More bonds OK’d for high-speed rail line

LAS VEGAS • A proposed high-speed passenger train between Las Vegas and Southern California got another boost on Tuesday with Biden administration approval to issue $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds for the $12 billion project.

The announcement benefiting the Brightline West project followed a $3 billion U.S. Department of Transportation grant in December and government authorization in 2020 for the company to sell $1 billion in similar bonds.

The 218-mile Brightline West project aims to whisk passengers at 186 mph or more in electric trains on new tracks along the Interstate 15 corridor — cutting in half a four-hour freeway trip between Las Vegas and suburban San Bernardino County near Los Angeles.

Planners and politicians say the project has all the required right-of-way and environmental approvals, along with labor agreements, and should help alleviate weekend and end-of-holiday travel traffic jams that often stretch for 15 miles on I-15 near the Nevada-California line.

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Man guilty of murdering woman in his driveway

FORT EDWARD, N.Y. • A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove into his rural driveway in upstate New York.

After deliberating for less than an hour, a jury found Kevin Monahan, 66, guilty of second-degree murder for shooting 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis on a Saturday night last April after she and her friends pulled into his long, curving driveway near the Vermont border while they were trying to find another house. Monahan was also convicted of reckless endangerment and tampering with physical evidence.

Gillis was killed days after the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Kansas City. Yarl, who is Black, was wounded by an 84-year-old white man after he went to the wrong door while trying to pick up his younger brothers.

Denver gazette news services