Warren Buffett addresses 30,000 shareholders at annual meeting

Compiled from news services

OMAHA, Neb. — Listening to Warren Buffett never gets old to the thousands of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders who filled an arena Saturday to listen to the billionaire investor at the company’s annual meeting.

More than 30,000 people came to Omaha to hear Mr. Buffett and Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger talk. The 86-year-old CEO and his 93-year-old partner have been leading the conglomerate for more than five decades, but the crowd is always listening for new tidbits of wisdom.

Mr. Buffett is known for his candor and plain speaking.

Berkshire’s top two executives acknowledged Saturday that they missed out on investing in Google years ago, but they expressed pride in the company they built through acquisitions and said they believe it will thrive for decades to come.

Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger avoided technology investments for most of their careers because they said it was too hard to figure out which companies will win. Berkshire does now own 133 million Apple shares, but it just sold off one-third of its 81 million IBM shares because Mr. Buffett misjudged that firm.

Mr. Buffett had harsh words for Wells Fargo’s managers who failed to respond promptly to the sales practices scandal that cost the former CEO his job last year.

The bank said last fall that its employees opened up 2 million bank accounts without customer approval to meet unrealistic sales goals.

Berkshire is Wells Fargo’s biggest shareholder. Mr. Buffett said he still believes in the long-term prospects of the bank even though Wells Fargo mishandled the scandal.

EPA ‘hides’ kids site

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency has sidelined a website aimed at teaching schoolchildren about climate change, a public watchdog group has determined, as part of the agency’s efforts to align online content with the new administration’s values.

When the EPA announced on April 28 that its site was “undergoing changes that reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt,” it posted a snapshot of the website as it looked on Jan. 19, the day before Trump took office.

While it made it clear that this snapshot would not be updated, the idea was to allow the public to see what was being changed under the new administration.

But “A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change,” a popular site that used to occupy a prominent place on the agency’s main website, is not accessible from either the snapshot or by navigating the agency’s home page, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a group that has been tracking what changes the new administration has been making to public science and environmental sites.

Confederate statue razed

NEW ORLEANS — On the same day that some Southern states were honoring their rebel heritage, masked workers in New Orleans dismantled a monument to that past — chunk by chunk, under darkness and the protection of police snipers.

“We will no longer allow the Confederacy to literally be put on a pedestal,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a Democrat, said after a 19th-century obelisk honoring what the mayor called “white supremacists” was taken down early Monday.

The Battle of Liberty Place monument, which honors members of the Crescent City White League who died trying to overthrow the New Orleans government after the Civil War, was the first of four statues linked to the Confederacy that are set to be torn down in New Orleans.

Mr. Landrieu said that “intimidation and threats by people who don’t want the statues down” prompted him to order the monument removed before sunrise, without prior announcement, on the same day that some other states celebrate the Confederate Memorial Day.

Police kill Calif. teen

SAN DIEGO — Police shot and killed a 15-year-old student Saturday after he pointed a BB gun at them in a high school parking lot, authorities said.

The Torrey Pines High School student called 911 shortly before 3:30 a.m. to ask officers to check on the welfare of an unarmed boy in front of the school, according to a police statement.

He didn't name the boy, but investigators later determined he was referring to himself, police said.

When two officers arrived, they spotted a youth in the front parking lot. But as they got out of their patrol cars, he pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at an officer, police said.

The officers drew their guns and ordered him to drop the weapon. But instead he began to walk toward an officer, ignoring more demands to drop the weapon, police said.

Both officers fired, hitting him several times.

They performed first aid and summoned paramedics, but the teen was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.

The gun was found to be a BB air pistol.

Police didn't release the teen's name because of his age.