House OKs SB 309

House OKs SB 309

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The Ohio House of Representatives has passed Senate Bill 309, which designates procedures and requirements for the establishment of marketing agreements for agricultural commodities.

This legislation is designed to bolster Ohio’s agriculture industry by encouraging agricultural partnerships that will aid in providing stable markets for products such as fruits, vegetables, dairy and specialty crops.

These agricultural agreements will be initiated and managed by farmers, with agreements being established through the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

Senate Bill 309 passed unanimously in the House and will be sent back to the Senate for concurrence.

Crisis spreads

MILAN

A growing number of European countries are being squeezed by a financial vise just days before a Greek election that could escalate the region’s political and economic turmoil.

The rise of Italian and Spanish borrowing costs to alarming levels Thursday heaped pressure on leaders to prevent Europe’s debt crisis from engulfing its largest countries. No grand solution appears imminent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes solutions that many experts are pushing that would increase costs for Berlin.

Merkel has found herself isolated from the leaders of Spain, Italy and France, who want the 17 countries in the euro currency union to move quickly to bind their governments’ finances and debt.

Such action could take the form of jointly issued debt or European-wide guarantees on bank deposits. Either step would spread the risks that individual countries bear across the eurozone.

Stanford gets 110 years for swindle

HOUSTON

Former jet-setting Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford had plenty of things to say Thursday before a federal judge sentenced him to 110 years in prison for bilking investors out of more than $7 billion over two decades.

An apology was not one of them.

In a defiant, rambling statement that lasted more than 40 minutes, Stanford told the court about the injuries he suffered during a prison fight; criticized the government for its “gestapo tactics” when his companies were put in receivership and their assets sold off to pay back investors; described his financial empire as a victim of the 2008 credit collapse; and recalled riding horses with former President George W. Bush.

“I am and will always be at peace with the way I conducted myself in business,” he said before the judge handed down the sentence.

Prosecutors said Stanford, 62, used the money from investors who bought certificates of deposit, or CDs, from his bank on the Caribbean island nation of Antigua to fund a string of failed businesses, bribe regulators and pay for a lavish lifestyle that included yachts, a fleet of private jets and sponsorship of cricket tournaments. The one-time billionaire was convicted in March on 13 of 14 fraud-related counts in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

Vindicator staff/wire reports