Free Republic

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The site of a new ghost town in New Mexico has been chosen, and it will bring hundreds of new jobs to the state. The research firm Pegasus Global Holdings announced today that Hobbs is the best place for the state-of-the-art project. It will create a $1 billion site about the size of a town of 35,000 people complete with homes, streets and businesses but no residents. Instead of being a place to live, it will be used for scientists to test renewable energy innovations, traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks and smart-grid security systems. The company said...

New Yorkers are about to get zapped on their electric bills. Starting May 28, households in the five boroughs will be socked with rate increases of up to 12 percent to run appli ances -- after the feds de cided that power companies needed an extra $500 million a year, The Post has learned. And that's on top of another 4 percent state-OK'd Con Ed rate hike that kicks in today. A typical apartment resident's electric bill of $74 -- based on 250 kilowatt hours of power each month -- will go up to $86, or $12 more than last...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Malls, those ubiquitous shopping meccas that sprang up in the 1950s, are dwindling in number, with many struggling properties reduced to largely vacant shells. On the low-income east side of Charlotte, N.C., the 1.1-million-square-foot Eastland Mall recently lost a slew of key tenants, including a Dillard's and, next month, a Sears. Sales per square foot at the venue fell to $210 in 2008 from $288 in 2001. The Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park, Kan., is languishing after plans to redevelop it into an open-air shopping district fizzled. The stretch of shops that connects two largest...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2009 – Iraqi and U.S. forces are improving the quality of life in Iraq, in some cases, one village at a time. Army Pfc. Lukas Couvaras looks on from a distance as a school containing explosive devices is destroyed in Amugaten, Iraq, Feb. 7, 2009, as part of an Iraqi-U.S. mission to clear the village of explosives. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Opal Vaughn  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The combined forces focused recent efforts near Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad, where they transformed a former “ghost town” into a viable community and are preparing to...

DHP Review: Ghost Town I dare anyone to see the splendid new romantic comedy Ghost Town and imagine an actor other than Ricky Gervais in the lead role as Bertrum Pincus, a Manhattan-based dentist so desperate to remain indifferent to the human race he chooses cruelty over contact. Without Gervais the movie had no chance. No one else could get away with playing such a thoroughly unlikable character, and without that character Ghost Town would be pure vanilla instead of what it is, the best romantic comedy to come out in years. In screenplay parlance it’s called saving he cat...

GOLDFIELD, Nev. - Hank Dahlstrom is a relic, a crosspatch, a hermit. At 77, he is not an attractive man. He smells like a train yard hobo. He chews cigars. He appears to bathe in motor oil. He has long ears and hair in strange places. He has dirt in his nails and is pestered by flies. His vocabulary is coarse, and he would be happy if outsiders never showed their faces in these parts. Mr. Dahlstrom has a wife, but he chooses not to live at home. Instead, he sleeps on a soiled cot in the back room of...