Free Republic

Bloomberg via MSN but still Bloomberg, so I assume the retriction on excerpting still stands. Regardless, it's an interesting article.

A female technology startup founder filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist for alleged sexual assault on an overnight flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis. Rachel Danae Vachata, a 29-year-old co-founder of technology companies, alleges that 73-year-old venture capitalist Lucio Lanza “preyed on” Vachata by threatening to use his position to make or break her companies and then repeatedly groped and attempted to kiss her during the flight last July, according to the complaint filed with the Santa Clara County Superior Court. Lanza is the founder and managing director of Lanza techVentures, based in Palo Alto. He...

Atlanta's traffic is legendary and the Georgia DOT says the increase in truck traffic needs to be addressed. Because the Port of Savannah and the Panama Canal have been deepened, more freight is coming in which translates to more semi-trucks traveling in and out of the Atlanta hub. GDOT estimates trucks carry 75 percent of the freight in Georgia and expects truck traffic to double by 2040.GDOT is in the early stages of planning the I-75 Commercial Vehicle Lanes project. The interstate will stretch from metro Atlanta 40 miles south to Macon. GDOT Operations Director John Hibbard says it would...

There are federal subsidies for lots of things that society has decided would be good for the country, such as school lunches for low-income kids and better highways for all who use cars, trucks, and buses. On the other hand, there has always been widespread discrimination in, among things, the hiring process. There are oodles of federal and state programs that make that kind of discrimination illegal, appropriately so....[snip] A program that invests more than $1 billion a year to promote that kind of discrimination? Does such a program not only fund job discrimination, does it specifically go after a...

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - The largest road construction project in state history is nearing completion, and relief for commuters is almost here. Georgia's Department of Transportation program manager for the project told Channel 2's Steve Gehlbach even after delays for weather and after the I-85 collapse, the new 75 express lanes should open by the end of summer. “It’s the longest land bridge in the state of Georgia," program manager for the project, Stephen Lively said. Northern sections above the 75-575 split and through Marietta are mostly complete, including one 6,000-foot raised section. Lively said the goal is to have...

OCALA, Fla. In mid-2016, a regional task force that spent almost two years exploring ways to improve safety on a crowded Interstate 75 decided to take a conservative approach: make changes to the highway rather than build or expand other roads. Then Hurricane Imra blew into Florida and thousands of people trying to flee its path got stuck, many of them in Ocala and points north and south. Now, a new road with a potential route through Marion and Alachua counties may be back on the table, if not exactly speeding ahead. "I think they are going to do it...

An ‘irregular’ house not built according to Puerto Rico codes in Villa Esperanza. It was damaged by Hurricane Maria. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Gladys Peña built a home the way many thousands of people in Puerto Rico, maybe most, did for decades: in makeshift fashion. Every week for years, Peña, a cafeteria cook, set money aside until she had enough to buy a vacant wooden shack in a densely packed working-class barrio, a one-time squatters’ community a short stroll from the towers of San Juan’s Golden Mile financial district. She knocked down most of the flimsy...

The flu vaccine is more effective than expected, federal health officials said on Thursday at a special news conference held to discuss the dangerous flu season, which is expected to kill more than 50,000 Americans. This year’s vaccine is about 25% effective against the H3N2 strain of flu that is causing most illnesses and deaths, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Per the NYT. But look at the AP story. The flu vaccine is doing a poor job protecting older Americans and others against the bug that’s causing most illnesses. Preliminary figures released...

What’s the greatest risk to China’s economy? Look no further than its growing corporate and household debt China has been one of the leading generators of debt since 2009, contributing to the latest worries over global inflation that have roiled markets PUBLISHED : Friday, 16 February, 2018, 6:01pm UPDATED : Friday, 16 February, 2018, 6:13pm Few investors study history. And the ones that do, dismiss the lessons as being irrelevant for the current market. Predicting China’s upcoming economic collapse is a popular contrarian viewpoint, but it is not so easy to generate a convenient scenario if you look at data...

When British Prime Minister Theresa May gave her traditional New Year's speech on December 31, one line -- actually, just one word -- jumped out at me. May spoke of the importance of “taking a balanced approach to government spending, so we get our debt falling but can also invest in the things that matter -- our schools, our police and our precious NHS.” Yes, “precious.” She actually described the National Health Service as precious! Now, one might easily forgive her for describing, say, Britain's finest doctors and nurses as -- oh, I don't know -- how about “treasured”? Or...

