Price of gas drops 9 cents over 2 weeks

Price of gas drops 9 cents over 2 weeks

CAMARILLO, Calif.

The U.S. average price of regular gasoline dropped 9 cents over the past two weeks to $2.35 a gallon.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday that prices have plummeted from five weeks ago as U.S. retailers and refiners slashed their profit margins even as crude oil prices rose.

She says she expects prices could drop another few cents due to ample gasoline supplies and strong consumer demand.

The national average price of diesel fell 5 cents in the past two weeks to $2.58 a gallon.

In the lower 48 states, the lowest average price of regular gasoline was $1.92 per gallon in Baton Rouge, La., while the highest was $3.06 per gallon in Los Angeles.

Sentencing set for managers who helped convict boss

ALBANY, Ga.

Two former managers of a Georgia peanut plant whose testimony helped prosecutors convict their boss and send him to prison for selling salmonella-tainted food will soon learn their own sentences.

Sammy Lightsey and Danny Kilgore both served as operations manager of the Blakely, Ga., plant linked in 2009 to salmonella that sickened 714 people and was blamed for nine deaths. They face sentencing Thursday by a federal judge in Albany.

Both men pleaded guilty and testified against their boss, former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell, who was convicted last year of shipping tainted peanut products and faking results of lab tests for salmonella.

Obama: Religious freedom no excuse to deny rights

NEW YORK

President Barack Obama says freedom of religion isn’t a reason to deny Americans their constitutional rights.

Obama appeared to be referring to Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Davis said such unions violated her religious beliefs.

She was jailed for several days over her defiance of the Supreme Court ruling that gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.

Obama says it’s important to recognize that some parts of the country remain uncomfortable with same-sex marriage. But he says that while Americans cherish the right to freedom of religion, it can’t be used to deny a person’s constitutional rights.

UPMC program reopens after mold investigation

PITTSBURGH

A Pittsburgh-area medical system is reopening its organ-transplant program, six days after closing it because of concerns that mold contributed to the deaths of three transplant patients who had fungal infections.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center reopened the program Sunday after its procedures and treatments were reviewed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Department of Health says UPMC must submit a plan to improve infection and mold control. It didn’t say whether mold caused the deaths or whether investigators had found the source of the mold.

UPMC’s chief medical and scientific officer Dr. Steven Shapiro says patients are being transferred from southern and central Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia for life-saving organ transplants.

UPMC has said a fourth patient was fighting a fungal infection.

Associated Press