SALEM — While there are contested mayor’s races this Tuesday in Beverly and Peabody, in Salem, there is none.
Mayor Dominick Pangallo is running unopposed for a full four-year term — after first winning a special election in 2023 to fill the remainder of Kim Driscoll’s term — and is looking ahead to what he says is a crucial time for the city to advance its long-term goals.
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Public tours of the White House will resume in early December amid ongoing construction for a new ballroom.
The White House says it will resume public tours starting on Dec. 2.
Tours of the People’s House paused “indefinitely” in August, in preparation for the construction of President Donald Trump’s new ballroom.
The East Wing, which was demolished last month as part of the construction process, has historically been the spot where visitors enter the building for public tours.
In light of the renovation works, the upcoming tours will now lead visitors through “an updated route,” according to a news release.
All December tours will spotlight first lady Melania Trump’s Christmas decorations on the State Floor, per the release.
Congressional offices may once again submit constituent tour requests on Monday.
Tour availabilities for December will open 30 days ahead of each potential tour date, while tour availabilities for January 2026 should be made available to congressional offices at some point next month.
For more information about public White House tours, check here or contact your congressional representative.
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President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he has renovated the Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, sharing before and after images on social media as he continues to put his touch on the White House.“I renovated the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House. It was renovated in the 1940s in an Art Deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era,” Trump said on Truth Social. “I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble. This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!”In the video player above: See before and after images posted to social media by President TrumpThe president posted about the renovations aboard Air Force One en route to Florida, where he will spend the weekend. The post comes as the government remains shut down, and the Trump administration says it will not tap into emergency funds to fund SNAP food assistance benefits through the month of November.Shortly after, Trump posted more images of the bathroom, showing gold detailing on the faucet and shower handle, as well as other fixtures. A plush white robe with the presidential seal also hangs on a golden hook.The president discussed the changes he was making to the bathroom earlier this month during a dinner at the White House, saying in part that the old style of the bathroom “was not exactly Abe Lincoln.”“We have little things like at the Lincoln Bedroom. The bathroom was done by the Truman family and you know, long time ago. And it’s done in a green tile, and it’s done in a style that was not exactly Abe Lincoln,” the president said.“It’s actually Art Deco. And Art Deco doesn’t go with, you know, 1850 and Civil Wars…But what does do is statuary marble. So I ripped it apart and we built a bathroom. It’s absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with that time because the Lincoln bedroom is, uh, so incredible, for those of you that have seen it,” he added.Trump on Friday also gave a status update on a separate construction project he’s overseeing at the Kennedy Center, which he said he “just inspected.”“The exterior columns, which were in serious danger of corrosion if something weren’t done, are completed, and look magnificent in White Enamel — Like a different place! Marble is being done, stages are being renovated, new seats, new chairs, and new fabrics will soon be installed, and magnificent high-end carpeting throughout the building. It is happening faster than anticipated, one of my trademarks,” Trump said.“We are bringing this building back to life. It was dead as a doornail, but it will soon be beautiful again!” he added.The moves are part of Trump’s effort to put his stamp on the White House – which has seen a slew of changes since he took office – and the greater DC area.So far, the renovations include paving over the grass in the historic Rose Garden, demolishing the East Wing to make way for a new ballroom and adorning the Oval Office with gold.Trump often says the White House needed a new ballroom to host world leaders, to avoid situations where they are outside and a temporary tent has to be used when it rains. And he frequently remarked that the Rose Garden paving was necessary because women in high heels would sink into the grass during events. It now has a touch of Mar-a-Lago with the same white and yellow umbrellas at tables on the patio.His redecoration of the Oval Office to his liking, as presidents do when they take office, has tripled the number of paintings on the walls with gold just about everywhere. Trump also installed portraits of every president framed in gold on the West Colonnade – except for former President Joe Biden, who is instead represented by his autopen signature – and large floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which the press can see when they are escorted into the Oval Office.In addition to those changes, Trump plans to build a new arch monument in DC in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary.As he pushes forward with his plans to leave his mark on the White House and the nation’s capital, Trump this week fired the members of the Commission of Fine Arts. The independent federal agency is charged with advising the president, Congress, and the city of Washington, DC, on “matters of design and aesthetics.” The president has also installed allies on the National Capital Planning Commission, which will be tasked with approving plans for the new ballroom on White House grounds.
President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he has renovated the Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, sharing before and after images on social media as he continues to put his touch on the White House.
“I renovated the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House. It was renovated in the 1940s in an Art Deco green tile style, which was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era,” Trump said on Truth Social. “I did it in black and white polished Statuary marble. This was very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!”
In the video player above: See before and after images posted to social media by President Trump
The president posted about the renovations aboard Air Force One en route to Florida, where he will spend the weekend. The post comes as the government remains shut down, and the Trump administration says it will not tap into emergency funds to fund SNAP food assistance benefits through the month of November.
Shortly after, Trump posted more images of the bathroom, showing gold detailing on the faucet and shower handle, as well as other fixtures. A plush white robe with the presidential seal also hangs on a golden hook.
The president discussed the changes he was making to the bathroom earlier this month during a dinner at the White House, saying in part that the old style of the bathroom “was not exactly Abe Lincoln.”
“We have little things like at the Lincoln Bedroom. The bathroom was done by the Truman family and you know, long time ago. And it’s done in a green tile, and it’s done in a style that was not exactly Abe Lincoln,” the president said.
“It’s actually Art Deco. And Art Deco doesn’t go with, you know, 1850 and Civil Wars…But what does do is statuary marble. So I ripped it apart and we built a bathroom. It’s absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with that time because the Lincoln bedroom is, uh, so incredible, for those of you that have seen it,” he added.
Trump on Friday also gave a status update on a separate construction project he’s overseeing at the Kennedy Center, which he said he “just inspected.”
“The exterior columns, which were in serious danger of corrosion if something weren’t done, are completed, and look magnificent in White Enamel — Like a different place! Marble is being done, stages are being renovated, new seats, new chairs, and new fabrics will soon be installed, and magnificent high-end carpeting throughout the building. It is happening faster than anticipated, one of my trademarks,” Trump said.
“We are bringing this building back to life. It was dead as a doornail, but it will soon be beautiful again!” he added.
The moves are part of Trump’s effort to put his stamp on the White House – which has seen a slew of changes since he took office – and the greater DC area.
So far, the renovations include paving over the grass in the historic Rose Garden, demolishing the East Wing to make way for a new ballroom and adorning the Oval Office with gold.
Trump often says the White House needed a new ballroom to host world leaders, to avoid situations where they are outside and a temporary tent has to be used when it rains. And he frequently remarked that the Rose Garden paving was necessary because women in high heels would sink into the grass during events. It now has a touch of Mar-a-Lago with the same white and yellow umbrellas at tables on the patio.
His redecoration of the Oval Office to his liking, as presidents do when they take office, has tripled the number of paintings on the walls with gold just about everywhere. Trump also installed portraits of every president framed in gold on the West Colonnade – except for former President Joe Biden, who is instead represented by his autopen signature – and large floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which the press can see when they are escorted into the Oval Office.
In addition to those changes, Trump plans to build a new arch monument in DC in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary.
As he pushes forward with his plans to leave his mark on the White House and the nation’s capital, Trump this week fired the members of the Commission of Fine Arts. The independent federal agency is charged with advising the president, Congress, and the city of Washington, DC, on “matters of design and aesthetics.” The president has also installed allies on the National Capital Planning Commission, which will be tasked with approving plans for the new ballroom on White House grounds.
LITTLETON – For deer, the fall time change Sunday morning means trouble: a 16% spike in collisions with vehicles over the following week, despite years of safety campaigns and the construction of 75 special crossings along highways.
Drivers in Colorado collided with at least 54,189 wild animals over the past 15 years, according to newly compiled Colorado Department of Transportation records. That’s far fewer than in many other states, such as Michigan, where vehicle-life collisions often number more than 50,000 in one year.
