Wildfire donations

Wildfire donations

YOUNGSTOWN

AT&T customers in the area can help people affected by the California wildfires, the company announced.

Text “CAWILDFIRES” to 90999 to donate $10 that enables the Red Cross to respond to and help people recover from this disaster. Donations will appear on their wireless bill, or be deducted from their prepaid balance.

AT&T is automatically issuing credits and waiving additional charges from Nov. 9-30 to provide unlimited talk, text and data access for AT&T wireless and AT&T Prepaid customers in affected areas of California.

The AT&T Network Disaster Recovery team has deployed eight portable cell sites to help connectivity, and AT&T has installed device-charging stations at local shelters.

Race course event

AUSTINTOWN

Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course announced its Help Us, Help Others event will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Attendees are invited to bring 1 to 3 nonperishable and nonexpired food items to receive a mystery betting coupon to be used on any live race Saturday.

Items collected will be donated to the Ohio HBPA Chaplaincy Program at Mahoning Valley Race Course. The organization’s goal is to serve the horse-racing industry and its horsemen in any area in which they need assistance.

A donation box will be in the upper racing area located next to Harlan’s Holiday concession stand.

$1B casino deal

DETROIT

Businessman and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert has reached a $1 billion agreement to sell the Greektown Casino-Hotel in downtown Detroit, one of the city’s three casinos, companies involved in the deal announced Wednesday.

The move marks the latest in billions of dollars in investments planned or underway by Gilbert and his companies in Detroit, where he has a major real estate presence. Other projects include a planned skyscraper and technology startups.

Gilbert’s Detroit-based JACK Entertainment said it planned to sell the casino to Pennsylvania-based Penn National Gaming and New York-based VICI Properties. The deal requires state and federal regulatory approval. JACK Entertainment said it’s also “continuing a strategic assessment for its remaining gaming properties” in other states.

Rare conservation success story

WASHINGTON

There are more gorillas in the mist — a rare conservation success story, scientists say.

After facing near-extinction, mountain gorillas are slowly rebounding. On Wednesday, the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature updated mountain gorillas’ status from “critically endangered” to “endangered,” a more promising, if still precarious, designation. There are now just over 1,000 of the animals in the wild, up from an estimated population of 680 a decade ago.

“In the context of crashing populations of wildlife around the world, this is a remarkable conservation success,” said Tara Stoinski, president and chief scientist of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

“This is a beacon of hope — and it’s happened in recently war-torn and still very poor countries,” said Stoinski.

Staff/wire reports