ansible
ansible's JournalCan you imagine any other presidential candidate shopping at Ross?
I know many people who would look down at you for even shopping here.
Overbudget, behind schedule, California bullet train cost rises another billion
SACRAMENTO, Calif (AP) The 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 for a $1.3 billion boost that still is smaller than in previous years.
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.
https://www.kron4.com/news/california/california-bullet-train-cost-rises-by-another-1-billion/
Almost $1 million in counterfeit seized by customs -- all in single-dollar bills
Source: usatoday
?width=660&height=439&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials report seizing $900,000 in counterfeit cash – all of it in singles. The dollar bills were discovered in December at the International Falls Port of Entry in Minnesota in a rail shipment originating from China, per a Saturday statement from CBP. An investigation found 45 cartons filled with singles, which were confirmed to be fake by the Secret Service.
“CBP officers strive every day to protect the United States from a variety of threats,” said Jason Schmelz, a CBP port director, in a statement. “Those threats don’t always come in the form of terrorists or narcotics, but also in the form of counterfeit currency and other goods that have the potential to harm the economy of the United States."
The counterfeit money was seized and will be sent to the Secret Service. Single-dollar bills, according to the Federal Reserve, have stayed the same since 1963 because the "note is infrequently counterfeited." There is also a provision in the annual Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act that prohibits the bill's redesign.
"Thanks to the dedication of our officers and our partnership with the Secret Service, we were able to keep this currency from entering into circulation," Schmelz said.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/28/900000-counterfeit-seized-customs-all-one-dollar-bills/4598937002/
Alaska man survives more than 20 days after cabin burns down
A young man from Utah survived more than three weeks after his cabin burned down in mid-December.
Tyson Steele, 30, said he had been living alone since September in a remote area of Alaska.
The roof of Steele’s cabin caught fire very early on December 17 or 18.
Steele attributed the fire to a spark from his wood stove landing on the roof.
"It’s 1 or 2 in the morning and I’d been awakened to a cold cabin, right?" Steele said. "So, it takes me a while to go back to sleep. And, drip, drip, drip – there’s fiery drips of plastic coming through the roof above me. So, I go outside to pick up some … snow and I just see that the whole roof’s on fire."
He managed to grab a handful of supplies, but most of his possessions, and his dog, Phil, didn’t make it.
Steele spent his first two nights in a snow cave before putting together a makeshift shelter with remnants from his burned down cabin.
He said he was able to ration the food storage that he was able to salvage. A lot of it was either melted or destroyed by the fire.
"Last night’s meal was probably one of the worst. I was leaving the burned-off stuff for the last," Steele said. "And last night’s dinner was a can of plastic-smoked refried beans. No hickory, no mesquite; it’s Class A waterproof tarp."
Alaska State Troopers responded to a welfare check on January 9, where they found an “SOS” message stamped in the snow next to the makeshift shelter Steele had built.
He was transported via helicopter to the Alaska State Trooper’s Aircraft Section Hangar at Lake Hood.
Rescuers set him up with a shower and fulfilled his request for a McDonald’s Combo Meal #2.
Steele says he plans to return to Salt Lake to be with family for the time being, but will eventually return to Alaska.
"They’ve got a dog,” he said smiling, but with a look of sadness in his eyes. “And that would be some therapy."
https://fox13now.com/2020/01/11/utah-man-survives-more-than-20-days-in-remote-alaska-after-cabin-burns-down/amp/
Fecal Bacteria In California's Waterways Increases With Homeless Crisis
President Donald Trump, a self-described germophobe, has made no secret of his disgust with California’s growing homeless problem, which he has called a “disgrace” and “inappropriate” and equated to “living in hell.”
“We should all work together to clean up these hazardous waste and homeless sites before the whole city rots away,” Trump tweeted about San Francisco on Oct. 26. “Very bad and dangerous conditions, also severely impacting the Pacific Ocean and water supply.”
San Francisco officials were quick to dispute Trump’s claims. But some of California’s most prized rivers, beaches and streams are indeed contaminated with levels of fecal bacteria that exceed state limits, threatening kayakers, swimmers — and the state’s reputation as a bastion of environmental protection.
The presence of fecal bacteria in water is usually the result of problems with sewer systems and septic tanks. But water quality officials agree that the source of at least some of the fecal bacteria is California’s growing homeless population, most of whom don’t have reliable access to toilets.
“I’ve carried 5-gallon buckets that were unambiguously being used as toilets,” said David Gibson, executive officer of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, describing his experience cleaning up homeless encampments. “They were taking it to the San Diego River, dumping it there, and rinsing it out there.”
Fecal contamination of waterways is a widespread problem and becoming more urgent in states with large homeless populations. In Seattle, homeless people living in RVs are accused of dumping raw sewage straight into storm drains, which flows directly to local waterways. In Oregon, workers cleaning up homeless camps along the Willamette River in Eugene routinely find feces and needles.
