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In the midst of Sunday's presidential debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, Biden blurted out that his campaign's high-speed rail plan would take "millions of automobiles off the road." This is the second debate in which the former vice president brought up the belief that bullet trains will get people out of their cars. This is, to put it mildly, extremely unlikely. Biden's campaign site calls for "the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American." Would bullet trains passing through major cities scattered across the U.S....

US President Donald Trump has addressed a huge rally at a mega cricket stadium on his maiden official visit to India ... The two leaders then headed to a new cricket stadium - the biggest in the world - where Trump heaped praise on Modi as an "exceptional leader, a great champion of India" in front of a crowd of nearly 100,000. "America loves India. America respects India, and America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people," Trump told the ecstatic crowd, many in Trump-emblazoned baseball caps. Name-checking Bollywood films and Indian cricketers, Trump - with...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVBZcrB8MJE&list=PLPtysUSalP2XzwMe1jxgoD_gHcR4EH5n_

California High-Speed Rail Authority on Wednesday bumped its overall cost estimate for completing the rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles to $80.3 billion, blaming inflationary increases and better cost projections... After years of embarrassing cost overruns and delays, managers of California’s ambitious bullet-train project insisted that they are on pace to meet a preliminary 2022 federal deadline for laying track along the first segment in the Central Valley. But that will use up virtually all the money the project has available. The authority’s latest business plan comes amid unrelenting pressure from state lawmakers, some of whom want to...

The $2.5 billion has already been spent — but California has failed to deliver the high-speed rail (on time, or at all) as promised. Therefore, the Trump administration argues, the state has to repay federal taxpayers. The Los Angeles Times quoted Stanford law professor David Freeman Engstrom, a Stanford law professor, describing Trump’s effort as a “nuclear option.” The practice of recovering money after a breach of contract, while common in the private sector, was virtually unheard of in government, he explained. “There is a reluctance to penalize misspending by local government agencies. … Almost never do those violations result...

Jerry Brown did not invent the idea of a high-speed rail system to connect Northern and Southern California. It was voted on by the state Legislature and ratified by voters years before he returned to the governor’s office in 2011. But for the last eight years, as cost estimates have skyrocketed and federal and private sector funding for the project has evaporated, Brown has become high-speed rail’s most persistent defender. Only weeks away from the election to replace him, neither candidate for governor appears to share the depth of Brown’s commitment to a statewide rail system. Fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom...

The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) surprised local communities on Wednesday by proposing a controversial Burbank-to-Palmdale route featuring above-ground tracks. The Los Angeles Times reported that the proposed 38-mile track alignment will cross the San Gabriel Mountains via a series of at grade sections and five separate tunnels. The bullet train’s original route, offered in support of the SB 1856 bond measure passed by the California Legislature in 2000, proposed to follow the Interstate 5 Freeway and tunnel under the 4,144 ft-Tejon Pass to link Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

California's biggest boondoggle just broke the bank. Not only is the massive high-speed rail project 11 years behind schedule and billions in the red, managers are now saying they will need to ramp up spending to hit a 2033 deadline. California’s money pit cost taxpayers $3.1 million a day last year. But that’s small potatoes compared to what they’ll have to shell out over the next four if they want to meet their deadline and budget, estimated most recently at $100 billion in a report last month by the New York Times. The California High Speed Rail Authority will have...

The saying goes that the Taj Mahal is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening, and golden when the moon shines. Though this may once have been true for the famously pristine marble monument, a mixture of pollution and poor management has now burdened the Taj with a 24-hour layer of yellowy-brown. Condemning the "lethargy" of restoration efforts, India's Supreme Court recently told the government to restore the Taj or demolish it. Located in Agra, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the Taj Mahal is one of the most iconically beautiful buildings in the world. Built...

Ron Tutor, chief executive of Tutor Perini, said the redesign was not his firm’s fault... “We designed it and they approved it and then they changed their minds,” Tutor said. “They had a change of heart.” At least three other bullet train bridges in the Central Valley used the same design as the Avenue 8 bridge and are now being redesigned, according to a January rail authority status update, raising questions about whether potentially more costly designs will be required in the future. The previous design for Avenue 8, using what is known as mechanically stabilized earth walls, is generally...

