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What that means is that Mariposa County has now joined a number of other counties around the state in declaring opposition against Senate Bill 54, commonly referred to as the “Sanctuary State” law.

That bright “star” is actually a planet, the king of them all as far as our Solar System is concerned: Jupiter. May also ushers in Jupiter observing season, as the planet reaches opposition on May 9th, rising in the east opposite to the setting Sun to the west. Jupiter now joins Venus in the dusk sky, ending the planetary drought plaguing many an evening star party. Shining a magnitude -2.5 near opposition, you can even pick Jupiter out against the deep blue daytime sky… if you know exactly where to look for it. The Moon visits Jupiter once every orbit,...

The political tide has turned against toll roads in Texas, imperiling a Tomball interchange project and hamstringing frustrated local officials, while setting an ominous tone for projects to come. For years, state officials relied on tolls to tackle some of TexasÂ’ biggest traffic messes as a way to build without adding taxes. Since 2016, however, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have taken hard-line stances against the mixing of Texas Department of Transportation money and toll revenues. Most Popular More men accuse former Texas judge, Baptist leader of sexual misconduct Breaking down 2018 Texas A&M football: Quarterback With...

A leaked six-page memo that purportedly outlines some of the key principles of the Trump administration’s long-awaited infrastructure plan is drawing fire from several corners of the trucking industry – especially regarding plans to allow states to broaden interstate tolling efforts and commercialize rest stops.“Our primary concern is that the memo talks about giving states the ‘flexibility’ to toll existing interstates and ‘reconcile the grandfathered restrictions on the use of highway toll revenues with current law.’ We’re gearing up for a big fight over that,” Stephanie Kane, spokesperson for the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates, told Fleet Owner.Related: ATRI: Fuel tax...

Amid a chorus of support from gridlock-weary drivers and the construction industry, Illinois tollway directors approved widening the Central Tri-State Tollway (I-294) Thursday. Officials promised no toll increases but about $120 million for the $4 billion project will come from new fees to be imposed on I-PASS holders when they don't use transponders. A concept plan includes extra lanes, a "Flex Lane" for express buses, and highway interchange improvements at bottlenecks between Rosemont and Oak Lawn. "This is a first step," Chairman Robert Schilerstrom said. "We'll be reaching out to the communities. We're very interested in listening to their input...

Opposition is beginning to build against a regional transportation group’s plan to study a second Potomac River crossing in Montgomery County. On Tuesday morning, Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner introduced a resolution that would formally put the council in opposition to the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board’s plan to study the feasibility of a bridge that would help connect Virginia Route 28 to the Intercounty Connector in the county. Supporters of the proposed bridge say the connecting route would help ease traffic on I-270 and the American Legion Bridge on the Beltway and provide better connectivity to Dulles...

PARIS (Reuters) - Venezuela’s opposition-led congress leaders met on Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron to press for humanitarian aid to their crisis-hit nation, on the first leg of a European tour seeking support against President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s government has been criticised by the United Nations, Washington and other governments for failing to allow the entry of foreign aid to ease a severe economic crisis, while it overrides Venezuela’s opposition-led congress and jails hundreds of opponents. “I stressed the urgency of opening up the door to humanitarian aid in Venezuela,” congress President Julio Borges said, adding that Macron had...

Delivering on His Promises, Decimating the Opposition Hard to know which body is held in lower esteem, the Congress or the media. But for a long time the media thought they were invincible, based largely on their success after forming the JournOlist in 2007—a cabal of 400 leftists who vowed to destroy anyone who said a single bad word about the poseur “president” Barack Obama. When said poseur denied his lifelong friendships and political associations with fulminating anti-Semites, enacted the disaster of socialized medicine and socialized public education, eviscerated our military, doubled the national debt, signed a deal with genocidal...

When we talk about the “opposition”, we do so with different terminology; this leads to division over groups that essentially represent the same thing. Nailing down precisely who and what “they” are IS important, because it means we can create and identify with a broad church coalition. When we call out a group, we know what we mean, but other people may not. This is part of the reason that the “opposition” cites unity on their side and factionalism on the other. Often we use the catchall phrase “The Left”, but that pushes out people who also decry Corporatism and...

The ANF has obtained footage of a speech given by AKP Istanbul MP Metin Külünk where Külünk talks about how the opposition in Europe are under close surveillance and are targeted by the state. AKP Istanbul MP Metin Külünk gave a speech in the event organized by the AKP’s European organization Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD) Switzerland branch in Hoss Hotel in Winter tour in October 2016 and admitted that the Turkish state targets the opposition from Turkey in Europe. IT IS THE STATE’S DUTY TO SURVEIL THE OPPOSITION IN EUROPE Külünk spoke on the July 15 coup attempt...