The carnage — especially this time of year — increasingly occurs where animals face the most people along the heavily populated Front Range, beyond the mountainous western half of the state that holds much of the remaining prime habitat, state records show.
State leaders and wildlife advocates gathered on Thursday near one of the crossings along the high-speed C-470 beltway in southwest metro Denver to launch a safety campaign.
“We’ve made wildlife crossings a priority in our rural areas, and also increasingly in urban areas,” CDOT Director Shoshana Lew said. “We cannot put underpasses and overpasses everywhere. Particularly at this time of year, we urge everyone to be careful of wildlife.”
Lew credited the crossings with containing collision numbers that could be much higher in Colorado, given the traffic and the prevalence of deer and other wild animals. Most of the state’s highway construction projects, such as the work on Interstate 25 north of Colorado Springs that includes a large wildlife bridge, will factor in wildlife safety needs, Lew said.
The risk of collisions spikes this time of year due to deer and elk migrating to lower elevations, bringing more animals across highways. The end of daylight saving time also plays a role as more drivers navigate roads during the relatively low-visibility hours before and after sunset, when deer often move about.
In Colorado, the 54,189 vehicle-animal collisions that CDOT recorded from 2010 through 2024 caused the deaths of 48 vehicle occupants and more than 5,000 injuries. The animals breakdown: 82% deer, 11% elk, 2% bears.
Ten counties where vehicles hit the most animals during that period included five along the Front Range — Douglas, Jefferson, El Paso, Larimer, and Pueblo — with a combined total of 12,791 collisions, state records show. That compares with 11,068 in the other five counties in western Colorado — La Plata, Montezuma, Garfield, Moffat, and Chaffee.
Colorado lawmakers over the past two decades have directed funds for the installation of more and more wildlife crossings, typically overpasses and underpasses combined with fencing along highways. “These can be up to 90% effective in reducing collisions,” Environment America researcher Rachel Jaeger said.
Most recently, in 2022, lawmakers set up a wildlife safe passage fund with a $5.5 million investment for crossing construction. That money’s been spent. State transportation planners have identified locations where crossings are needed, such as the stretch of U.S. 40 between the intersection with I-70 and the town of Empire, where bighorn sheep live.
Wildlife-vehicle collisions have proved persistent enough that safety advocates have launched a social media campaign and are mulling new strategies, such as promoting ridership on CDOT’s intercity Bustang buses as an animal-friendly way to move.
It’s a sound—and smell—car commuters have become intimately familiar with: the noxious fumes of asphalt repaving. U.S. road maintenance and highway expansion require a massive quantity of asphalt every year, roughly 400 million tons a year on average, according to Asphalt magazine, a publication of the international trade association Asphalt Institute. But a new process developed by St. Louis-based firm Verde Resources seeks to streamline the process, making it more sustainable and odorless.
Verde’s new BioAsphalt process, which has been in development since 2022, utilizes what’s called biochar, or natural wood remnants from forestry waste that get added into the traditional asphalt material mixture of limestone and granite aggregates. This allows the road mixture to sequester a small amount of carbon. Verde CEO Jack Wong estimates that for every 100 tons of BioAsphalt that gets laid, 10 tons of carbon dioxide gets sequestered.
“We’re essentially creating a no-brainer model for the industry to transition to, making the product as competitive as traditional asphalt with environmental advantages and benefits,” Wong says.
Asphalt’s environmental footprint is significant. In addition to using petroleum-based materials and requiring extensive energy for heating and installation, it also releases dangerous particulate matter as cars and trucks drive atop it. The National Asphalt Pavement Association estimated that laying down the material results in 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually in the U.S.; for comparison, that’s about one-seventh the amount of emissions created by the nation’s commercial airline industry.
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Earlier this summer, BioAsphalt passed the initial stages of a test at the National Center for Asphalt Technology at Auburn University in Alabama. A section of BioAsphalt roadway was tested for a year, with staff running modified 80-ton trucks across the test bed to verify its durability. The material, one of a handful trying to make asphalt less environmentally damaging, has been given an okay for lower-impact applications like local roads and parking lots.
“We’ve had plenty of materials and ideas come through the test track over the years, but few show the carbon reduction potential that Verde’s Biochar Asphalt does, and it’s definitely the first technology on the track with a carbon sequestration component,” said Nathan Moore, assistant director for test track research at NCAT, in a statement. While the early validation confirms its suitability for light-duty pavements, continuous evaluations are underway to determine its long-term viability for medium- to high-traffic roadways and even runways, as part of NCAT’s multiyear test cycle.
The secret to Verde’s process is a proprietary emulsifying agent that blends with a liquid asphalt binder to create a specialized emulsion, bonding the biochar and aggregate. This offers an alternative to the petroleum-based bitumen that traditionally binds roads Wong wouldn’t reveal the exact additives in the firm’s process, other than to say they’re nonhazardous. A self-proclaimed Dune fan, he calls them “spice.” But they bond the roadway mixture without needing the heat required during the traditional asphalt laying process, which can hit 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
This opens up new opportunities for the road construction industry. On-site crews don’t need to cart gas canisters or additional gear to heat up the asphalt, so they can travel more lightly. In addition, since heat isn’t needed in the application process, they can work longer into the cold months of the year, expanding when they can repair and resurface roads and parking lots. This also means that the factories that make the asphalt mix don’t need to use heat as well.
Wong added that while the BioAsphalt is about 15% to 20% more expensive to make, by weight, due to the different materials, it’s engineered to require a thinner layer when applied. So it actually ends up being slightly cheaper when energy savings and reduced material volume are factored in.
Wong hopes to scale up quickly. BioAsphalt doesn’t need to be heated with traditional furnaces, but it can be made in the same factory settings as traditional asphalt—meaning that existing infrastructure can make the mix without needing to spend money on powering industrial furnaces. Verde is working with Ergon Asphalt & Emulsions, one of the largest liquid asphalt producers in North America, on arranging distribution and licensing the proprietary process to other producers. Wong hopes to ramp up production substantially in the next year and eventually capture 10% of the market.
Roadways, of course, aren’t just sources of pollution themselves. But they can be considered fossil fuel infrastructure because they support the use of cars and trucks burning gasoline and diesel fuel. In response, Wong says that he feels Verde’s product offers a practical way to immediately reduce emissions that go into roadway repair and expansion.
“We’re providing an immediate solution to the day-to-day needs for our very robust and mature road network,” Wong says.
By Patrick Sisson
This article originally appeared in Inc.’s sister publication, Fast Company.
Fast Company is the world’s leading business media brand, with an editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, world changing ideas, creativity, and design. Written for and about the most progressive business leaders, Fast Company inspires readers to think expansively, lead with purpose, embrace change, and shape the future of business.
Construction on the Trump administration’s controversial White House ballroom with a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars began this week and has stirred up considerable controversy.
President Donald Trump and top White House officials said the ballroom will be a 90,000-square-foot, glass-walled space that “pays total respect to the existing building.” But construction crews were seen on Monday tearing into part of the East Wing’s facade. By Wednesday, the East Wing had been demolished, according to the Associated Press.
Images and videos of heavy machinery destroying the White House structure caused alarm online, but the Trump administration called the ensuing blowback “manufactured outrage” and accused the press of “clutching their pearls” while pointing out that past presidents have also made major renovations.
Here are four things you need to know about Trump’s ballroom plan as construction begins.
The Blueprint
Trump said the new ballroom is needed so the White House has a large space to entertain guests. He has complained in the past that the East Room, the largest space on the property, was too small as it can only hold around 200 people.
Renderings show the new project looking similar to the gilded ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The new space will dwarf the main White House: The ballroom is set to be nearly twice the size of the main residence and will hold around 999 people.
Trump told donors at a recent White House dinner that the windows on the property will be bulletproof and that the space will be big enough to fit a presidential inauguration if needed.
The White House has said the ballroom will be ready for use before the end of Trump’s current term in January 2029.
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The Cost
As will happen with home renovations, the cost of the project has risen as the project expands, rising from $200 million to $300 million.
