Question Earthority!

“One of the foreign firms leasing the Indiana Toll Road is drawing suspicion from some Texans after announcing plans to acquire a chain of small newspapers there. Australia-based Macquarie Media Group last week said it will pay $80 million for American Consolidated Media, which publishes 40 community newspapers and shopping publications serving nine communities in Texas and Oklahoma. … several grass-roots groups in Texas are battling that state’s Republican governor, Rick Perry, and his plan to convert existing freeways to toll roads and build a new toll road, the Trans-Texas Corridor, that would stretch from the Mexican border to Oklahoma. Cintra and Macquarie Infrastructure Group, which also jointly operate a toll road in Toronto, are expected to be among many groups bidding on about $250 billion in Texas road work and toll road administration over the next decade. Through eminent domain, the Trans-Texas Corridor, largely paralleling the existing Interstate 35, would force people to sell off their land for the project. Small papers in rural communities along the route have aggressively reported on opposition to that plan, said Sal Costello, founder of the nonprofit political action committee, Texas Toll Party.” (01/31/07)