Hunt Valve contract

Hunt Valve contract

SALEM

Hunt Valve Co. Inc., 1913 E. State St., doing business as Union Flonetics, won a $123,200 federal contract from the Defense Logistics Agency for the manufacture of safety-relief valves.

Several stabbed at blood plasma center

PETERSBURG, Va.

A man stabbed several people at a blood plasma donation center in Virginia on Thursday before he was taken into custody, authorities said.

The stabbings took place inside the Octapharma Plasma center in Petersburg, about 20 miles south of Richmond, WTVR TV quoted Petersburg Police Chief Kenneth Miller as saying.

An unknown number of victims were wounded by a “cutting instrument,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch quoted Petersburg police Lt. Dustin Sloan as saying. Sloan said earlier Thursday that the victims were “stable,” without elaborating.

San Francisco to paint over debated Washington mural

SAN FRANCISCO

The San Francisco Board of Education will spend up to $600,000 to eliminate historical artwork depicting the life of George Washington.

An 83-year-old mural at George Washington High School has been criticized as racist and degrading for its depiction of black and Native American people. When the mural was created, many considered the work radical for showing unsavory aspects of American history, such as slavery.

School Board member Mark Sanchez voted to paint over the mural, saying it’s unfair for students to see harmful images.

Critics worry the move censors a critical portrayal of history and that other New Deal-era artwork could face a similar fate.

N. Carolina proposes smokable hemp ban

CLIMAX, N.C.

North Carolina is the latest state considering a ban on smokable hemp, a product that’s exploding along with the health craze surrounding a compound in the plant known as CBD.

Besides federal regulations laid out in the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, the Food and Drug Administration has no additional regulations on smokable hemp, leaving states to figure out how to govern it themselves.

This year, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas banned smokable hemp entirely, while Kansas banned products including hemp cigarettes and cigars. Tennessee prohibited smokable hemp sales to minors.

North Carolina’s House is considering a smokable hemp ban after it recently passed the state Senate.

The legislation focuses primarily on expanding the state’s pilot hemp growing program, which has more than 1,000 licensed hemp growers and 600 registered hemp processors, to position it as a leader in the burgeoning industry.

Supertanker with oil detained by Gibraltar

MADRID

Authorities in Gibraltar said they intercepted an Iranian supertanker Thursday that was believed to be breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Tehran’s crude oil to war-ravaged Syria.

A senior Spanish official said the operation was requested by the United States. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency called the incident “an illegal seizure of an Iranian oil tanker.”

Gibraltar port and law-enforcement agencies, assisted by Britain’s Royal Marines, boarded the Grace 1 early Thursday, authorities on the British overseas territory at the tip of Spain said.

It added that the vessel was believed to be headed to the Baniyas Refinery in Syria, a government-owned facility under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad and subject to the EU’s Syrian Sanctions Regime.

Staff/wire reports