Trump said on social media that the project won’t cost taxpayers anything because it is being privately funded by “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
As for who will foot the bill on the project, Trump has committed to using some of his own money, and the White House has released a list of donors to the project. The list includes large corporations like Google and Amazon, defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Palantir and Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as the personal fortunes and family foundations of billionaires like Blackstone CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman and casino magnate Miriam Adelson.
An estimated $22 million will come from a legal settlement paid by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, after Trump sued the tech giant for suspending his YouTube channel following the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Precedent
Past presidents have added and subtracted features to the White House dating back to its construction in 1792.
Major projects over the years include the addition of the West Wing by President Theodore Roosevelt, the addition of the East Wing by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the creation of the Rose Garden during John F. Kennedy’s administration. But perhaps the most significant renovations came during the Truman administration, when, beginning in 1948, the mansion was gutted due to structural instability and a balcony was added to the second floor.
The Sign-off
Construction and major renovations to government buildings in Washington typically require approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, an agency in the executive branch.
Trump appointee Will Scharf, a top White House aide, now heads the commission. Scharf has stressed that the commission’s approval is not required for demolition, but “if you’re talking about actually building anything, then, yeah, it should go through our approval process,” he said last month.
Still, the process has drawn condemnation and anger from many.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sent a letter and statement to the National Capital Planning Commission, the National Park Service and the Commission of Fine Arts on Wednesday, voicing “deep concern” that the project will overwhelm the White House and “may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design …”
The White House then said on Wednesday that it will submit the plans for review. A request for a response on the decision was met with an auto-reply regarding the ongoing government shutdown.
There’s hardly anything on this planet that’s more widely in demand than concrete. And while we need the essential building material for infrastructure, housing, and beyond, it comes at a high climate cost.
Production of cement, the glue that holds concrete together, doubled globally between 2003 to 2013, and has since plateaued. Even without rapid growth, its carbon footprint is incredibly significant at around 8 percent of global carbon emissions. Every ton of Portland cement produced—that’s the most common type of cement in construction today—creates nearly the same amount of CO2 emissions.
But big emissions warrant big opportunities. While some companies are working on changing cement itself to reduce its gigantic carbon footprint, California-based Fortera found a different niche.
By creating bolt-on technology that can be fitted to existing cement plants, Fortera can create a cement product made out of reabsorbed CO2 that’s up to 70 percent less carbon intensive than creating traditional Portland cement (even if the plant is powered by less-than-sustainable energy sources). When hooked up to renewable energy, the potential for emissions reduction is even higher.
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“What Fortera is doing is not all that fancy and exotic, but that may actually be part of its secret sauce,” says Andres Clarens, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Virginia.
A concrete pivot
Fortera was built out of a company called Calera, one of the earliest businesses geared towards green cement. Calera’s process was inspired by how coral mineralizes in the ocean; the company combined seawater with captured CO2 to create calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate. These materials can double as feedstocks for cement and carbon sequestration, but the company drew early criticism for lack of scalability.
After hundreds of thousands of hours of research, hundreds of millions of dollars of development, and over 100 patents, the economics just didn’t work out. “Unfortunately, while it was great technology, it really just wasn’t grounded in economics,” says Ryan Gilliam, CEO of Fortera. Gilliam was CEO of Calera when it shut down the CO2-to-cement part of the business in 2015. “People thought people would pay for green and that’s what would drive adoption, which is really not how things have happened.”
But it wasn’t entirely a loss, Gilliam says. The technology was already proven, after all. What was really needed was a new mindset. Calera’s goal was to compete with cement producers, creating a greener alternative.
But this second time around, Fortera has pivoted. Their aim isn’t to replace the infrastructure that already exists and supports an industry that creates some 4 billion metric tons of the essential material every year. Instead, it takes what they are already doing and turns the carbon being emitted into something useful. And so far, it’s working—and last year, they began making a test product alongside a small cement plant in Redding, California.
Fortera was also selected in September to receive funding from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund to support building out a full-scale, 400,000 ton-per-year commercial facility, in turn hopefully accelerating the greening of Microsoft’s data center footprint. “Our team was attracted to Fortera’s approach due to its potential for deep emission reductions, competitive cost targets, and its expected compatibility with existing production infrastructure,” Brandon Middaugh, who manages the Climate Innovation Fund program and its strategy at Microsoft, said in a recent press release.
So far to date, Fortera, which is based in San Jose and has a team of around 90 full-time staff, has raised about $150 million and the company is about to kick off another funding round.
The technique
The reason that cement is such a nasty carbon problem is simple: cement’s main feedstock is limestone, which is around 44 percent solid CO2 by weight. That CO2 is lost when the stone begins a process called calcination, producing a double whammy of emissions from the rock itself and the burning of fuel to power the process. “It’s a costly inefficiency that makes no sense,” says Tiziana Vanorio, associate professor in the earth and planetary sciences department at Stanford University.
Fortera’s technology captures the CO2 coming out of the kiln when the lime is being produced. That is used to create a reactive calcium carbonate polymorph, also known as vaterite, or what they’ve dubbed ReAct. Teaming up with Fortera means cement plants get to keep the same limestone feedstocks, use the same infrastructure already in place, but get more out of the same amount of initial material. It keeps costs low for Fortera too, says Gilliam. The plant’s in-house team operates the technology, and the plant’s sales and logistics team help put the product to market.
“[Cement companies] know how to build big plants, run them efficiently, and put products to market,” he says. “So bolting our technology to them, but leveraging what they know how to do really well, is the way to really push the economics where you don’t need a green premium or a value on CO2 to be competitive in the market.”
One product their technology creates, ReAct Pure, made with 100 percent of the low-carbon vaterite, is currently being tested as a full replacement of cement in concrete mixes. But it is available now for other uses in the construction industry.
ReAct Blend, meanwhile, is a mix of the ReAct product and traditional cement and could have several uses, including as a regular cement replacement. ReAct Blend was approved by ASTM International to meet standards for to be blended in with three different categories of cement and concrete, and is already out in the world in a few locations, including in a STEM building at Simpson University and an entrance and staircase of a renovated building at UC Berkeley, resulting in a small-to-moderate amount of carbon reductions compared to a fully-Portland cement build.
Now, Gilliam says, it’s just a matter of scaling up, and with a partnership with lime producer Graymont announced over the summer, there’s a whole pipeline of commercial plants on the way. “Now it’s basically putting shovels in the ground and executing building out that first full commercial plant,” he says.
“I hear regularly that the industry is risk averse, they will never adopt something new, they won’t adopt new products,” he says. “I fundamentally don’t agree with that. I think the industry has always shown that if it’s economic, they will adopt it.”
Maryland-based construction company ACECO has become a target for online scorn because of its association with the White House demolition work.
Call ACECO’s Silver Spring, Maryland, office and the recorded message will tell you it’s the “premier demolition contractor in the D.C. metro area.” But that’s not how many on social media see it since the contracting company’s work on the White House’s East Wing started this week.
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The organizers of the competition, venture capital and construction companies Cemex Ventures, Caterpillar, Dysruptek by Haskell, Ferrovial, Hilti, Leonard by VINCI, NOVA by Saint-Gobain, Trimble and Zacua Ventures have selected thirteen winning solutions that are driving innovation in the construction sector.
Of the thirteen winning startups, eight have been selected to attend the Pitch Day at Trimble Dimensions User Conference in Las Vegas on November 11, 2025. The other five have been invited to Recotech in Helsinki.
MADRID, October 22, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– Today, the organizing partners of the Construction Startup Competition 2025, Cemex Ventures, Caterpillar, Dysruptek by Haskell, Ferrovial, Hilti, Leonard by VINCI, NOVA by Saint-Gobain, Trimble, and Zacua Ventures, announced the most promising startup solutions from this year’s competition, ready to drive innovation across the construction sector. Now in its ninth edition, the annual competition received a 563 applications from over 54 countries, marking the second-highest participation in its history. This milestone further solidifies the competition’s position as a leading global platform for scouting and supporting the most disruptive startup talent in construction.
