Foreclosures and FREEFALL

A daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 850 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S.

Op-Ed Columnist - The End of the Tunnel - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The End of the Tunnel - NYTimes.com: "So, about that tunnel: with almost 1,200 people per square mile, New Jersey is the most densely populated state in America, more densely populated than any major European nation. Add in the fact that many residents work in New York, and you have a state that can’t function without adequate public transportation. There just isn’t enough space for everyone to drive to work.

But right now there’s just one century-old rail tunnel linking New Jersey and New York — and it’s running close to capacity. The need for another tunnel couldn’t be more obvious.

So last year the project began. Of the $8.7 billion in planned funding, less than a third was to come from the State of New Jersey; the rest would come, in roughly equal amounts, from the independent Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and from the federal government. Even if costs were to rise substantially, as they often do on big projects, it was a very good deal for the state.

But Mr. Christie killed it anyway.

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Ysrael Seinuk, 78 - Made Tall, Sleek Buildings Possible - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Ysrael Seinuk, 78 - Made Tall, Sleek Buildings Possible - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com: "It is structural engineers who allow the architect to sleep peacefully at night. They must analyze the forces, like seismic events, that can affect buildings, with their calculations becoming more complex as buildings are designed to be taller and sleeker. They must determine the strength and flexibility of the construction materials, including the floor slabs, the beams and the columns.

Mr. Seinuk’s “real genius was the design of high-rise buildings using reinforced concrete as the structural material,” Elizabeth O’Donnell, associate dean of architecture at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, said Tuesday. (Reinforced concrete incorporates metal bars — rebars — grids, plates or fibers to strengthen the structure.)

“I think of him as the person who brought reinforced concrete to New York City,” Dean O’Donnell said, “because this was primarily a city where its high-rises were structured in steel.”

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Number of Home Foreclosures Drops, but Risk of Delinquency Deepens - NYTimes.com

Number of Home Foreclosures Drops, but Risk of Delinquency Deepens - NYTimes.com: "“Are foreclosures going to drive another wave of defaults?” Mr. Blecher asked.

The reason people walk away from their loans in so-called strategic defaults is because they owe so much more than their home is worth. The more the market goes down, the more people are placed in this unhappy position.

In a third housing report released on Thursday, the data firm CoreLogic said the number of households with negative equity fell slightly in the second quarter to 11 million, down from 11.2 million in the first quarter.

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BofA Projects $1.4B Legal Charges - Yahoo! Finance

BofA Projects $1.4B Legal Charges - Yahoo! Finance: "-

BofA also disclosed that it is required to raise an additional $1.1 billion by the end of 2010 to meet the requirements of the Federal Reserve related to bailout aid repayment. The company has already repaid $45 billion in December 2009 and has to return an additional $3 billion by the end of 2010.

To accumulate these funds, BofA was shedding assets and selling investments. The bank sold $10 billion in assets that generated $1.9 billion in net after-tax proceeds. If it fails to organize the remaining funds by the end of December 2010, BofA might have to resort to an equity raise.

Creationists suffer another legal defeat

Creationists suffer another legal defeat

BBC World Service - Documentaries - The Travelling Electric Chair

In 1945, an all-white jury in America took two and a half minutes to find a black man named Willie McGee guilty of raping a white woman.

Over the next six years, the case wound through three trials, and sparked international protests and appeals from William Faulkner, Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, and even Albert Einstein.

Willie McGee was defended by a young Bella Abzug: attorney, activist, and eventually the first Jewish woman in the United States Congress. But on the night of 7 May 1951, he was put to death in Mississippi’s travelling electric chair – the only one of its kind in the US.

A local radio station broadcast his execution live from the steps of the courthouse. A newly discovered recording of that newscast provides a chilling glimpse into a lost episode of history.

Before his trial, his wife fled to Las Vegas with their four children. A generation on, Bridgette McGee-Robinson, Willie’s granddaughter, grew up not knowing why her family left the south. It was only by accident, while sorting through some papers under her mother's bed, that Bridgette found old news clippings of the Willie McGee case.

BBC World Service - Documentaries - The Travelling Electric Chair