In Today’s News, Dog Bites Man and California Bullet Train Faces Yet Another Cost Increase

Here’s yet another entry from the “nobody could have predicted” file:

The California bullet train will take longer to build and cost more than previously estimated under a soon-to-be-released business plan, but plans to begin the project by linking the Bay Area to the Central Valley remain intact, according to the rail authority’s new chief executive, Brian Kelly….Kelly did not disclose the new price tag for completing the entire Los Angeles to San Francisco system.

The last cost increase was announced only last month. And of course, California is still light years away from having the money to build the train, with neither federal nor private sector funding anywhere in sight. This is nuts.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

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