Free Republic

Former President Donald Trump is rich, but given his reluctance to disclose his tax returns and other pertinent financial information through the years, finding the total of Trump’s assets has been a tall task. But it’s one that this year, Forbes undertook, and through its research, the publication found that the 45th president has property, cash and other assets worth $2.5 billion, cementing his place on the Forbes list of billionaires. His properties represent a big chunk of that total worth. Trump got his start working for his father, Fred, a developer in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn...

For decades before his presidency, Donald Trump had long been synonymous with the real estate industry — as well as his namesake New York properties, which have been the subject of great discussion since last week. That’s when a New York judge, Arthur F. Engoron of the state Supreme Court, concluded in a 35-page judgment that Trump had exaggerated the value of his holdings to secure favorable loan and insurance terms with financial institutions, with some properties being inflated by an estimated 1,000%. Judge Engoron’s decision was issued as part of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s $250 million civil...

The wall of debt is set to get worse before it gets better. Maturities climb for the coming four years, peaking at $550 billion in 2027. Almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them? “Refinancing risks are front and center” for owners of properties from office buildings to stores and warehouses, Morgan Stanley analysts including James Egan wrote in a note this past week. “The maturity wall here is front-loaded. So are the associated risks.” The investment...

RealPage, Inc., a real estate software and data analytics company, is facing class action litigation and a federal investigation over whether it is facilitating a data-driven rental property cartel with landlords and property managers, driving up the prices renters pay each month.

The New Georgia Project had $11 million in its investment account in August when it set out to pay $2.45 million in cash for a sprawling Atlanta compound. Less than two months later, the organization dismissed half its leadership staff, citing a lack of funds. A series of internal documents and correspondences obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveals the bizarre circumstances surrounding the real estate deal, which several parties close to the matter say are indicative of a leadership crisis within the Stacey Abrams-founded group. The deal was spearheaded by Erin Ferguson, a junior New Georgia Project staffer who...

Grinning away: The quantum Cheshire cat effect takes its name from a character in Lewis Carroll's novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. (Courtesy: Larissa Kulik/Shutterstock) Since its inception, quantum theory has presented us with many strange and seemingly paradoxical phenomena. One of the oddest examples is the quantum Cheshire cat effect, in which properties of quantum objects become disembodied from the objects themselves. Now, two of the researchers who predicted the effect have shown that it is even weirder than they first thought: not only can quantum properties become detached from their parent objects, these properties can also move of...

With more than a year left before construction starts, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has begun demolition work for the proposed Mobile River bridge and Bayway project. The agency is currently in the process of tearing down nine buildings throughout the project site just south of downtown near Virginia Street, where the bridge will be footed. “Because the final design is in a preliminary phase, we don’t have exact locations on where the footings are going to be … ,” ALDOT spokeswoman Allison Gregg said. Some of the buildings were vacant before ALDOT acquired them, other owners and tenants...

O.J. Simpson’s children have gone on a real-estate spending spree over the past two years — and the families of murder victims Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman want to know where they got all the dough. Sydney Simpson, 31, and her brother Justin, 28, have built a mini-real estate empire in St. Petersburg, Fla., scooping up 13 properties since 2015, according to documents reviewed by The Post.

The Quantum Cheshire Cat: Can neutrons be located at a different place than their own spin? Jul 29, 2014 Enlarge The basic idea of the Quantum Cheshire Cat: In an interferometer, an object is separated from one if its properties -- like a cat, moving on a different path than its own grin. Credit: TU Vienna / Leon Filter The Cheshire Cat featured in Lewis Caroll's novel "Alice in Wonderland" is a remarkable creature: it disappears, leaving its grin behind. Can an object be separated from its properties? It is possible in the quantum world. In an experiment, neutrons travel...

