Free Republic

  For union officials who wanted to line their pockets with benefit payments intended for members, Joseph Olivieri was the man to see. Now they will have to go elsewhere. This Wednesday a Manhattan federal jury found Olivieri, ex-executive director of the Long Island-based Association of Wall, Ceiling & Carpentry Industries (WC&C), guilty of perjury in a case that underscored the extent of Genovese crime family control of New York City-area construction contractors and unions. As part of the Justice Department racketeering probe, former Carpenters & Joiners District boss Michael Forde and eight other defendants already had pled guilty....

A plan to install what would have been North America’s largest living wall on the west facade of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland has been deemed too risky, and too expensive, by the General Services Administration. Portland’s SERA Architects and Cutler Anderson Architects of Bainbridge Island, Wash., received international attention for proposing 250-foot-tall vegetated “fins” to shade the federal building’s west side. The building’s energy performance is tied to the amount of shade it receives throughout the day, according to Don Eggleston, president of SERA Architects. However, because of concerns about high costs of installation and potential...

And here you thought bedbugs were the biggest source of anxiety for hotel guests. Yes, guests at Vdara hotel in Las Vegas now have something else to worry about: being burned alive by the glare of the building's "death ray." What the heck's a "death ray," you ask? Well, first off, it's not as deadly as it sounds, since no one has actually died from it -- at least not yet. But according to the U.K. Daily Mail, the powerful beams of Nevada sunlight reflecting off the glass hotel onto sections of the hotel's swimming pool area have burned some...

A $7.25 million, 850-foot pedestrian bridge and guardhouse for the Volkswagen plant won approval from a city panel Tuesday. The steel-and-glass structure, more than one-quarter the length of the Walnut Street Bridge that spans the Tennessee River, will serve as the main entrance to the auto plant. The pedestrian bridge, paid from city, Hamilton County and state funds as part of the automaker’s incentive package, will cross over a stream and one of VW’s vehicle test tracks and negotiate a steep change in elevation at the site, officials said. “It will be an extraordinary bridge,” said Steve Leach, the city’s...

Peace Now: At least 2,000 W. Bank units have foundations laid, ready to be built as freeze expires; 11,000 ready for construction without further gov't approval. More than 13,000 settlement housing units in the West Bank are ready for construction once the building moratorium ends on September 26th and at least 2,000 are ready for immediate construction, according to a report by Peace Now released on Sunday. According to the report, 2,066 units in the West Bank have either had construction permits approved or their ground works already laid. Peace Now said that hundreds of additional units, whose foundations have...

HUAIAN COUNTY, CHINA—So you think struggling home from Ontario’s cottage country was tough? Think again. And consider, if you will, the case of Chinese trucker Pang Laisuo. On Sunday his coal-laden transport truck was caught in a traffic jam near here, about 240 kilometres north of Beijing. Pang knew he’d have something of a wait. What he didn’t know was that it would last 18 hours. “Everyone who pulled up at 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon ended up being stuck there until 10 o’clock Monday morning,” says Pang, a lean and grizzled man in his 50s speaking at a roadside stop...

Note: Video included. "Bin Laden's Son Is Hospitalized After He Hears His Father's Voice Omar Bin Laden Is Treated for Schizophrenia, Wife Asks for Divorce" July 9, 2010 SNIPPET: ""It's true that he was put on medication but released himself early," said a spokesman for Zeina Al Sabah, Omar's wife. The spokesman confirmed that Omar had bipolar disorder and was on anti-depressants." SNIPPET: ""Omar loves and hates Osama at the same time," she said." SNIPPET: "Omar, 29, has denounced his father's terrorist tactics and ideology. But he still maintains an emotional bond..." SNIPPET: "Much of Osama Bin Laden's family, comprising...

A nine-day traffic jam outside Beijing has drivers fuming, street vendors turning a quick profit and Chinese traffic authorities struggling for answers. Traffic has been slowed to a crawl since August 14 on a 100-kilometer stretch of National Expressway 110 that runs between Beijing and Heibei province. Officials say the jam is caused by an increase in trucks carrying goods to Beijing and by highway maintenance work along the route. Highways have become numerous and complicated in and around Beijing in recent years as the Chinese public has made a large shift to motorized travel over the past 30 years....