The submitted solutions were categorized into four key focus areas, each addressing key challenges in the construction value chain: Green Construction ( e.g: project carbon footrpint), Enhanced Productivity (e.g: jobsite management), Construction Supply Chain (e.g: materials delivery), and Future of Construction (e.g: new construction processes).
The most promising startup solutions from each were named Construction Startup Competition 2025’s champions. These are: Ailytics [Singapore], AItenders [France], Alithic [US], All3 [UK], BuildCheck AI, Inc. [US], Birdsview [Norway], Enlaye [US], IRIDESENSE [France], Gravis Robotics [Switzerland], Hyperion Robotics [Finland], Kapture [Australia], Navlive [UK] and Taiyō.AI [US].
The eight winning startups attending the Pitch Day at Trimble Dimensions will present their solutions to a panel of executive representatives, industry investors, and potential business partners. The three startups delivering the most compelling pitches will receive cash prizes and be recognized as the gold, silver, and bronze medalists.
The five startups invited to the Recotech conference will also showcase the Competition hosts and an exclusive audience and will compete for the top spot in our brand-new European Pitch Day. The company with the strongest value proposition and presentation will receive a cash prize and be recognized as the European Pitch Day Champion.
Over the last eight years, Construction Startup Competition has been a launching opportunity for more than 4,100 startups to network, gain industry recognition, validate their solutions through pilots and deployment projects, and secure funding, all with the mission of accelerating innovation and startup construction in the construction sector.
As the industry undergoes technological revolution, the competition hosts continue to encourage startups to “Build the new construction rules“. Contech and Cleantech startups looking to meet with investors, pilot their solutions, and make a significant impact in the built environment are invited to join the competition partners and winners at Trimble Dimensions User Conference.
WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. — A drive-thru coffee shop in Wheat Ridge said construction along Wadsworth Boulevard is preventing customers from stopping by.
Like most moms, Cassie Grutz’s day starts before the sun comes up. Every morning, she loads up her two kids, Carson and Ceecee, and heads to two different schools.
But after the drop-offs, she doesn’t get to sit down and have a cup of coffee. She drives nearly an hour in traffic to make coffee for her customers.
Mike Castellucci
Grutz owns the Sugar Cube Coffee Shop at 44th and Wadsworth in Wheatridge. Originally a dental hygienist, she bought the shack during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No one wanted to see me during that time, that’s for sure,” she said.
That’s when she decided to work at something where people wanted to see her, and who would smile because they felt it.
The coffee shop started out decades ago as a Fotomat, then the check-in hut for a putt-putt course. Grutz has employees, but they usually take separate shifts since the shop is only a few feet wide.
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Grutz knows Wadsworth is filled to the brim with coffee shops, but if people stop, they’ll come back. She roasts her own beans, and she feels her coffee is the best.
“If they miss our entrance, which they’ve changed since construction started, they immediately see Dutch Brothers coffee, and then there’s no reason for them to turn around,” Grutz said.
In an update, the City of Wheat Ridge said the Wadsworth Improvement Project, which began in November 2021, remains on schedule and should be completed in spring 2026.
City of Wheat Ridge
It can be overwhelming owning a business, roasting your own beans, and serving customers, but Grutz feels joy from it all. It’s just that she has to close at 11:30 a.m. because she’s a mom, and she has Carson and CeeCee to pick up from school.
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ENGLEWOOD — Metro Denver budtender Quentin Ferguson needs Regional Transportation District bus and trains to reach work at an Arvada dispensary from his house, a trip that takes 90 minutes each way “on a good day.”
“It is pretty inconvenient,” Ferguson, 22, said on a recent rainy evening, waiting for a nearly empty train that was eight minutes late.
He’s not complaining, however, because his relatively low income and Medicaid status qualify him for a discounted RTD monthly pass. That lets him save money for a car or an electric bicycle, he said, either of them offering a faster commute.
Then he would no longer have to ride RTD.
His plight reflects a core problem of lagging ridership that RTD directors increasingly run up against as they try to position the transit agency as the smartest way to navigate Denver. Most other U.S. public transit agencies, too, are grappling with a version of this problem.
In Colorado, state-government-driven efforts to concentrate the growing population in high-density, transit-oriented development around bus and train stations — a priority for legislators and Gov. Jared Polis — hinge on having a swift public system that residents ride.
But transit ridership has failed to rebound a year after RTD’s havoc in 2024, when operators disrupted service downtown for a $152 million rail reconstruction followed by a systemwide emergency maintenance blitz to smooth deteriorating tracks that led to trains crawling through 10-mph “slow zones.”
The latest ridership numbers show an overall decline this year, by at least 3.9%, with 40 million fewer riders per year compared with six years ago. And RTD executives’ newly proposed, record $1.3 billion budget for 2026 doesn’t include funds for boosting bus and train frequency to win back riders.
Frustrations intensified last week.
“What is the point of transit-oriented development if it is just development?” said state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat representing Englewood who chairs the House Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee. “We need reliable transit to have transit-oriented development. We have cities that have invested significant resources into their transit-oriented communities. RTD is not holding up its end of the bargain.”
At a retreat this past summer, a majority of the RTD’s 15 elected board members agreed that boosting ridership is their top priority. Some who reviewed the proposed budget last week questioned the lack of spending on service improvements for riders.
“We’re not moving the needle. Ridership is not going up. It should be going up,” director Karen Benker said in an interview.
“Over the past few years, there’s been a tremendous amount of population growth. There are so many apartment complexes, so much new housing put up all over,” Benker said. “Transit has to be relied on. You just cannot keep building more roads. We’re going to have to find ways to get people to ride public transit.”
Commuting trends blamed
RTD Chief Executive and General Manager Debra Johnson, in emailed responses to questions from The Denver Post, emphasized that “RTD is not unique” among U.S. transit agencies struggling to regain ridership lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson blamed societal shifts.
“Commuting trends have significantly changed over the last five years,” she said. “Return-to-work numbers in the Denver metro area, which accounted for a significant percentage of RTD’s ridership prior to March 2020, remain low as companies and businesses continue to provide flexible in-office schedules for their employees.”
In the future, RTD will be “changing its focus from primarily providing commuter services,” she said, toward “enhancing its bus and services and connections to high-volume events, activity centers, concerts and festivals.”
But agency directors are looking for a more aggressive approach to reversing the decline in ridership. And some are mulling a radical restructuring of routes.
Funded mostly by taxpayers across a 2,345 square-mile area spanning eight counties and 40 municipalities — one of the biggest in the nation — RTD operates 10 rail lines covering 114 miles with 84 stations and 102 bus routes with 9,720 stops.
“We should start from scratch,” said RTD director Chris Nicholson, advocating an overhaul of the “geometry” of all bus routes to align transit better with metro Denver residents’ current mobility patterns.
The key will be increasing frequency.
“We should design the routes how we think would best serve people today, and then we could take that and modify it where absolutely necessary to avoid disruptive differences with our current route map,” he said.
Then, in 2030, directors should appeal to voters for increased funding to improve service — funds that would be substantially controlled by municipalties “to pick where they want the service to go,” he said.
Reversing the RTD ridership decline may take a couple of years, Nicholson said, comparing the decreases this year to customers shunning a restaurant. “If you’re a restaurant and you poison some guests accidentally, you’re gonna lose customers even after you fix the problem.”
The RTD ridership numbers show an overall public transit ridership decrease by 5% when measured over the 12-month period from August 2024 through July 2025, the last month for which staffers have made numbers available, compared with the same period a year ago.
Bus ridership decreased by 2% and light rail by 18% over that period. In a typical month, RTD officials record around 5 million boardings — around 247,000 on weekdays.
The precautionary rail “slow zones” persisted for months as contractors worked on tracks, delaying and diverting trains, leaving transit-dependent workers in a lurch. RTD driver workforce shortages limited deployment of emergency bus shuttles.
This year, RTD ridership systemwide decreased by 3.9% when measured from January through July, compared with that period in 2024. The bus ridership this year has decreased by 2.4%.
