OXY USA Calls It Quits For Awhile; The Dan Rather Of NBC: The Brian Williams Story Continues ... February 5, 2015; Magellan Midstream Reports

See disclaimer. 

Sprint reports a loss -- but not as bad as expected:

Sprint Corp. on Thursday reported a loss of $2.38 billion in its fiscal third quarter.
On a per-share basis, the Overland Park, Kansas-based company said it had a loss of 60 cents. Losses, adjusted for asset impairment costs, were 18 cents per share.

The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a loss of 23 cents per share.

From the press release, Magellan Midstream Partners:

Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. today reported net income of $252.1 million for fourth quarter 2014 compared to $190.0 million for fourth quarter 2013.

Diluted net income per limited partner unit was $1.10 in fourth quarter 2014 and 83 cents in fourth quarter 2013. Diluted net income per unit excluding mark-to-market (MTM) commodity-related pricing adjustments, a non-generally accepted accounting principles (non-GAAP) financial measure, was 93 cents for fourth quarter 2014, similar to the 92-cent guidance provided by management in Oct. 2014.

Distributable cash flow (DCF), a non-GAAP financial measure that represents the amount of cash generated during the period that is available to pay distributions, was $248.1 million for fourth quarter 2014 compared to $236.6 million for fourth quarter 2013.

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OXY USA calls it quits for awhile in the Bakken. The Dickinson Press is reporting:

Occidental Petroleum Corp. likely won’t have any oil drilling or fracking activity in Dunn County through March, a representative told county commissioners Wednesday.

The company “virtually eliminated” 2015 capital spending in North Dakota and in some international oil sands plays that have “unacceptable returns in the current price environment,” CEO Steve Chazen said in an earnings call late last month.

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Misleading apology? I said the same thing to my wife last night .... something doesn't ring true, and you know that Brian Williams (and his staff) (and his lawyers) would have worked very, very hard to write the "apology."

TruthRevolt is reporting:

NBC News anchor Brian Williams delivered a 60-second apology to his viewers Wednesday night for "mis-remembering" an incident during his reporting on the Iraq War twelve years ago.

However, he misled his viewers while apologizing for misleading them.

While explaining that he was not in a military helicopter that had to land after coming under fire as he had been claiming, Williams said: "I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft."

While it is technically true that Williams was in "a following aircraft," he neglected to explain that he was in an aircraft that followed the one hit by RPG fire by an entire hour.

The way Williams phrased it, "I was instead in a following aircraft," makes it sound like he was right behind the copter in question.

According to the military's Stars and Stripes, the organization that exclusively broke the story on Williams' tall tale: The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.

Williams even repeated the "following aircraft" fabrication in greater detail on his Facebook page while apologizing to the troops: I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp. Williams may have survived this fabrication if he had genuinely come clean in his public apology, but with the revelation of this additional embellishment, NBC News may very well have to make a move.

Can you say Dan Rather?

Key words that caught my attention: "misremembering"  "conflated"  "following aircraft"

Didn't Hillary have to come clean with a similar story?

Update: it was after posting the above that I actually heard his taped apology on the radio while getting ready to pick up the granddaughters. Wow. Pompous apology. He read the apology just as if it was a news item, and not an apology. It was in the first person, but sounded like it was in the third person. He read it like a news story. A casual listener won't even pick up on it that it was an apology. It sounds like when he realized he got caught, he gathered his writers, telling them to come up with something he could "read" on the air. I doubt that a news reader is a real writer, and this sounded like some great writing. But not an apology. A news item.

If NBC ignores this, well,... what can I say. No one is held accountable any more. This is where the CEO needs to come out front and center and say how displeased they are with Brian Williams and then make a case of keeping him or letting him go. But for a CEO to simply ignore this is quite sad.

I don't watch television (as a rule) but I would love to know how MSNBC covered this "gaffe."