Free Republic

With $65 million in new money thanks to the state's BP settlement, the long-beleaguered U.S. 98 project in coastal Alabama has a new life, but officials are proceeding cautiously.It was nearly a decade ago when a previous U.S. 98 project was shut down amid lawsuits and accusations surrounding sediment from the construction site that ran off into the waterways supplying a majority of the Mobile region's drinking water."The job has been redesigned," said Vince Calametti, ALDOT's Southwest Region's chief engineer. "There was an environmental assessment, and it will have to be re-evaluated. It will be one of the first things...

NEW ORLEANS — A former FBI director recommended Friday that the Justice Department investigate whether several lawyers plotted to corrupt the settlement program designed to compensate victims of BP’s 2010 Gulf oil spill.*snip* However, Freeh concluded that then-top members of Juneau’s staff engaged in conduct that was improper, unethical and possibly criminal. He recommended that his report be forwarded to the Justice Department.*snip* BP spokesman Geoff Morrell said the report “confirms what BP has suspected for some time: there has been fraud and unethical conduct within the facility itself and among various claimants and their lawyers —and immediate steps need...