Container's material properties affect the viscosity of water at the nanoscale Sep 19, 2013 Enlarge Georgia Tech associate professor Elisa Riedo poses with a glass water bottle and a plastic water bottle. While container materials don't significantly affect the rate at which water pours from bottles of this size, a new study shows that the properties of containers at the nanoscale dramatically affect the viscosity of water. Credit: Rob Felt Water pours into a cup at about the same rate regardless of whether the water bottle is made of glass or plastic. But at nanometer-size scales for water and potentially...

Vacancy rates in office buildings exceed 10 percent in virtually every major city across the United States and are rising rapidly, a sign of economic distress that could lead to yet another wave of problems for the beleaguered financial sector. With job cuts rampant and businesses retrenching, more empty space is expected from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles in the coming year. Rental income would then decline and property values would slide further. The Urban Land Institute predicts 2009 will be the worst year for the U.S. commercial real estate market "since the wrenching 1991-1992 industry depression." Banks...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is instructing state fire officials to begin fining rural homeowners who fail to clear their properties of brush, trees and dry grass. Schwarzenegger says clearing around homes is particularly important because of this year's dry conditions throughout the state. A 2005 law required that homeowners who live near forests or grasslands increase the so-called "defensible space" around their houses from 30 feet to 100 feet. State Fire Marshal Kate Dargan says inspectors have issued few citations to homeowners who ignore the law. Instead, firefighters have focused on educating them about the dangers of overgrown properties. During a...

Science Daily — For two generations of physicists, it has been a standard belief that the neutron, an electrically neutral elementary particle and a primary component of an atom, actually carries a positive charge at its center and an offsetting negative charge at its outer edge. The notion was first put forth in 1947 by Enrico Fermi, a Nobel laureate noted for his role in developing the first nuclear reactor. But new research by a University of Washington physicist shows the neutron's charge is not quite as simple as Fermi believed. Using precise data recently gathered at three different laboratories...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state's largest teachers union has dropped an initiative that would have poured billions of dollars into schools by raising property taxes on businesses, union officials said Thursday. Instead, the California Teachers Association will work with the opponents of the "Tax Fairness Act" to craft long-term solutions to school funding in the state, CTA president Barbara Kerr said. The CTA had gathered enough signatures - more than 900,000 - to qualify the initiative for the June 2006 ballot, Kerr said. It would have exempted California commercial and business properties from Proposition 13's rule that property value, upon...

9 French troops and a U.S. citizen were killed when Ivory Coast fighter planes bombed a rebel position in the north of that country. The French have hit back, destroying 5 Ivorian helicopters and 2 bombers near the capital city of Yamoussoukro. Ivorians aren’t happy with France’s reprisals. Angry mobs are rioting, looting French properties, and yelling “Everybody get your Frenchman!” and “French go home!” Well, well, well, isn’t France’s criticism of the U.S. Coalition presence in Iraq a bit like the pot calling the kettle black? Listen to the French government’s words, as reported by the BBC: President Jacques...

<p>Caltech researchers have made a metallic glass-based foam that is stronger than traditional metal alloys, providing industry with a revolutionary lightweight material.</p> <p>Although bubbloy (bubble-alloy) is entering a crowded field of metallic foams, it has the advantage of a smooth plastic or glasslike consistency where others are grainy.</p>

The Iraqi Governing Council is considering returning properties that were confiscated from departing Jews after the establishment of Israel, a senior source within the council told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. He said a 1951 law, which had deprived fleeing Iraqi Jews of their properties, is now under review. The aim of the revision is to restore the properties to their rightful owners. "We are determined to return all the properties that were taken from the Iraqi Jews and all the others," he said. In the meantime, he said he had assured representatives of Iraqi Jews who want to visit...

ENGINEERS often admire the ways in which living creatures solve problems. The difficulty with man-made fibre-optic cables, says Joanna Aizenberg of Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, New Jersey, is that they often crack and break. For a solution, Dr Aizenberg and her colleagues have turned to the exquisitely structured siliceous skeleton of a deep-sea sponge known as the Venus flower basket. This sponge, they say, can do things better. As they explain in a paper published in this week's issue of Nature, the sponge has a lattice of spiny outgrowths, or “spicules”, at its base, which provide structural support. These...