The pending infrastructure bill in Congress is expected to provide only part of the funding needed to repair, upgrade and expand the nation's ports, so private-sector stakeholders should get "positioned now to compete" for opportunities to work with ports, writes Strategic Partnerships CEO Mary Scott Nabers. Texas is planning upgrades to ports in Galveston, Beaumont and Corpus Christi, and California is looking to make improvements at ports in Long Beach and Oakland.

City Manager Brian Chapman of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., has introduced a video blog, which he will update monthly, to inform residents about city operations and local events. "We are always looking for new ways to engage and inform citizens and it was something the deputy manager and I always wanted to do," Chapman explains.

China's power shortage is causing manufacturing slowdowns and shutdowns in multiple industries and is exacerbating supply chain challenges, write Jeff Sutherland and Tom Hancock.
The crisis is "another stagflationary shock for manufacturing," with widespread implications due to the country's crucial role in the global supply chain, said Craig Botham of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

An administrative complaint filed by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine and 19 state attorneys general calls for a more thorough Postal Regulatory Commission review of a 10-year strategic plan for the US Postal Service. The plan, which became effective Oct. 1, includes measures to slow deliveries, shorten post offices' hours and increase postal rates.

Connecticut could receive as much as $5 billion for various infrastructure projects if the pending infrastructure legislation passes in Congress, says Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. One project is a shovel-ready plan to add a lane to Interstate 95 in Fairfield County.

Brosamer & Wall and Tutor Perini are expected to begin construction soon on repairs to a 33-mile stretch of the damaged Friant-Kern Canal in California. The joint venture's $177 million contract includes building 10 miles of new canal, eight concrete inverted siphons and concrete turnout structures to restore the canal's capacity to 4,000 cubic feet per second.

Illinois expects to attract significant private investment and create hundreds of construction jobs if it receives final approval for a port development project at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at Cairo, Ill. The project now awaits more than 20 permits from the state and federal government.

Construction of the Blue Water Energy Center in Michigan's East China Township is on pace to be finished next year as commissioning activity prepares to begin, owner DTE Energy says. The 1,200-megawatt natural-gas plant is expected to provide much of the power currently generated by the nearby coal-fired St. Clair Power Plant.

Construction could begin in November on a replacement for Terminal 1 at San Diego International Airport after the San Diego County Regional Airport Board of Directors approved a top price of $2.6 billion for design and construction. The project awaits completion of the process under the Federal Aviation Administration's National Environmental Policy Act, which is expected this month.

Plans to build a Center City Connector streetcar line in Seattle were set aside last year during the pandemic but are now included in the city's 2022 budget proposal. The $285 million line would form part of the One Center City project linking two other streetcar lines over 1.3 miles.