Free Republic

State officials plan to allow a private company to set toll rates and keep the revenue from the proposed I-285 express lanes — a move that will affect hundreds of thousands of metro Atlanta commuters. The firm would invest in the design, construction and maintenance of the new lanes, currently set for construction beginning in 2023, then recover its investment by collecting toll revenue for 50 years. Many details — including which company will operate the lanes, how much it will invest and any limits on its tolling authority — have not been determined. Georgia transportation officials say private investment...

The Paycheck Protection Program has run out of money for most borrowers before its planned May 31 end, the Small Business Administration said. Going forward, the program will only accept new applications from community financial institutions, which typically serve minority borrowers, as about $8 billion in funding was set aside for such businesses. The SBA will continue to fund outstanding approved PPP applications from other lenders but won’t accept any new applicants. The exhaustion of funds, which was announced Tuesday, comes just weeks after the PPP was extended through the end of May to allow borrowers more time to apply...

A former Massachusetts pizza shop owner is accused of using illegally obtained federal coronavirus relief funds to buy an alpaca farm, federal prosecutors said. Dana McIntyre, 57, who used to own Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in the city of Beverly, received a $600,000 loan by allegedly lying about his number of employees and falsifying an official tax form, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston. On his application for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, McIntyre allegedly said he employed about 50 people.

BEVERLY, MA —A large pepperoni with a side of warm and fuzzy mittens? The former owner of Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in Beverly is facing federal fraud charges after the U.S. Attorney's Office accused Dana McIntyre of using $660,000 in Paycheck Protection Program funds for personal purposes, including to buy alpacas for a farm in Vermont. The Grafton, Vermont resident, who previously lived in Beverly and Essex, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. McIntrye was scheduled to appear virtually in federal court on Tuesday. The U.S. Attorney Office said in April, McIntyre submitted...

Sen. Rand Paul and a group of Republican senators are demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland and officials from the Small Business Administration (SBA) open investigations into what they call the "unlawful participation" of Planned Parenthood affiliates in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Fox News has learned. Fox News exclusively obtained letters that Paul, R-Ky., the top Republican on the Senate Small Business Committee, sent to Garland, SBA Inspector General Mike Ware and SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman, calling for their "immediate attention" to the matter, claiming that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) applied for PPP loans with "full knowledge...

Maryland transportation officials announced Thursday that they have selected Australian toll road operator Transurban to develop high-occupancy toll lanes for the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, potentially cementing the company’s dominance in the Washington region. If Transurban and its partner, Australian investment bank Macquarie Capital, ultimately reach a 50-year deal with the state to build and operate the lanes, Transurban eventually would control 102 miles of express toll lanes around the nation’s capital — 37 in Maryland and 65 in Northern Virginia. Connecting high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes in the two states would mark the beginnings of a regional network of...

A woman who took out a loan trying to save her small business during the pandemic now says that loan could cause her to shut down. The owner just found out she owes thousands more dollars than she expected. CBS 2’s Tara Molina is Working for Chicago, helping people navigate these challenging times. She reports that owner says she just can’t afford to pay it all back. She’s on the hook for $36,000 today. Money she says she doesn’t have, and can’t be forgiven, all because of what she calls bad communication with the bank she turned to for help....

The massive Interstate 70 construction project in central Denver is not only going to take almost a year longer than planned to complete, the state highway agency has now indicated that it’s also going to end up costing between $100 million and $150 million dollars more than the originally-planned $1.2 billion price tag. Taxpayers are only on the hook for $12 million in extra costs, thanks to a refinancing arrangement between state and federal highway agencies and the construction company working on the project that will cover the rest. Colorado Department of Transportation officials refuse to provide the precise cost...

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm is boasting that it was highlighted in a report on how technology is making the election process more efficient, secure, transparent, accessible and reliable. The report, WND has learned, was authored by a firm with links to billionaire activist George Soros. The information comes after WND reported two weeks ago that SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to Soros’ Open Society Institute. Yesterday, WND reported SCYTL announced its technology will be deployed at more U.S. jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections....