(07-29) 16:28 PDT Los Angeles, CA (AP) -- A construction worker has died after being buried under 11 feet of dirt at a Pacific Palisades home. Los Angeles Assistant Fire Chief Terry Manning says the man was buried in a trench during an excavation shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday morning. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/07/29/state/n143938D50.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0v8Fv9KJ4

The American Institute of Architects’ midyear look at nonresidential construction concludes that new development spending likely to fall more than 20% this year -- significantly more than forecasters predicted six months ago -- with hotel and office construction down by more than 43% and 29%, respectively. Even with a modest U.S. economic recovery under way, overall nonresidential spending is expected to drop 20.3% for 2010 - nearly 30% for private commercial development -- before edging up an inflation-adjusted 3.1% in 2011, according to the AIA’s semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast, a survey of the nation’s leading construction forecasters. Manufacturing facilities will...

On Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 25 illegal aliens who attempted to enter Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, SC. All of the were carrying fake identification and worked for a contractor doing work on the base. According to ICE, two of the illegal aliens were being held in the Charleston County Jail, as they were wanted on other charges. The other 23 were released pending deportation hearings. The foreign nationals were working for Palacio Drywall of Cornelius. The company is being used as a subcontractor for Caddel Construction Co. of Montgomery, Alabama.

For the seventh month in a row, the price of construction materials and supplies increased in May, rising 0.7 percent, according to the June 16 producer price index report by the U.S. Labor Department. Prices are 5.9 percent higher from May 2009. (See Analysis below)

6/15/2010 - QALAT CITY, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Airmen and Soldiers are encouraging Afghan government officials to determine their own priorities for construction projects that will benefit people in the Zabul province. "We recognized a need for the people of Zabul to be connected with their government and the desire of the population to build trust with their government," said Capt. Matthew Joseph, the Provincial Reconstruction Team Zabul lead engineer. "As a team, we are partnering with Afghan leaders to better use our time and resources to serve the people of Afghanistan." PRT Zabul leads 14 projects in the province including...

"A combination of factors, including still tight credit and high commercial vacancy rates, conspired to reverse what had been growing construction employment momentum." —ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu Employment in the nation’s nonresidential construction industry fell by 4,200 jobs in May after an across-the-board jobs gain the previous month, according to June 4 employment report by the U.S. Labor Department. Since May 2009, the nonresidential building construction sector has lost 55,400 jobs, or 7.5 percent, and the employment stands at 684,300.

What kind of holes you ask? Boy howdy, try holes in really thick steel, such as, um, railroad track. No kidding, see for yourself. I know not what size cartridge they use to do this, but I doubt it is a .22!

TODAY Al Gore is expected to join some of the city’s top developers and bankers for the grand opening of the luminous office tower known as 1 Bryant Park — the second-tallest building in New York City and, with a handsome foyer and a roster of prominent tenants, a ray of hope in a gloomy commercial real estate market. But beyond its height and tenancy rates, 1 Bryant Park is slated to be the only office tower in the nation to draw the United States Green Building Council’s highest level of certification — platinum — in its Leadership in Energy...

Yishai tells Shas daily that he has clarified this stance to the U.S., and plans to expedite construction in the capital. Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared Thursday that Israel had not agreed to freeze construction in East Jerusalem, adding that American demands to do so would never be met. "There is not and never has been a freeze on construction in Jerusalem, nor will there ever be," said Yishai, whose approval of a 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit in March sparked tension in U.S.-Israeli ties.

Construction of new housing for Jews in east Jerusalem will press forward, Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser illustrated in a statement on Monday. This drew Palestinian accusations that the plans could undermine newly relaunched peace talks. "Building is expected to begin soon in Har Homa ... and Neve Yaakov, where (construction) bids have been issued," Hauser told Army Radio, referring to two east Jerusalem neighborhoods. "Building in Jerusalem is continuing according to its regular pace."

KB Home posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss on Tuesday as prices and demand for its houses sagged and expenses climbed. The top-five U.S. builder, said its loss narrowed to $54.7 million for the first quarter ended February 28, from $58.1 million a year earlier. Revenue slumped 14 percent to $264 million and selling, general and administrative expenses rose 18 percent to $72.2 million. But Chief Executive Jeff Mezger said the company is positioned to make a profit in the second half ofthe year as higher-margin homes on cheaper land make up an increasingly bigger percentage of its sales. In the...

/22/2010 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) -- Construction on a new 2.7-mile pipeline to bolster ground refueling operations for the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing began March 17 at a non-disclosed base here. The $5.7 million project calls for the construction of an above-ground 8-inch carbon steel pipeline from the existing tanker truck offload facility to the bulk storage fuels area operated by the 380th Logistics Readiness Squadron Fuels Management Flight staff. Capt. Timothy Frank, from the 380th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron who helped coordinate the project, said it was awarded with 2009 military construction supplemental funds. This pipeline improvement is the...