Soon after President Donald Trump’s election, California lawmakers began rolling out legislation to fight the president’s promised crackdown on illegal immigration. They released bills to blacklist companies involved in Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall project, protect undocumented children in schools, and bar the use of local and state police resources for federal immigration enforcement. But after a rapid-fire start, the Legislature’s Trump resistance has slowed to a plodding pace. Both border-wall bills died — the “Resist the Wall Act” never had a committee hearing — and with just four weeks left in the Legislative session, much of the immigration-related legislation...

The American political system has never quite seen anything like the current opposition to President Trump and his unusual reaction to it. We are no longer in the customary political landscapes. Usually, the out-of-power opposition -- in this case, the Democratic Party -- offers most of the criticism and all of the alternative policies in order to win in the next election. Instead, Trump has an entire circle of diverse critics shooting at him. But they just as often end up hitting each other -- and themselves. So far, Trump's most furious Democratic opponents have not been able to...

Texas is a highway state. This reality stems from the need to meet the mobility demands of both sprawling metropolitan regions and vast rural areas.Paying for the state's massive system of highways has always been a challenge, however. Estimates from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) put the state's highway expansion and maintenance needs alone at nearly $383 billion by 2040. Existing public funding, projected to be $70 billion over the next decade, will not be able to cover that cost without unprecedented funding increases after 2026.While Texans are clearly amenable to paying for better roads — two recent state...

TAMPA — Hillsborough County leaders voted Tuesday to move forward with a plan to add 90 miles of toll lanes to Tampa Bay's interstates despite continued opposition from the people whose neighborhoods would be impacted the most by the project. The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization — a 16-person board which approves transportation projects — listened to more than 3½- hours of public comment on its Transportation Improvement Program, which lists the county's priorities for the next five years. The TIP includes dozens of projects, from road maintenance to bike paths. But the evening's debate centered around only one project:...

Least terns. A federal lawsuit. Greenpeace. Vandals. Industrious beavers. Angry homeowners. Bureaucratic delays. These were among the obstacles and setbacks that had to be overcome before the Creek Turnpike was built. At one point, the chairman of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority declared it a “total disaster” and exclaimed: “The Creek Turnpike in Tulsa, God only knows when that’ll be completed,” John Kilpatrick said, as reported by the Tulsa World’s Wayne Greene on Oct. 19, 1990. “If we had it to do all over again, we wouldn’t do that project,” the exasperated Kilpatrick said after federal bureaucrats held up construction of...

After years of angst over whether to extend Route 53 north into Lake County, the Illinois tollway moved with dizzying speed last week approving a $25 million study of the project. But while the board's vote took seconds, there were hours of fraught testimony from environmentalists fearful of pollution, residents worried about losing their homes, commuters sick of sitting in traffic and construction industry representatives lobbying for jobs. Here are five take-aways from a momentous week: 1. Promising to pay for the extension could be a game-changer. Unlike his predecessors, Chairman Bob Schillerstrom pledged that if Route 53 is extended,...

There were not many open seats at a pair of meetings last week over proposed routes that would send Interstate 11 through the Tucson area. Many of those in attendance were there to speak against two of the alternatives, which run west of Saguaro National Park West in the Avra Valley.“I understand the need to provide ways for people to move around," said Kimberly Baeza, "But it doesn't have to come at the expense of our open landscapes and beautiful Sonoran Desert.”The meeting is part of the second step in selecting the route I-11 could take through Arizona. The freeway...

Talks have been bubbling in recent months about making major route changes to Interstate 14, but the primary organization behind the push says it’s facing resistance from a West Texas representative and the state’s senior senator. Regional transportation lobby group Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance (MOTRAN) has pushed to change the congressionally approved western route of I-14, also known as the Forts to Ports Highway and the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway System. Forts to Ports aims to connect Fort Bliss in El Paso with Fort Hood in Central Texas and Fort Polk in Louisiana. The plan also connects to military deployment ports...

CHP deputies Sezgin Tanrikulu (center-left) and Aykut Erdogdu (center-right) at a press conference on Monday. Opposition party members of the parliamentary commission investigating the coup attempt of 15 July 2016 slammed the commission’s draft report in a press conference they held on Monday, news outlet Diken reports.Speaking in the beginning of the press conference, Aykut Erdogdu, Istanbul deputy for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said that “the draft report announced by [Head of the Parliamentary Investigation Commission AKP Deputy Resat] Petek is a report that hides the political wing of a controlled coup attempt and a report that...

A telephone survey seeking opinions about the expansion of I-70 through east Denver is generating irate protests from some respondents, who say the survey seems designed to elicit positive responses about the purported benefits of the $1.8 billion project."It was one of the most one-sided push polls I ever listened to," Larry Patchett, a production technician for public television, wrote in a complaint to CDOT. "The entire thing was just a series of opportunities to validate your suppositions and PR spin on the I-70 Ditch project." The project, which would replace a crumbling six-lane viaduct with a below-grade, partially covered...