Free Republic

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.” Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Votkinsk, the birthplace of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, may have been founded in 1759, but during Soviet times the city didn't make it onto most maps. The Soviets had their reasons for keeping Votkinsk under wraps. Built on a tributary of the Kama River, the city was settled by decree of the Empress Elizabeth to house employees of Votkinsky Zavod, a steel works plant that remains one of the largest defense plants in Russia today. Originally the plant busied itself casting parts for steamships, barges, and bridges, but during World War II the plant was militarized, producing various artillery and...