Free Republic

Embattled Los Angeles developer Shangri-La Industries, which has left a trail of unpaid debts, unfinished projects and foreclosure threats since it took $114 million from the state to convert motels into housing for the homeless, is now accusing its former chief financial officer of embezzling millions of dollars to fund an extravagant lifestyle. Shangri-La, which is being sued by state housing authorities for breaching the terms of its agreement under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature Project Homekey program, alleges in a lawsuit that former CFO Cody Holmes, 29, engaged in bank fraud and check kiting in 2022 and 2023 with Shangri-La’s...

Real estate developer and lifelong Portland, Oregon, native Dustin Michael Miller is saying goodbye to the city after walking into his office to discover bullet holes had penetrated the glass close to where he would normally sit while working. "Alright Portland, I'm done with you. I'm over. This has gotta stop, OK?" he said in an Instagram reel Saturday. Miller panned the camera around to his desk, adding, "I work right here a lot during the day. Well, look what happened last night." Bullet holes riddled the window over his shoulder, close to his desk. "If I was here [the...

One of the more interesting questions bound to come up during the 2012 elections is whether President Barack Obama can reclaim the liberal American Jewish donor base that helped him so much in 2008. ... Among noted Chicagoans who contribute to Obama's success is senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Of the people managing President Obama's political affairs, Jarrett is perhaps the person Obama has known longest and relied upon the most. Political folklore has it that the president met wife Michelle when he went to Jarrett's office looking for a job. Before Valerie Jarrett came to work for Obama, she was...

Congressman told FBI he asked for -- and got -- free home upgrades ### Convicted political fixer Tony Rezko gave U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez free upgrades on a riverfront town house after the congressman asked for them, Gutierrez told the FBI, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Gutierrez's comments to federal agents in a previously undisclosed 2008 interview contradict what the congressman told the Sun-Times in 2006 about the purchase. "I walked in with my wife -- as any other consumer could have -- and purchased the unit at the listed price, with no considerations," the Northwest Side congressman said then,...

"Standing proudly on the side of an English hill, its religious roots go back 2,000 years. But a single night of vandalism has left an ancient site of pilgrimage in splinters. The Holy Thorn Tree of Glastonbury has been chopped down in what is being seen by some as a deliberately anti-Christian act. A feature of the skyline surrounding the Somerset town, the tree has been visited by thousands retracing the steps said to have been taken by Joseph of Arimathea, who some say was Jesus’ great uncle. Legend says it sprang from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, the...

Speculators have filed applications to develop more than 1 million acres of desert in Southern California with solar, wind and geothermal power plants, setting up a classic clash over land use with environmentalists and off-road enthusiasts. They have submitted at least 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all of the territory, in recent years and especially since 2007. The interest is so hot that even if many of the projects fall through, the remaining ones would change the look of the arid landscape. California, particularly the southern half, is the epicenter of the nation's push for...

Hollywood - A state appeals court has decided to support the city's controversial attempt to take a family's downtown property and use it for private development. The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled 3-0 to overturn a Broward judge's 2006 ruling that said the city cannot take the Mach family's business property and give it to a powerful developer, according to the decision released Wednesday. The Mach family has owned the 2,900-square-foot building on Harrison Street since 1972. The building houses the family's hair salon and several other businesses. The city's downtown Community Redevelopment Agency has been fighting since 2005...

Larry A. Silverstein, who has won nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments to cover his losses and help him rebuild at the World Trade Center site, is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from airlines and airport security companies for the 9/11 attack. Mr. Silverstein, the developer of ground zero, sought the damages, whose amount was not previously known, in a claim filed in 2004, that says the airlines and airport security companies failed to prevent terrorists from hijacking the planes used to destroy the buildings. His case was consolidated last week with similar, earlier lawsuits brought by families of some...

The City of Phoenix's $97.4 million subsidy to a developer to build the lavish CityNorth Project-we've dubbed it the Taj Mah-Mall-was based on the developer's estimate that it would need more than $100 million to break even on the deal. This is called a "feasibility gap"-but the credibility gap is even wider. The city's own independent consultant estimated the feasibility gap at only $25 million. The bottom line is much worse. Two experts hired by the Goldwater Institute in our constitutional challenge to the CityNorth subsidy have demonstrated that the developer will reap a huge profit even without the subsidy,...

Oro Valley's recent decision to yield its status as Arizona's subsidy capital didn't come a moment too soon. The first report for two sales-tax rebate subsidies awarded for Oracle Crossings Center and Steam Pump Village are in, and the results are predictable. The first project forecast sales of $106 million over the last two fiscal years, which would have generated $2.12 million in sales tax revenues; but instead produced $35.5 million in sales and only $441,000 in sales tax revenue. The second projected sales of over $26 million and tax revenue of $525,000, and instead produced sales of $2.1 million...

For the first time in its 34-year history, the state Coastal Commission has chosen a developer to be its chairman. Multimillionaire builder William Patrick Kruer of San Diego was recently selected by his peers to lead the powerful agency, which oversees land use along California's 1,100-mile coastline. So why aren't environmentalists ranting about a fox being chosen to watch the hen house? Because they consider Kruer – who has a reputation as a political moderate – to be friendly, fair-minded and accessible. In fact, it's hard to find anyone who doesn't. But the commission is a high-stakes, survival-of-the-fittest political arena....

FAWNSKIN, Calif. (AP) The Department of Justice will provide attorneys for three U.S. Forest Service employees sued by a developer under a law originally passed to fight drug lords and the mafia. San Diego developer Irving Okovita sued the employees and an environmentalist in November, accusing them of conspiring to block a luxury condominium project in Big Bear Lake that he wants to build with an Arizona company. He filed the legal action under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as the RICO Act, created in 1970 to fight organized crime. Earlier this week, the Department of...

Tarek Atia watches as Cairo celebrates an American genius -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It may be because Bill Gates is so omnipresent in our lives -- does "Resuming Windows" sound familiar? -- that his actual physical presence is, for lack of a better term, littler than life. The money -- all $40 billion or so -- could never really glamorise the nerd who made it; with his pudding-basin haircut and bland clothes and glasses he still plays the part, albeit with a lot of self-confidence. Wherever he goes the reception belies his techno-geek appearance. He gets mobbed like a movie star. Which is,...

<p>Edgar F. Codd, an IBM computer pioneer who created the ``relational database model'' that underlies a $7 billion industry of storing the world's online business data, died of heart failure at home Friday in Williams Island, Fla. He was 79.</p>