Federal deportation officers staged one of the biggest enforcement actions in years against businesses in Los Angeles this week, arresting 212 people and serving audit notices to 122 businesses who will have to prove they aren’t hiring illegal immigrants. Nearly all of those arrested were convicted criminals, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE said it targeted Los Angeles because it’s a sanctuary city, meaning it refuses to fully cooperate with federal authorities on deportations from within its jails. That means agents and officers have to go out into the community, said Thomas D. Homan, the agency’s deputy director.

The PBS NewsHour, which I love for telling me what to think and when to think it, had a piece yesterday about a black lesbian woman who claimed she couldn't get a mortgage because racist banks wouldn't lend to a black person.  When her Japanese lesbian partner applied for a loan, however, she quickly got it. Fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in lending, African Americans and Latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts. It found a pattern of troubling denials for people of color...

Jimmy Kimmel got choked up during his late-night monologue on Thursday night while discussing the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. “Don’t you dare let anyone say it’s too soon to be talking about [gun control],” Kimmel said amid an emotional takedown of Trump’s approach to the tragedy. “Because you said it after Vegas, you said it after Sandy Hook, you say that after every one of these — eight, now — fatal school shootings we had in this country this year. “Children are being murdered,” he declared as his voice broke. Addressing President Trump directly,...

Last week, Congress passed an outline of the 2019 budget. This week, President Trump rolled out his own budget plan, which would fill in some of the spending details. While most proposals in President Trump’s newly released 2019 budget are unlikely to become law, the fiscal framework does show the White House’s priorities for government over the coming year. And those apparently don’t include support for older adults, younger people with disabilities, or their families. For example, the Trump budget would: * Restructure the Medicare drug benefit to reduce costs for some beneficiaries but raise them for others. * Reduce...

Federal immigration agents are escalating efforts to crack down on businesses hiring undocumented workers. New data released Friday morning shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement visited 122 businesses over the past five days, mostly in Southern California. Mike Poindexter is CEO of his family business the Poindexter Nut Company near Fresno, California. He says most Americans don't want these labor-intensive jobs. "We hire people all the time. They show up, they work two days and they leave," Poindexter said. His company is now being audited by ICE. "We've had somewhere between 5 to 10 percent of our workforce quit voluntarily just...

As part of a sweeping new climate plan to make San Jose more environmentally friendly, the city is angling to become one of the first in the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet the levels outlined in the ambitious Paris Agreement. The city will launch San Jose Clean Energy - an alternative to PG&E known as a community-choice energy program - later this year. On Thursday, Mayor Sam Liccardo said the city will make 100 percent emission-free electricity available to everyone who participates in the program. By 2030, Liccardo said, the city plans to reduce carbon emissions from...

the NFL's ongoing ratings slide has been an exercise in highly subjective interpretation. Ask 20 fans why they believe the league's popularity is on the wane, and you'll get 20 responses, ranging from political (players taking a knee during the anthem) to pragmatic (the specter of repetitive brain trauma). In the interest of trying to get at the heart of what's actually driving the ratings erosion ... Horizon Media began an investigation. While the NFL and its network partners may not find the data terribly reassuring, the good news is that many factors that have alienated fans appear to be...

NATIONWIDE — The FDA says it’s launching an investigation after a euthanasia drug was found in cans of dog food. Washington, D.C. TV station WJLA partnered with the lab Ellipse Analytics to test multiple brands of wet dog food for the drug used to assist death in vet clinics, pentobarbital. In total, they tested 62 samples of more than two-dozen brands. One brand, Gravy Train, repeatedly came back positive for pentobarbital, according to the station. Out of the 15 cans tested, nine tested positive — or 60 percent. Gravy Train, made by Big Heart Pet Foods, is owned by Smucker’s....

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The widening of Interstate 81 from West Virginia into Maryland remains on track to be finished in 2020. "Work is still continuing in the cold," Stephen Bucy said Wednesday. Bucy, an engineer with the Maryland Department of Transportation, reported on the project and other Interstate 81 work Wednesday afternoon during a meeting of the Hagerstown/Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization's Interstate Council in Martinsburg. The current I-81 work is widening the highway from two to three lanes in each direction from about U.S. 11 (Exit 23) in West Virginia across the Potomac River to Md. 63/68 (Exit 1)...

WAYNESBORO — President Trump's national infrastructure plan announced Monday that calls for a $1.5 trillion investment in roads, bridges and the rest of America's crumbling infrastructure, provides for about $200 billion in federal funds. The remainder of dollars would have to come from state, local and private sources. For the Shenandoah Valley, the good infrastructure plan news includes funding to help with the maintenance backlog in the national parks, including Shenandoah National Park, where there is a $56 million maintenance backlog. However, a couple of local government officials and one of Virginia's U.S. senators interviewed expressed doubt about the trickle...