Let me just say from the outset that I still miss California. When I see news about my former state, it’s like reading the details of a train wreck after having safely disembarked a comfortable time ago. I and my family got to live in Orange County for seven glorious years and another year in the Bay Area when the state was not convulsed with insanity on stilts. It was sunny nearly every day, with low humidity. There were no bugs. Our local amusement parks were Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. We did, as Californians are fond of boasting, go...

That may sound like a clickbaity headline, but it’s proving to be literally true. Apparently, no one can guess it, least of all the California High-Speed Rail Authority that is running the bullet-train project. Their latest projection shows total predicted cost has jumped 20% to $77 billion, with a completion date moved out four years to 2033.For now, anyway. Be sure to check back next week in the Boondoggle Lotto! The price of the California bullet train project jumped sharply Friday when the state rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be...

Friday, California's High-Speed Rail Authority published its draft 2018 Business Plan. Its 800-mile bullet-train project's estimated cost is now $77.3 billion, up from $64 billion two years ago, and its final completion has been pushed out another four years to 2033. The current estimate is now more than 70 percent above the $45 billion presented to voters in 2008. The related Associated Press story failed to disclose that original cost estimate, as did three leading California newspapers. The Authority's draft discloses that "More than $3 billion has been expended to date on construction in the Central Valley and planning for...

The price of the California bullet train project jumped sharply Friday when the state rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $77.3 billion and could rise as high as $98.1 billion — an uptick of at least $13 billion from estimates two years ago. The rail authority also said the earliest trains could operate on a partial system between San Francisco and Bakersfield would be 2029 — four years later than the previous projection. The full system would not begin operating until 2033. The disclosures are contained in a 114-page business plan...

In their effort to break the mold, the planners of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago are taking heat for some less-than-lofty features in the sprawling complex. Namely, a “test kitchen.” Reports first surfaced last fall that the monument to the first black president’s legacy was taking on an activity-center vibe. There would be a museum – but also a basketball court, possibly a room for yoga classes, and a test kitchen to teach visitors “about the full production cycle of nutritious food.”

The bill, authored by Senator Andy Vidak (R-Hanford), will give previous owners of property, once thought to be in one of the many proposed paths of High-Speed Rail, the opportunity to buy it back if the state is selling it. The new law will require the High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) to notify previous property owners when it plans to sell unneeded property, then wait 30 days before selling it.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn wrote a letter Thursday to the soon-to-be unemployed workers of the Trump Taj Mahal casino, accusing their union of inciting them to destroy their own jobs by participating in the longest strike by Atlantic City's main casino workers union. Icahn told the workers that officials of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union knew that the company had made its final offer, but rejected it anyway, knowing a strike would result.

Atlantic City has so little money left that it could miss a $1.8 million bond payment due Sunday, a step that would make it the first New Jersey municipality to default on debt since the Great Depression. The Jersey Shore gambling destination has endured years of strain as a third of its casinos shut down. But now its cash levels are low enough that bankruptcy is a possibility for the 39,000-population city, according to Mayor Don Guardian.

Donald Trump may be looking to get litigious with the Washington Post after the newspaper published an article detailing the bankruptcy of the billionaire presidential candidate's Atlantic City casino. When asked to discuss the details of the Taj Mahal's failure in the early '90s, Trump said, "This was not personal. This was a corporate deal. If you write this one, I'm suing you."

President Obama will forego a visit to the Taj Mahal during his visit to India in order to travel to Saudi Arabia for King Abdullah’s funeral, the White House announced early Saturday morning. Vice President Biden was initially scheduled to lead the U.S. delegation, but he will instead now remain in Washington and Obama will add the stop onto his return from India, where the president is embarking on a three-day trip to foster economic ties with the nation. “President Obama and the First Lady will travel to Riyadh on Tuesday, January 27 in order to pay respects to King...