A land swap with the federal government could allow a developer to install a natural gas pipeline that crosses the Appalachian Trail.
The Roanoke Times reports details of the deal were disclosed Monday in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The U.S. Department of the Interior could allow the Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail in exchange for property that Mountain Valley owns next to the Jefferson National Forest.
The developer plans to cross the trail at the top of Peters Mountain, near the Virginia-West Virginia line. The pipeline is expected to be more than 300 miles (483 kilometers) long.
Several federal agencies would have to approve the land swap. The move would push the project’s completion to next year, and increase the cost to $5 billion.
Sports Illustrated gets new publisher
Digital platform company TheMaven has bought the right to publish Sports Illustrated – digitally and in print – for at least the next 10 years, ending former owner Meredith’s relationship with Sports Illustrated a few weeks after the landmark magazine’s intellectual property was sold to the Authentic Brands Group, TheMaven and Meredith announced Monday.
TheMaven, based in Seattle, also announced the creation of Sports Illustrated Media, to be run by veteran media industry executive Ross Levinsohn, a former publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
While the price was undisclosed, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing said that TheMaven had already paid $45 million to Authentic Brands. The two companies will also share revenue.
“The two companies will be partnering in building the brand worldwide,” the filing said.
Authentic Brands, a licensing company, is run by entrepreneur Jamie Salter. A significant portion of its business comes from its deals to represent the estates of dead-but-still-lucrative celebrities like Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk closing Twitter account
Tesla CEO Elon Musk abruptly revealed that he is closing the popular Twitter account that has repeatedly landed him in legal trouble, but then proceeded to keep it open long after he announced he had deleted it.
The mixed messaging began to unfold Sunday when Musk changed his Twitter handle to DaddyDotCom in apparent homage to Father’s Day. Then he signaled in a tweet that he was scrapping the account. But 15 hours later, the account remained open under its old “elonmusk” handle with 27 million followers.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment and Musk hadn’t explained his earlier tweets on Twitter as of Monday.
Musk has used his Twitter account to pull pranks and make baffling changes in the past. In February, for instance, he suddenly changed his handle to “elontusk.” When Musk was later asked during a conference call with reporters why he made that change, he confessed: “I was just playing the fool on Twitter.”