On rail lines, the ridership on the relatively popular A Line that runs from Union Station downtown to Denver International Airport was down by 9.7%. The E Line light rail that runs from downtown to the southeastern edge of metro Denver was down by 24%. Rail ridership on the W Line decreased by 18% and on R Line by 15%, agency records show.
The annual RTD ridership has decreased by 38% since 2019, from 105.8 million to 65.2 million in 2024.
A Regional Transportation District light rail train moves through downtown Denver on Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Light rail ‘sickness’ spreading
“The sickness on RTD light rail is spreading to other parts of the RTD system,” said James Flattum, a co-founder of the Greater Denver Transit grassroots rider advocacy group, who also serves on the state’s RTD Accountability Committee. “We’re seeing permanent demand destruction as a consequence of having an unreliable system. This comes from a loss of trust in RTD to get you where you need to go.”
RTD officials have countered critics by pointing out that the light rail’s on-time performance recovered this year to 91% or better. Bus on-time performance still lagged at 83% in July, agency records show.
The officials also pointed to decreased security reports made using an RTD smartphone app after deploying more police officers on buses and trains. The number of reported assaults has decreased — to four in September, compared with 16 in September 2024, records show.
Greater Denver Transit members acknowledged that safety has improved, but question the agency’s assertions based on app usage. “It may be true that the number of security calls went down,” Flattum said, “but maybe the people who otherwise would have made more safety calls are no longer riding RTD.”
RTD staffers developing the 2026 budget have focused on managing debt and maintaining operations spending at current levels. They’ve received forecasts that revenues from taxpayers will increase slightly. It’s unclear whether state and federal funds will be available.
RTD directors and leaders of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, an environmental group, are opposing the rollback of RTD’s planned shift to the cleaner, quieter electric hybrid buses and taking on new debt for that purpose.
Colorado lawmakers will “push on a bunch of different fronts” to prioritize better service to boost ridership, Froelich said.
The legislature in recent years directed funds to help RTD provide free transit for riders under age 20. Buses and trains running at least every 15 minutes would improve both ridership and safety, she said, because more riders would discourage bad behavior and riders wouldn’t have to wait alone at night on often-empty platforms for up to an hour.
“We’re trying to do what we can to get people back onto the transit system,” Froelich said. “They do it in other places, and people here do ride the Bustang (intercity bus system). RTD just seems to lack the nimbleness required to meet the moment.”
Denver Center for the Performing Arts stage hand Chris Grossman walks home after work in downtown Denver on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Riders switch modes
Meanwhile, riders continue to abandon public transit when it doesn’t meet their needs.
For Denver Center for the Performing Arts theater technician Chris Grossman, 35, ditching RTD led to a better quality of life. He had to move from the Virginia Village neighborhood he loved.
Back in 2016, Grossman sold his ailing blue 2003 VW Golf when he moved there in the belief that “RTD light rail was more or less reliable.” He rode nearly every day between the Colorado Station and downtown.
But trains became erratic as maintenance of walls along tracks caused delays. “It just got so bad. I was burning so much money on rideshares that I probably could have bought a car.” Shortly before RTD announced the “slow zones” last summer, he moved to an apartment closer to downtown on Capitol Hill.
He walks or rides scooters to work, faster than taking the bus, he said.
Similarly, Honor Morgan, 25, who came to Denver from the rural Midwest, “grateful for any public transit,” said she had to move from her place east of downtown to be closer to her workplace due to RTD transit trouble.
Buses were late, and one blew by her as she waited. She had to adjust her attire when riding her Colfax Avenue route to Union Station to manage harassment. She faced regular dramas of riders with substance-use problems erupting.
Morgan moved to an apartment near Union Station in March, allowing her to walk to work.
She still hoped to rely on RTD for concerts and nightlife, and to reach DIA for work-related flights at least once a month. But RTD social media posts have alerted her to enough delays on the A Line that she no longer trusts it, she said. To reduce her “anxiety” and minimize the risk of missing her flights, she shells out for rides — even though these often get stuck in traffic.
She and her boyfriend recently tried RTD again, riding a train to the 38th and Blake Station near the Mission Ballroom. They attended “an amazing concert” there, she said, and felt happy as they walked to the station to catch the train home.
A man on the platform collapsed backward, hitting his head. He was bleeding. She called 911. Her boyfriend and other riders gathered. She ran across the street to an apartment building and grabbed paper towels. RTD isn’t really to blame, but “I just wish they had a station platform attendant, or someone. I do not know head-injury first aid,” Morgan said.
The train they’d been waiting for came and went. An ambulance arrived. They got home late, the evening ruined, she said.
“His head cracked open. He had skin flaps hanging off his head. This was stuck in my head, at least for the rest of the night.”
The government may be in the middle of a shutdown, but that hasn’t stopped work at the White House—construction work.
Demolition crews moved in on Monday to begin knocking down part of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Tearing down the East Wing marks the start of President Donald Trump‘s $200 million ballroom project, but he originally claimed it wouldn’t “interfere” with the existing structure.
Now, a portion of the East Wing has been demolished by heavy machinery brought in to start on the proposed ballroom. The backhoe ripped through the structure in which, according to the Washington Post, the “sounds of construction were audible on the White House campus.”
Everyone from the Secret Service to people at the Treasury Department stopped to watch the construction, according to the outlet.
When it was announced in July that a new ballroom would be built, the president implied that construction would not affect the existing White House.
Heavy machinery was brought in to begin demolition of the old East Wing ballroom.Photo by PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images
The teardown comes as President Donald Trump had said he wouldn’t touch the existing structure.Photo by PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images
The new ballroom is being funded by Trump and private donors.Photo by PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images
“President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail,” Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, said back in July. “The President and the Trump White House are fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House while building a beautiful ballroom that can be enjoyed by future Administrations and generations of Americans to come.”
A White House announcement said that the ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House. Still, at the same time, its theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical.
The site of the new ballroom will be where the reconstructed East Wing currently sits. The East Wing was built in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times—with a second story added in 1942.
The new ballroom addition is about 90,000 square feet. Trump said the ballroom would be able to hold 999 people. Currently, only 200 people are allowed at the White House event space in the East Wing.
Ballroom plans
A rendering of the White House BallroomMcCrery Architects PLLC/The White House
Map showing where the ballroom expansion will be in the East Wing of the White HouseRealtor.com/Google Earth
The president hosted a White House dinner for donors last week where he gave guests a ballroom plans update. Trump, along with private donors, are funding the ballroom project.
The president said the East Room is the largest area in the White House and described the future space as “phenomenal” and “one of the best anywhere in the world.”
He also described the new ballroom as having four sides of “bulletproof” glass that is “totally appropriate in color and in window shape.”
Historical construction
Construction at the historical home has been ongoing since Trump took office.
Trump decided to give the Rose Garden a redesign much to the dismay of critics who did not want an overhaul of the space that was installed in 1913 by first lady Ellen Louise Wilson, wife of President Woodrow Wilson.
The grassy space was one of the White House’s most iconic areas made famous by the rose bushes that lined the landscaped lawn.
The Rose Garden’s grassy space was paved over to make it safer and more convenient for people attending events—especially women wearing high heels.
Separate from the White House, the president revealed last week that he wants to build a new monument—an Arc de Triomphe-style arch near the Lincoln Memorial.
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Joy Dumandan is an Emmy-winning journalist who is the news editor at Realtor.com. Previously, she was the consumer editor at The U.S. Sun. Joy spent a majority of her career as a broadcast journalist. At Boston 25 News, she covered major news stories, including the college admissions scandal, presidential elections, and deadly severe weather. While at WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Joy was the morning anchor and reported live on location at events like the Super Bowl, the Indianapolis 500, and NCAA March Madness.
The Danish wind turbine maker last year unveiled plans to build a new blade factory in Szczecin, near the Baltic Sea coast, to support Europe’s build-out of offshore wind parks.
GURUGRAM, India—When the Trump Organization in April announced another luxury real-estate project in India, Eric Trump gave a shout out to his local partners for helping accelerate the brand’s expansion.
