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n2doc's JournalHow Donald Trump Tried to Cash In by Dumping Sewage Into the Hudson River
Trump had two choices with a billion-dollar West Side project: build a sewage treatment plant or bow out. But there was a third option: flood the Hudson.
Donald Trump is loud and boastful on camera, but sometimes he operates more quietly off screen, like when he needed to solve a sewage problem beneath the streets of Manhattan—a problem that mysteriously evaporated one day in 1994, allowing a flood of cash that saved Trump from drowning in debt.
This is a little-known aspect of how Trump bungled the chance to make billions of dollars building on the largest developable tract of land in America’s largest city, a story the late actor Christopher Reeve called “the American dream gone berserk.”
Way back in 1974, when Trump was not yet 30 years old, he acquired control of the old Penn Central rail yards on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. For a song, he had 57 acres of land along the Hudson River that ran 13 blocks from 59th Street to 72nd Street.
more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/13/how-donald-trump-tried-to-cash-in-by-dumping-sewage-into-the-hudson-river.html
All (Republican) delegates are unbound
As the Republican National Convention prepares to kick off next week in Cleveland, there is a lot of confusion and controversy over the question of whether delegates to the convention are “bound” to vote for any particular candidate as a result of primary or caucus results, or state party directions.
The controversy stems from the fact that a large number of delegates believe they cannot in good conscience vote for presumed nominee Donald Trump, while the confusion stems from either a misunderstanding of the history and rules of the Republican National Convention, or more recently a blizzard of misinformation and misdirection coming from those who wish delegates were bound
Here are the facts about delegates to the Republican National Convention and efforts to bind their vote according to primary results or instructions from their state party.
Republican delegates to the national convention have always been unbound by national party rules, with the single exception. The issue was decisively settled in 1876 when delegates voted 395 to 353 to uphold past rulings stating that delegates could not be bound to vote against their conscience. Following the vote, the chairman of the convention summarized the party’s position by saying “[ I]t is he right of every individual member thereof to vote his individual sentiments.”
more
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/287198-all-delegates-are-unbound
'Shocking images' reveal death of 10,000 hectares of mangroves across Northern Australia
Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.
International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the "dieback" was related to climate change.
"It's a world-first in terms of the scale of mangrove that have died," he told the ABC.
Dr Duke flew 200 kilometres between the mouths of the Roper and McArthur Rivers in the Northern Territory last month to survey the extent of the dieback.
He described the scene as the most "dramatic, pronounced extreme level of dieback that I've ever observed".
more
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-10/unprecedented-10000-hectares-of-mangroves-die/7552968
MPs introduce Bill to return 'Elgin Marbles' to Greece 200 years
A cross-party group of MPs has launched a fresh bid to return the so-called Elgin Marbles to Greece on the 200th anniversary of the British Government’s decision to buy them — a move that campaigners said could help the UK secure a better deal during the Brexit talks with the EU.
The issue has long been a source of tension between, on one side, the UK Government and British Museum, where the 2,500-year-old marbles are currently on display, and, on the other, Greece and international supporters of the reunification of the Parthenon temple's sculptures.
About half the surviving sculptures were taken from the Parthenon in Athens by Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, and later bought by the British Government after parliament passed an Act that came into force on 11 July, 1816. The other half are currently in the Acropolis Museum in Greece.
more
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/elgin-marbles-parthenon-sculptures-athens-greece-mps-bill-return-reunification-british-museum-a7129801.html
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