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John Diepersloot squinted under a bright Central Valley sun, pointing to the damage to his fruit orchard that came with the California bullet train. He lost 70 acres of prime land. Rail contractors left mounds of rubble along his neat rows. Irrigation hoses are askew. A sophisticated canopy system for a kiwi field, supported by massive steel cables, was torn down. But what really irritates Diepersloot is the $250,000 that he paid out of his own pocket for relocating wells, removing trees, building a road and other expenses. “I am out a quarter-million bucks on infrastructure, and they haven’t paid...

<p>The trains use magnetic levitation technology instead of wheels ...</p> <p>Japan's floating bullet trains - which will travel at up speeds of up to 311mph - have undergone their first test runs.</p> <p>The magnetic levitation, or 'maglev' trains, use state-of-the-art technology to reach mind-blowing speeds ...</p>

SEATTLE, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Two trains on Seattle's monorail collided Saturday night, injuring at least two people and sending glass flying onto the street. The accident could put the system out of service until next year, the Seattle Times reported Sunday. There were no serious injuries, but two people were taken to the hospital to be checked out, a Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman said. The trains scraped against each another on the elevated tracks near Fifth Avenue and Olive Way -- an area where the tracks start to converge as they approach the station at Westlake Center. The monorail's...

t will cost more than $11 billion to pay for the 14-mile monorail Green Line project and the debt to finance it, according to documents made public yesterday. That's more than triple what Sound Transit will pay for construction and debt service for its 14-mile light rail line from downtown Seattle to Tukwila. The total also is more than five times the construction tab alone for the monorail, a ratio that troubles state Treasurer Mike Murphy. "You've got to be kidding me," Murphy said yesterday. "That's ludicrous." He said the typical principal and interest payments on a state project amount...

Wall Street suffered its worst single day in nearly two years Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average falling 191 points for its third straight triple-digit loss. Deepening concerns over economic growth and higher prices led to the worst week of trading since August. An already uneasy market began the biggest one-day selloff since May 19, 2003, after the Federal Reserve reported drops in manufacturing and other industrial production, and a Labor Department report showed higher oil costs driving up import prices. The selloff was bolstered by lower-than-expected profits from IBM Corp., which led to fears that technology spending would...

News Home - Help December Hiring Helps Fuel Job Growth 4 minutes ago By LEIGH STROPE, AP Labor Writer WASHINGTON - U.S. employers added 157,000 workers overall to their payrolls in December, bringing the year-end total of new jobs to 2.2 million, the best showing in five years. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 percent. Related Quotes DJIANASDAQS&P 500 10622.882090.001187.89 0.000.000.00 Delayed DataProviders - Disclaimer   The Labor Department (news - web sites) reported Friday that the 2.2 million new jobs created in 2004 were the most in any year since 1999, when employers added 3.2 million positions, based...

Unemployment in the United States appears set to fall next year by nearly 10 percent, the Christian Science Monitor reported Tuesday. And job creation looks robust, too. Employers are expected to create as many as 225,000 new jobs each month in 2005 to more than absorb the 125,000 who enter the job market every month, economists predicted. An informal survey of economists indicates that unemployment could fall from its current 5.4 percent to as low as 5 percent, a nearly 10 percentage point decline. "It may be the best year since 2000 in terms of the general job market," predicts...