“We’re incredibly excited to launch our second project in Gurgaon,” Eric Trump, who runs day-to-day operations, using the former name for the city near New Delhi. “And even prouder to be doing it once again with our amazing partners.”
in Singapore and Ramadani Saputra in Jakarta, Indonesia
President Trump’s company has said he won’t be involved in day-to-day management. But the president’s personal business and his government role intersected this week when he was heard on a hot mic arranging a meeting between his son Eric, who runs the family company, and Indonesia’s leader.
In the exchange, captured on audio at a Middle East summit, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto referred to an issue about a region that was “not safe, securitywise” before asking Trump: “Can I meet Eric?”
CONCERNING HER FIRING. THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCED IT’S PLANNING TO BUILD NEW SECTIONS OF THE SOUTHERN BORDER WALL. THE NEW BARRIERS WOULD EXTEND NEARLY TEN MILES ALONG THE SAN DIEGO MEXICO BORDER. KCRA 3’S ANDREA FLORES HAS BEEN COVERING THE SOUTHERN BORDER FOR MORE THAN THREE YEARS. UNDER THE BIDEN AND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. SHE JOINS US WITH WHAT THIS MEANS FOR BORDER SAFETY AND HOW IT’S GETTING FUNDED. SO THE NEW WALL SYSTEM IS BEING FUNDED BY THE SO-CALLED BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL ACT, AND IT GIVES CBP MORE THAN $46 BILLION THROUGH 2029 FOR CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE COSTS. SO THIS IS VIDEO FROM KCRA 3’S TIME AT THE BORDER. THIS WAS BACK IN APRIL OF THIS YEAR WHEN THOUSANDS OF MILITARY TROOPS WERE SENT TO THE AREA TO ASSIST CBP WITH SURVEILLANCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE. NOW, THE PROPOSED BARRIERS WOULD BE BUILT NEAR THE TECATE AND OTAY MESA PORTS OF ENTRY. CBP SAYS IT PLANS TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN NEARLY TEN MILES OF BORDER WALL. IT ALSO PLANS TO ADD NEARLY 52 MILES OF IMPROVED INFRASTRUCTURE ALONG EXISTING BARRIERS, INCLUDING SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS, ACCESS PATROL ROADS AND ARTIFICIAL LIGHTS. BUT IMMIGRATION ADVOCATES LIKE AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE, WHO WE SPOKE WITH BACK IN APRIL, OPPOSES THE PLAN, SAYING THIS WOULD DIVERT MIGRATION FLOWS INTO MORE DANGEROUS AREAS WITH POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES. U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION SAYS APPREHENSIONS ARE DOWN IN THE SAN DIEGO SECTOR. LAST MONTH, THEY RECORDED 715 ENCOUNTERS. THAT’S A 95% DECREASE FROM AUGUST OF 2024. WE DID REACH OUT TO CBP FOR AN INTERVIEW ON WHEN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS NEW AREA OF THE BORDER WALL WOULD BEGIN
Nearly $1.1B to be spent on ‘Smart Wall’ at California border under ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’
The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection have awarded $4.5 billion in new contracts under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” for Smart Wall construction along the southwest border.At least 10 new construction contracts will add 230 miles of barriers and nearly 400 miles of technology, delivering on the Trump Administration’s promise to secure the border.(Video Above: Trump administration announces plans to build new sections of southern border wall)“For years, Washington talked about border security but failed to deliver. This president changed that,” said CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott. “The Smart Wall means more miles of barriers, more technology, and more capability for our agents on the ground. This is how you take control of the border.”The Smart Wall is a border security system that combines steel barriers, waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, and advanced detection technology to give Border Patrol agents the best tools in the world to stop illegal traffic. The technology additions will further secure the existing wall in areas where the Biden administration’s policies canceled contracts to do so, according to a joint statement by DHS and CBP.The 10 contracts, awarded between Sept. 15 and 30, are the very first to be funded by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. They also include minimal prior year funding from fiscal year 2021 wall appropriations. That funding was on hold during the Biden administration, according to the release.To expedite the construction of the Smart Wall, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also issued two new waivers for approximately nine miles of Smart Wall in CBP’s San Diego sector and approximately 30 miles of new Smart Wall in New Mexico within the El Paso sector.Contracts in California include:San Diego 1 Project – Awarded to BCCG Joint Venture for $483,486,600 for the construction of approximately nine miles of new Smart Wall and approximately 52 miles of system attributes in USBP’s San Diego Sector in California.El Centro 1 Project – Awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. for $574,000,000 for the construction of approximately eight miles of new primary Smart Wall and the installation of approximately 63 miles of system attributes in USBP’s El Centro and San Diego Sectors in California.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection have awarded $4.5 billion in new contracts under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” for Smart Wall construction along the southwest border.
At least 10 new construction contracts will add 230 miles of barriers and nearly 400 miles of technology, delivering on the Trump Administration’s promise to secure the border.
“For years, Washington talked about border security but failed to deliver. This president changed that,” said CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott. “The Smart Wall means more miles of barriers, more technology, and more capability for our agents on the ground. This is how you take control of the border.”
The Smart Wall is a border security system that combines steel barriers, waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, and advanced detection technology to give Border Patrol agents the best tools in the world to stop illegal traffic. The technology additions will further secure the existing wall in areas where the Biden administration’s policies canceled contracts to do so, according to a joint statement by DHS and CBP.
The 10 contracts, awarded between Sept. 15 and 30, are the very first to be funded by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. They also include minimal prior year funding from fiscal year 2021 wall appropriations. That funding was on hold during the Biden administration, according to the release.
To expedite the construction of the Smart Wall, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also issued two new waivers for approximately nine miles of Smart Wall in CBP’s San Diego sector and approximately 30 miles of new Smart Wall in New Mexico within the El Paso sector.
Contracts in California include:
San Diego 1 Project – Awarded to BCCG Joint Venture for $483,486,600 for the construction of approximately nine miles of new Smart Wall and approximately 52 miles of system attributes in USBP’s San Diego Sector in California.
El Centro 1 Project – Awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. for $574,000,000 for the construction of approximately eight miles of new primary Smart Wall and the installation of approximately 63 miles of system attributes in USBP’s El Centro and San Diego Sectors in California.
Iterate.ai has relied heavily on highly trained tech workers from around the globe to meet demand for its customized artificial intelligence agent systems, bringing some of them to the U.S. under the H-1B program when the company can obtain a visa.
Last month, the tech firm’s growth plans were upended when the Trump administration, via a presidential proclamation, added a $100,000 fee per visa to new petitioners of the H-1B program. It also warned that a higher-wage floor was likely, tilting the odds in favor of older and more highly-skilled workers.
“We have a number of guys on H-1B visas and a number we are trying to bring in. If we have to pay $100,000 (per worker), that makes it impossible to hire people on those types of visas,” said Jon Nordmark, CEO and co-founder of Iterate.ai, which maintains an office in Highlands Ranch.
Iterate.ai general counsel Niharika Shukla, left, talks to CEO Jon Nordmark at the artificial intelligence company’s office in Centennial, Colorado, on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The company, among the U.S. firms riding the AI wave, may end up locating more workers in Toronto and fewer in Denver and San Jose, California, where it is based, as it tries to meet the rising demand for its products and services, Nordmark said.
Moving beyond an initial focus on deporting immigrants with criminal records, the Trump administration is now revising rules for several visa programs used to actively recruit foreign workers to the U.S. Some of the earliest and most dramatic changes have come in the H-1B program, which currently accommodates an estimated 600,000 college-educated workers with specialized skills nationwide.
The addition of a $100,000 application fee for new H-1B petitions, alongside reforms to favor higher-wage and higher-skilled roles, could have significant implications for tech employers in states like Colorado, where younger and smaller firms dominate.
The changes could slow innovation and force smaller technology firms to locate more of their workforce outside the country, said Nathan Mondragon, chief innovation officer at Hirevue, a Utah firm that specializes in AI hiring solutions.
