Meat Co. of Roswell, N.M., and Responsible Transportation in Sigourney, Iowa.
Dunn says the judge will decide whether to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the plants from opening. They would be the first horse slaughterhouses to operate domestically since 2007.
Not guilty plea
in Deen extortion
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A New York man has pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to extort embattled celebrity cook Paula Deen.
Federal court documents show Thomas George Paculis of Newfield, N.Y., appeared in Chatham County Superior Court on Tuesday morning to enter his not guilty plea.
An indictment filed July 10 in U.S. District Court in Savannah charges Paculis with trying to extort Deen of $200,000 in exchange for keeping quiet about allegedly damaging remarks Deen has made in the past. Details on what Deen’s alleged remarks were, and the relationship between Paculis and Deen, is unclear.
The case took form after Deen’s culinary empire began crumbing in response to her acknowledging during a deposition that she used racial slurs in the past.