"....For nearly three years, an assistant city manager has been fielding complaints from condo owners about leaks and noise."

"...seven condo owners...say the city allowed shoddy construction that ruined their $500,000-plus investments. One owner...claims that frequent leaks and mold in the ceiling have made his two fifth-floor units uninhabitable...."

"The city acknowledges the problems exist....contends the problems were caused by...the developer the city hired to build the hotel...."

"The city of Irvine [California] has filed a lawsuit...alleging that a utility conduit mix-up helped delay a high-profile, $50 million roadway construction project."

"But the city alleges that unbeknownst to them, new plans for the conduit were drawn up, with the planned location of the equipment being moved significantly."

"The mix-up forced a re-design of the project, and led to 'significant' additional construction costs, according to the city complaint."

"Officials...want the more than 600 subcontractors and vendors...to be paid money they are owed for work on the massive $8.5 billion Strip development."

"Perini recorded a lien on CityCenter's property for $490 million and filed a lawsuit seeking payment. Subcontractors are owed about $390 million of the disputed funds, roughly 80 percent of the total."

"...MGM Mirage said...it would begin efforts to pay the subcontractors. However, company officials have not yet been able to resolve some of the payment issues...."

"A building contractor was supposed to be picked in July but that has now been set back three months to October."

"The team behind Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme at Portsmouth City Council says it has been 'more complex' than expected."

"But there is greater uncertainty about the works at the other 10 schools, due to start from 2012, and an £80m BSF project to transform 10 Havant schools, as ministers look to make massive cuts."

"Redshaw Elementary is one of more than 50 New Jersey schools in limbo as state funding for construction has been caught up in years of mismanagement scandals, financial crises and red tape...."

"...state officials said shovels may be in the ground soon on many stalled school construction projects. Last month, the state said it will borrow $500 million...to start building again."

"...authority officials said they still have no timetable for when districts will hear whether they will get funding to build their new schools...."

"...soccer-crazy Brazil is coming under fire for...missing deadlines on preparations...which include building five stadiums from scratch and carrying out major overhauls of others."

"...'Delays in the tender processes, court disputes, lack of definition of projects and financial difficulties are still paralyzing the construction work.'"

"Plans for a 600 million-real ($340 million) overhaul of Rio de Janeiro's iconic Maracana stadium are among those most behind schedule, with the project yet to be bid out to construction companies."

"Extended delays in state and federal permits and a difficult investment environment led to the decision to stop the Bradwood Landing project...."

"NorthernStar started work...six years ago with the hope of building the first deep water port to receive liquefied natural gas tankers on the West Coast and a 36-mile pipeline to connect to existing pipelines serving [Oregon]."

"Bradwood Landing won federal approval, but state officials and conservation groups opposed it, saying the energy source was not needed and posed environmental problems."

"European construction output increased the most in 14 years in March led by a rebound in Germany, the region's largest economy."

"Construction in the 16-nation euro region rose 7.6 per cent from February....'That's the biggest gain since March 1996 and the first increase in a year....'"

"European builders are stepping up output to meet reviving demand after unusually cold weather curbed construction in the first two months of the year."

"...Australia is a key growth region for Shell as The Hague-based producer continues a shift toward gas....Shell expects the share of gas as a proportion of output to increase to 52 percent in 2012."

"Chevron Australia has spent more than A$1billion ($880 million) on drilling in the past three years and expects to allocate 'hundreds of millions of dollars' on exploration this year...."

"...Shell plans to convert coal-seam gas to liquid form in Queensland, and intends to use floating LNG technology to develop the Sunrise and Prelude ventures...."

"...They're seeking to tap a market that has generated about $135 billion in pending orders for large nuclear plants."

"World electricity demand is likely to grow 2.7 percent a year from now until 2015 and then 2.4 percent annually until 2030...."

"...Hyperion's price tag is $50 million for a 25-megawatt reactor more comparable to a diesel generators [sic] or wind farms."

"'A 25-megawatt plant would put electricity into 20,000 homes....'"

"...China's self-sufficiency in reactor design and construction and its emergence as an exporter of nuclear technology would increase competition for...Europe's biggest power producers."

"State-owned China National Nuclear may start building two 800-megawatt experimental fast reactors around 2013 and operations may start before 2020....Fourth-generation technology reactors produce minimal radioactive waste and are fuel efficient."

"The nation may spend more than 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) in the next decade on nuclear energy...."

"Japanese scientists, engineers and financiers have begun work on a project that will make the construction excesses of Dubai look timid: a tower 3,300-foot high and a vertical farm balanced on a floating concrete lilypad."

"Energy will be drawn from solar power...."

"The engineering giant Shimizu envisages building the tower from super-light alloys derived from the magnesium in seawater....each new floor of the tower will be built at ground level, pushing the previous floor down into the sea....the tower will be raised to its full height."

"Bringing bioengineering to architecture, UC Berkeley Professors...are pioneering a new type of thin film building membrane, creating a material structured at the nano and micro scale that can substitute for energy...."

"...they are working on a 'skin' that works like nature's skins to control humidity, light and heat in buildings the same way that nature does...."

"Their prototype lense...reacts to changes in the building's atmosphere by triggering microscopic openings in the membrane."

Deepwater Incident Sets Off Riptide of Ramifications

As ROVs attempt to plug the spewing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, a riptide of legal and regulatory ramifications is sweeping its way onshore. Parties associated with the recent Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent oil spill are fighting to keep their heads above water as the lawsuits flood in. Read on to learn about impending litigation, effects on other deepwater drilling projects, and companies pursuing their exploration options in the wake of stricter regulations.

"...The legal spectacle resulting from this spill could spread as wide and as deep as the slick itself."

"...liabilities from this Gulf disaster promise to be far bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill."

"BP...has pledged to cover the cost of cleanup and what it calls 'legitimate' claims of damage....BP will most certainly try to collect some of that money from the other companies involved in the construction and operation of the rig."

"From Texas to Florida, the litigation rush is on, as thousands of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the April 20 explosion of a drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana."

"...'If I were a lawyer getting involved in these cases, I would make sure I have the financial and emotional resources to wage this war.'"

"...'This is going to be, in my estimation, the largest tort we've had in this country.'"

"Any potential shutdown at Atlantis, even short-lived, could knock out a major chunk of BP's U.S. crude and natural gas production. The platform can produce up to 200,000 barrels a day of crude, around 13% of total U.S. Gulf output, and up to 180 million cubic feet of natural gas per day."

"...lawmakers voiced new concerns that the Atlantis oil and gas project...has operated without up-to-date 'as built' engineering documents and diagrams showing how all of its components work."

"A proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean as early as this summer received initial permits from the Minerals Management Service office in Alaska...."

"Minerals Management has faced intense scrutiny in the weeks since the oil spill....An article...reported that it failed to get some environmental permits to approve drilling in the gulf and ignored objections from scientists to keep those projects on schedule."

"Even as the administration has begun a review of its offshore leasing program and temporarily halted new offshore drilling projects, Shell says it hopes to begin drilling this summer."

"Occidental Petroleum Corp...is leading a rush to find crude on land as BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico disaster spurs tougher offshore-drilling rules."

"Occidental...doubled its estimate for a discovery near Bakersfield, California, to the equivalent of as much as 500 million barrels of oil, which would have a value of more than $34 billion at current prices...."

"...the discovery may be four times as large as the company's estimate, or 1 billion barrels, which would be enough to supply every refinery on the U.S. West Coast for 13 months."