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The operators of Los Angeles-area ports say President Joe Biden’s round-the-clock cargo mandate is not realistic, according to a report . The president recently called for the shipping hubs to go into overdrive to ease the supply-chain crunch that has more than a hundred loaded freighters anchored off the coast. But 24/7 operations would cost the ports huge money in overtime, and the owners aren't eager to eat the expense. “I don’t see how the terminals are going to be reimbursed. It’s big money,” Ed DeNike, president of SSA Containers, whose parent company Carrix operates three terminals in Long Beach,...

I'm looking for a simple explanation of what is causing this backlog of container ships off the California coast. I've been seeing a wide ranges of reasons including: A) environmental California trucking regulations from the California Air Resources Board which mandates all trucks must be 2011 or newer. B) CA law AB-5 which bans bans owner operators which was aimed at Uber and Lyft drivers but encompassed and banned almost all freelance jobs. C) Biden/Newsom vaccine mandates. Is it a combination of all of this and or some other factors? Democrats talk about a lack of truck drivers but why...

MADISON -- The state Department of Transportation has scrapped new bids on the massive Zoo Interchange project as lawmakers put the long-delayed state budget on the back burner and focus on Foxconn incentives instead.A special session will start at 11 a.m. Tuesday, August 1st on a bill that would extend $3 billion in tax breaks to the Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn, which has pledged to build a multi-billion dollar plant in southeastern Wisconsin and hire thousands of workers. A public hearing could happen this week.Meanwhile, Wisconsin's budget is a month late. Without funding, the state DOT has withdrawn three proposals...

After word got out this week that the new summer festival in downtown Stillwater would be called Stillwater Log Jam, a resident contacted Mayor Ken Harycki. Now, city officials are asking The Locals, the group planning the music and family festival, to consider another name. "The city has concerns over the name that was chosen," Harycki said Thursday. "We were made aware -- how can I put this delicately? -- that the name was a vulgar reference that we would prefer not to have associated with a family event in the city. We don't want to be the laughingstock of...

The fragile U.S. economy will probably sustain another blow as a result of the latest housing market crisis. Amid allegations of wrongful evictions, lenders such as Ally Financial's GMAC, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp have halted at least some of their foreclosures in process, creating a bottleneck that has the potential to restrain both bank lending and consumer spending. The U.S. recession came to an official end in June of 2009, but it has yet to sustain a meaningful recovery, as unemployment persists above 9.5 percent. "This creates a headwind for a more substantive recovery in...

At the front edge of the rainy season, flood-control channels countywide are choked by silt, reeds and brush. In years past, maintenance crews would have cleared the channels as part of routine cleanup programs. But state and federal agencies are clamping down on cities' flood-control maintenance and emphasizing that wetland protections extend to floodways. The regulators' goal is to curtail the once-common practice of dredging San Diego County's waterways without permits. Hundreds of miles of creeks and rivers drain the region's watershed to the ocean. Some are natural waterways and others are lined by concrete. The regulators contend that some...

More people than ever are using tax professionals or computer software programs to help prepare their tax returns. Convenience is one reason for the trend, but Internal Revenue Service officials say the increasing complexity of the federal tax code is what's driving most to seek help. "If the law gets too complicated," said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, "people just throw up their hands." He said about 60 percent of all tax returns are now prepared by professionals, and many of the rest are prepared by taxpayers who use software programs to help them file over the Internet. So far this...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gray Davis, lashing out at Republicans, yesterday said a budget deadlock will prevent Caltrans from paying contractors after July 20, jeopardizing nearly 200,000 jobs as well as highway projects and public safety. At the same time, Davis suggested that Republicans may be winning the budget battle and predicted that one legislative house, presumably the Senate, will pass a budget with no tax increases."Republicans view a tax increase as some form of leprosy," said Davis, "and they don't want to touch it." The state has been without a budget since the fiscal year began July 1. Davis said...

SAN FRANCISCO – Two dozen bills designed to bolster California's Megan's Law are struggling in the Legislature as politicians haggle over details and accuse each other of going soft on sex offenders. "Who loses are the parents and kids. Megan's Law has gotten caught between Republicans and Democrats. It's really a game of who can outdo the other, who's got the toughest law or whose does the most," said Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter. Florez thinks the most important piece of legislation is his proposal requiring law enforcement to check in with sex offenders instead of the other way around. He...