Miami, Fl. – A Florida man pleaded guilty for fraudulently obtaining approximately $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and using those funds, in part, to purchase a $318,000 Lamborghini sports car for himself.Authorities seized the Lamborghini and $3.4 million from the bank accounts of David T. Hines, 29, of Miami, at the time of his arrest. Hines pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 14.As part of his guilty plea, Hines admitted that he fraudulently sought millions of dollars in PPP loans through applications to an insured financial institution...

This week, the Bank of America revealed that personal data of some of its customers may have been exposed when they uploaded their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application to the bank’s testing platform.

TALLAHASSSEE, Fla. (News Service of Florida) - Bondholders have gone to a state appeals court as they seek to force the Florida Department of Transportation to pay damages because of lost toll revenues on a long-controversial Panhandle bridge. UMB Bank, which represents bondholders, filed a notice last week that it was taking the dispute to the 1st District Court of Appeal after a Leon County circuit judge ruled in November that the department could not be forced to pay damages. As is common, the notice of appeal does not provide detailed legal arguments. But the appeal is the latest move...

Why Churches Should NOT Take The PPP Loan From The Government!

French Laundry, an upscale restaurant in Napa, California, where Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom was caught violating his own coronavirus lockdown rules, got more than $2.4 million in loans from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. The loans were reportedly used to retain the restaurant’s 160 employees

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The SH-288 toll lanes are open and you'll have to pay to use them starting today. Until now, the fees had been waived. Adjustable pricing is based on time of day and volume of traffic. In other words, if the lanes get too congested, toll prices will increase to control traffic. "I think you have to realize that the tolls will be managed based on time of day. If you're in the tolls during peak, it will cost a little more. If you're driving off peak, it will be less. And that's how they're designed," said...

WASHINGTON — The architects of a newly unveiled 10-year, $600 billion climate plan to revitalize Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley region are moving forward with a difficult task of building political willpower in Washington while gaining the trust of rural communities tied to the coal and natural gas industries, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto told a group of sustainable development advocates Tuesday. That coalition-building — a communications strategy to be forged over the next six weeks among academic institutions in Pittsburgh and seven other cities — is a critical step toward executing the plan Mr. Peduto described as both idealistic...

Georgia Democratic Senate hopeful Jon Ossoff said Paycheck Protection Program funds were "raided by larger companies" without mentioning that his wealthy father's company received as much as $1 million through the program. "[Republicans] don't care about small businesses. And as we saw, the PPP funds were raided by larger companies," Ossoff said during a Wednesday-morning campaign event in Decatur. The Democrat said nothing about his father Richard Ossoff's involvement in the program. The elder Ossoff's Atlanta-based company, Strafford Publications, received between $350,000 and $1 million from the PPP on June 9. The company—which collects an estimated $28 million in annual...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says the Senate will vote on roughly $300 billion in "new funding" for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) aimed at helping struggling small businesses, as early as next week, according to Politico's Jake Sherman. NEW … MCCONNELL says the Senate will vote on “new funding” for the PPP next week. Dems have suggested in the past they would not accept this. — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 13, 2020 "When the full Senate returns on October 19th, our first order of business will be voting again on targeted relief for American workers, including new...

On Thursday, several congressmen called for a federal investigation into the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) after revelations that it applied for and accepted a large sum from a federal aid program designed to assist small businesses and workers hammered by the coronavirus pandemic and which explicitly excluded political entities. In a letter led by U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), members of the Florida congressional delegation called for a federal investigation into the FDP’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) application and for all documents, including the application itself, to be made public. Implemented by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the PPP...

When the novel coronavirus swept through the travel industry in March, grounding flights and stalling airplane orders, TransDigm didn’t wait for a congressional bailout in order to keep itself solvent. It didn’t have to. On March 23, with a green light from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the Fed announced that it would buy as much corporate debt as necessary — in the form of bonds — to reassure companies that they could raise money they needed to ride out the pandemic. Within a few weeks, the bond market had nearly regained the ground it lost, spurring a debt boom. U.S....