“The immediate effect is that the cost of hiring skilled foreign talent will rise dramatically, particularly for startups and mid-sized companies that depend on specialized skills but may not have deep resources,” said Mondragon, who is a Colorado State University graduate.
The country’s largest and most established tech firms are expected to have the easiest time covering the fee as the country moves away from a straight lottery system. Jensen Huang, CEO of the world’s most highly valued public company, pledged to pay the $100,000 fee for his company’s H-1B recruits.
“As one of many immigrants at Nvidia, I know that the opportunities we’ve found in America have profoundly shaped our lives,” Huang wrote to his employees. “And the miracle of Nvidia — built by all of you, and by brilliant colleagues around the world — would not be possible without immigration.”
Colorado’s tech sector is pushing the envelope in emerging areas like quantum computing and AI, as well as in niche sectors like cybersecurity and financial technology, or fintech. Emerging firms, lacking profits, run leaner and are typically more dependent on the flow of talent emerging from nearby universities, including international students.
If emerging tech firms can’t obtain the talent they need, they will fall behind. If the state’s tech sector starts to fall behind, Colorado’s economy could find itself coping with slower growth and smaller wage gains, those closest to the tech sector warn.
“Pay-to-play H1-Bs will box out all smaller companies, including startups, from bringing talented foreigners on board. This will give big companies another advantage in talent acquisition, as if they needed any more advantages,” said Basalt resident Jonathan Greechan, CEO of the Founder Institute, which has tech accelerator chapters in 100 countries.
Why the H-1B matters
The H-1B program, which started in 1990, is capped at 65,000 new visas for those with a bachelor’s degree and another 20,000 reserved for applicants with a master’s degree or higher. Colorado employers applied for about 3,800 H-1B visas during the last fiscal year.
About three-quarters of the workers coming to the country under the H-1B program, which typically has a three-year term, are from India, with Chinese workers accounting for one-tenth, according to a report from the Pew Research Center. The program is not for permanent residency, although employers can and do seek visa renewals, often to allow employees more time to obtain a green card or citizenship.
Educational institutions, which until recently were exempt from the cap but now will fall under it, also rely on the program. The University of Colorado’s Denver campus requested 130 visas and the Boulder campus sought 108 last fiscal year, while Denver Public Schools had 101 petitions, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Nordmark said the program has historically served as a career bridge for foreign students coming to the U.S. to obtain degrees. Upon graduation, they shift from a student visa to an H-1B visa. In some cases, international students obtain multiple and highly specialized degrees until they find employment in the U.S.
Several of the country’s top tech leaders, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, worked under H-1B visas before rising through the ranks.
The Trump administration has argued that the H-1B program has been misused, suppressing wages and denying native workers higher-paying job opportunities. Third-party firms have used the program to place workers, taking a cut in the process, and vague job titles allow employers to bypass program rules.
Supporters point to studies that show companies, especially small ones, that employ H-1B workers have stronger earnings growth and are more likely to survive than rivals that don’t. They argue the changes being made will disadvantage the one sector that has contributed more to making the American economy great and will open the door to other countries snagging talent.
China launched a new K-visa program on Oct. 1 to recruit young science, tech and engineering workers from abroad, the kind that will find it harder to participate in the U.S. H-1B program. Canada, Germany, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom are also easing rules for foreign workers with specialized skills.
But China’s new visa program also appears to have created a backlash among unemployed Chinese workers, echoing some of the pushback seen in the U.S., and critics come from both ends of the political spectrum.
“It’s a complex issue and I can see two sides to the argument that a reasonable person could make,” said David Cohen, CEO of Techstars in Boulder. “If the talent is truly that ‘extraordinary,’ companies are likely to find a way to pay this fee in most cases.”
He worries that the U.S. could be putting at risk a core competitive advantage — “having great talent wanting to be in this country.”
The program’s new emphasis on higher wage earners, who will receive more slots in the visa lottery compared to recent college graduates, will favor older, more experienced applicants, said Ben Johnston, COO of Kapitus, a small business lender.
“Many international students come to U.S. schools with the expectation that they will be able to work here under the H-1B program upon graduation. If fewer visas are available for lower wage earners, this may curtail the demand for a U.S. education for some international students,” Johnston said.
Many of the greatest tech innovations the country has seen have come from young and hungry entrepreneurs working outside corporate confines, with young immigrants playing a critical role. Greechan said he believes the fee and wage restrictions will make the U.S. less attractive for the best and brightest talent from abroad.
“I don’t think the current administration cares how much the U.S. has benefited from this consistent influx of talent, simply because it’s not in line with their anti-immigration sentiment,” Greechan said.
And there is a psychological toll on workers. Niharika Shukla, an attorney working at Iterate.ai, said the changes have left H-1B workers in limbo as they try to navigate the country’s complicated and drawn-out process for obtaining permanent status and citizenship.
Iterate.ai general counsel Niharika Shukla poses for a portrait at the artificial intelligence company’s office in Centennial, Colorado, on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Initially, it wasn’t clear if the fee would apply to existing visa holders or new petitioners, creating a sense that all jobs could be at risk. Some workers who were on vacation or visiting family thought they needed to return to the U.S. immediately. The administration clarified that it was only for new petitioners.
Overall, it has created uncertainty about what comes next and a deepening sense of unease, even fear.
“I have friends — people with advanced degrees, stable jobs, American-raised kids — who still live in visa limbo. They pay taxes, work hard and give back in every way, but every year, they hold their breath during H-1B season. They don’t know if this will be the year it all unravels,” Shukla said.
Shukla’s husband came to the country on an H-1B visa, which allowed her to obtain an H-4 visa as a spouse and an employment authorization document, or EAD, that allowed her to continue her legal career in the U.S.
“If anything had happened to his visa, my legal ability to work would’ve disappeared, too,” she said.
Shukla said a friend’s daughter, who recently started middle school, asked her mom if the family would have to leave this year.
“That little girl was born here. Her whole world is here. But because her parents are still stuck in the visa queue, even she lives with uncertainty,” Shukla said. “This is the human side of immigration policy that’s so often overlooked. It’s not just about foreign workers or companies. It’s about families, children, stability. It’s about people who want to belong, but are made to feel temporary, year after year.”
Other industries watching
Employers in landscaping, tourism and agriculture are keeping an eye on what might come next for the foreign worker visa programs they rely on.
And the construction industry, which has a heavy concentration of foreign-born workers, is lobbying hard for a visa program as it struggles with stricter immigration enforcement and a looming wave of retirements.
Ski resorts and resort hotels also use that program, along with the J-1 visa, a cultural exchange program that brings in multilingual workers able to converse with international guests.
Finding enough workers to fill open landscaping positions has long been a struggle, even when firms can bring in foreign laborers. The H-2B program is capped at 66,000 new applicants a year nationally, split between 33,000 workers from Oct. 1 to March 31 and 33,000 workers from April 1 to Sept. 30.
Petitioners are cautious about asking for too many visas, which could draw scrutiny from immigration officials, McMahon said.
The program allowed for another 64,716 workers, mostly returning workers, last year. But even at 131,000, the allocation is far below the 500,000 that some estimates say are needed to meet actual demand for seasonal workers, he said.
Most H-2B visa holders work for up to nine months and then return home, although some try to bridge the two seasons. Raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have increasingly made authorized visa holders, including those working in Colorado for years, uneasy and asking themselves if they want to keep coming back, McMahon said.
On Sept. 2, the administration started requiring that all seasonal workers under the H-2A and H-2B programs, for agricultural and non-ag workers, have in-person interviews at a U.S. consulate location. Returning workers and those with clean records were not exempt. The rule change is expected to result in 350,000 additional interviews in Mexico alone.
In contrast to the H-2B and H-1B programs, the H-2A program for farm workers doesn’t have a cap. Around 5,000 to 6,000 workers are brought into Colorado each season under that visa. It does have additional requirements that employers provide free housing and meals or access to cooking facilities.