California has the largest homeless population in the nation, estimated at more than 151,000 people in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. About 72% of the state’s homeless slept outside or in cars rather than in shelters or temporary housing.
The Trump administration has fixated on California’s homeless population in particular as a potent source of pollution.
In addition to Trump’s tweets, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 26 alleging that the state’s lack of urgency on homelessness threatens public health by polluting nearby water with untreated human waste. It then issued a notice to San Francisco accusing it of violating the federal Clean Water Act.
Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, responded by accusing the federal EPA of retreating on clean water protection, and called the administration’s focus on the environmental impact of homelessness “sensationalized” and “misguided.”
But concerns extend beyond the Trump administration. A record number of Californians — about 1 in 4 — believe homelessness and housing is the top issue facing the state today, up from 1% in 1999, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
https://californiahealthline.org/news/fecal-bacteria-in-californias-waterways-increases-with-homeless-crisis/
35 killed in stampede at funeral for slain general, Iran state TV says
Source: cnbc
A stampede erupted Tuesday at a funeral procession for a top Iranian general killed in a U.S. airstrike last week, killing 35 people and injuring 48 others, state television reported. According to the report, the stampede took place in Kerman, the hometown of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as the procession got underway. Initial videos posted online showed people lying lifeless on a road, others shouting and trying to give help them.
Iranian state TV gave the casualty toll in its online report, without saying where it obtained the information. Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran’s emergency medical services, earlier spoke by telephone to state TV and confirmed the stampede took place.
“Unfortunately as a result of the stampede, some of our compatriots have been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions,” he said. A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main thoroughfares and side streets in Tehran.
The leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened on Tuesday to “set ablaze” places supported by the United States over the killing of a top Iranian general in a U.S. airstrike last week, sparking cries from the crowd of supporters of “Death to Israel!”
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/35-killed-in-stampede-at-funeral-for-slain-general-state-tv-says.html
Virginia Attorney General says proposed gun laws will be enforced despite opposition
Article: California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/business/economy/california-economy-housing-homeless.htmlSAN FRANCISCO — Christine Johnson, a public-finance consultant with an engineering degree, was running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She crisscrossed her downtown district talking about her plans to stimulate housing construction, improve public transit and deal with the litter of “needles and poop” that have become a common sight on the city’s sidewalks.
Today, a year after losing the race, Ms. Johnson, who had been in the Bay Area since 2004, lives in Denver with her husband and 4-year-old son. In a recent interview, she spoke for millions of Californians past and present when she described the cloud that high rent and child-care costs had cast over her family’s savings and future.
“I fully intended San Francisco to be my home and wanted to make the neighborhoods better,” she said. “But after the election we started tallying up what life could look like elsewhere, and we didn’t see friends in other parts of the country experiencing challenges the same way.”
California is at a crossroads. The state has a thriving $3 trillion economy with record low unemployment, a surplus of well-paying jobs, and several of the world’s most valuable corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook. Its median household income has grown about 17 percent since 2011, compared with about 10 percent nationally, adjusted for inflation.
But California also has a pernicious housing and homeless problem and an increasingly destructive fire season that is merely a preview of climate change’s potential effects. Corporations like Charles Schwab are moving their headquarters elsewhere, while Oracle announced that it would no longer stage its annual software conference in San Francisco, in part because of the city’s dirty streets. “Shining example or third-world state?” a recent headline on a local news website asked.
“You get depressed if you listen to everything going on, but you can’t find a contractor and the state continues to create jobs,” said Ed Del Beccaro, an executive vice president with TRI Commercial Real Estate Services, a brokerage and property management company in the Bay Area.
Whether it’s by taming bays and mountains with roads, bridges and power lines or grappling with a lack of water and crippling earthquakes, California is perennially testing the limits of growth. Its population has swelled to 40 million and the state’s economy has grown more than previous generations had thought possible, cramming more cars and more people into cities that were supposed to be tapped out, while seeding new companies and new industries as old ones died or moved elsewhere.
But today it has a new problem. For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley.
This has made California the most expensive state — with a median home value of $550,000, about double that of the nation — and created a growing supply of three-hour “super commuters.” And while it has some of the highest wages in the country, it also has the highest poverty rate based on its cost of living, an average of 18.1 percent from 2016 to 2018.
That helps explain why the state has lost more than a million residents to other states since 2006, and why the population growth rate for the year that ended July 1 was the lowest since 1900.
“What’s happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country,” said Jim Newton, a journalist, historian and lecturer on public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.”
Profile Information
Member since: Fri Jul 1, 2016, 03:42 PMNumber of posts: 1,718