Unlike California, farms and orchards in Colorado have seen minimal raids from immigration enforcement, said Marilyn Bay Drake, executive director of the Colorado Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
Instead, a state rule that requires overtime pay after 48 hours or 56 hours, depending on the intensity of the harvest season, is complicating their operations and resulting in some H-2A visa holders going elsewhere to work.
Harvesting requires intense stretches of long hours during short windows of time to bring in and process crops, one reason that ag workers have been excluded from federal overtime requirements.
Rather than paying overtime, farmers, who often operate on razor-thin margins, are capping hours in Colorado. That has upset some workers, who want to earn as much as they can in the limited time they are in the country.
Farmworkers sort out freshly picked onions on a conveyor belt at a storage facility at Fagerberg Produce in Eaton, Colorado, on Thursday, Oct. 09, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
“We haven’t seen impacts from immigration policy, but we have seen negative impacts from the overtime regulations in our state,” said Emily King, compliance and marketing manager at Fagerberg Produce in Eaton.
The onion farm has three H-2A workers from South Africa who operate harvesting equipment. In June of last year, one of those workers came in on a Friday to say he was resigning and would be leaving Sunday to work at a producer in Idaho who offered him 100 hours a week with no overtime restrictions, King said.
Duncan Stevens, left, a farmworker from South Africa who has an H-2A visa, drives a truck that’s getting loaded with fresh onions in 50-pound burlap sacks on a stack-loader machine, which are then emptied by a crew onto a conveyor belt into the truck on a farm at Fagerberg Produce in Eaton, Colorado, on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Not only did Fagerberg Produce lose a key worker, but it had also paid for his trip to come to the U.S.
“For H-2A workers, it’s a proposition of, ‘Is it worth it to come?’ And our state overtime rules weigh heavily on that calculus. It’s magnifying and exacerbating ag’s No. 1 problem, which is access to labor,” said Ashley House, vice president of advocacy and strategy at the Colorado Farm Bureau.
Construction struggling
Tougher immigration policies are taking a toll on the construction sector, where about a third of workers are foreign-born, and which lacks a dedicated visa program.
About nine in 10 construction firms nationally report having a difficult time finding enough qualified workers to hire. They cite those labor shortages as a primary cause behind delayed construction projects, according to a survey released last month by the Associated General Contractors of America.
About one-third of respondents nationally and in Colorado said tougher immigration enforcement this year had complicated their operations.
Of the 44 Colorado contractors who took part in the survey, 5% said their work sites had been visited by immigration agents. Another 7% reported workers not showing up because of concerns over actual or rumored enforcement actions. Close to a quarter of the firms surveyed said their subcontractors had lost workers, according to the AGC.
A construction crew works on a roof in Loveland, Colorado, on Monday, July 14, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Anirban Basu, chief economist with the Associated Builders and Contractors, another construction trade group, said that construction spending and new starts are down. Between July and August, the number of job openings in construction took a dramatic fall, from 303,000 to 180,000, and the number of construction workers quitting shot up from 90,000 to 146,000.
“Shifting immigration policy also plays a part in shaping the data. More workers have been quitting, and that may reflect undocumented workers leaving their positions,” Basu said. “An increase in hiring is a natural response to an increase in quits, but many contractors appear to be embracing the attrition and not immediately replacing departing workers.”
To help alleviate the labor shortfalls, the AGC has thrown its full support behind the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement, a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pennsylvania. The bill seeks to create a new H-2C visa program to address labor shortages in nonagricultural, less-skilled, year-round jobs.
General contractors, hotels, retailers and long-term care facilities are expected to be the employers using the program, which would offer 65,000 visas a year for three-year terms.
“Establishing a visa program for construction occupations provides the kind of lawful, temporary, traceable and taxable pathway needed to serve as a short-term solution while we rebuild the domestic pipeline for preparing new construction workers,” the AGC said in a news release.
The group, which represents 28,000 member firms, said it would throw its full weight behind having the act get passed and having President Donald Trump sign it swiftly once it does.
Broadway Bridge Open Span, Courtesy Multnomah County
PORTLAND, Ore. — One of Portland’s key river crossings is shutting down for months. Beginning Monday, Oct. 13, the Broadway Bridge will close to all vehicle traffic as Multnomah County begins a six-month deck replacement project.
Crews will remove the deteriorating bridge deck, built in 1913, and replace it with new steel panels and streetcar tracks designed to extend the bridge’s lifespan and improve reliability.
The closure, scheduled through April 11, 2026, will affect drivers, TriMet riders, and streetcar service. TriMet’s Line 17 will reroute over the Steel Bridge, while Portland Streetcar passengers should expect up to 40-minute delays as routes shift to Tilikum Crossing.
The south sidewalk will remain open to pedestrians, cyclists, and mobility device users for most of the project. County officials say the work is necessary to keep the lift span balanced and operational for river traffic.
Metro has shared information on upcoming rail station closures for planned work from now through September 2026, with work impacting all lines of the rail network.
Metro has shared information on upcoming rail station closures for planned work through September 2026, with work impacting all lines of the transit system.
The closures are part of improvement and maintenance efforts to improve the reliability and safety of the nearly 50 year old system, Metro said in a post on X.
Upcoming closures on the Red Line include Union Station to Rhode Island Avenue on Oct. 18 and 19 and Friendship Heights to North Bethesda from July 2026 to September 2026.
Work at the Bethesda station will include connection to the upcoming Purple Line.
Upcoming closures on the Green and Yellow lines include Hyattsville Crossing to Greenbelt on Dec. 6 and 7; U Street to Georgia Avenue will single track this winter; and Fort Totten to Greenbelt will be closed from Jan. 10 and 11, 2026.
At the Crystal City Metro station, construction work to build a new entrance will take place over 10 weekends.
Further closures are below:
Click to enlarge. Metrorail closures from October 2025 to September 2026. (Courtesy WMATA)
For more information on Metro service and shuttles, visit Metro’s website.
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Traffic builds up during rush hour stretching out from the roundabout on Bonds Ranch Road going towards Blue Mound Road in north Fort Worth on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.
Chris Torres
ctorres@star-telegram.com
With this “behemoth of a construction project” and patience from the public, government officials are hoping to turn Bonds Ranch Road from a nightmare of traffic into a safe and efficient roadway for commuters.
At a meeting on Monday night, representatives from Tarrant County, the City of Fort Worth and Texas Department of Transportation presented the public with a six-part plan that will span across the next several years to fix the far north Fort Worth congestion problem.
The roughly $200 million project will target Bonds Ranch Road west of U.S. 287 to Boat Club Road and will transform it from two lanes into a mostly-four-lane road.
The corridor is expected to see thousands of homes popping up in the next five years. A collaborative effort among government from top to bottom, private stakeholders and rail partners is aiming to create solutions that benefit the quickly-developing area.
Breaking it down
Segment 1, which encapsulates the roadway west of Business 287 to Boat Club Road, will add five traffic lights, a four-lane divided roadway and improve the storm drain throughout the corridor. Dillon Maroney, Tarrant County Precinct 4 executive administrator of operations, estimated that Segment 1 will be ready to break ground in March 2026.
Segment 3, spanning from east of Business 287 to Wagley Robertson Road will get sidewalks on either side of a four-lane road with dedicated turn lanes. The Thatcher Road and Willow Springs intersections will be getting traffic lights. The beginning of construction will depend on the 2026 City of Fort Worth bond, Maroney said.
Segment 4, encompassing the roadway from Wagley Robertson Road to west of U.S. 287, will also be made into a four-lane road with sidewalks on either side. This section will see a new traffic light at the Fossil Springs/Kittering Terrace intersection and improvements to the Wagley Robertson Road intersection. It will break ground in spring 2026, according to City of Fort Worth Project Manager Alex Ayala. She expects Segment 4 to be finished in fall 2027.
Each of these sections will have traffic flowing continually throughout the construction process. Once the north two lanes are finished being built, traffic will move to those two lanes while the south two lanes are reconstructed.
Segments 2, 5 and 6 are more complicated.
Segment 2 deals with the intersection of Bonds Ranch and the railroad crossings. Michael Morris, North Central Texas Council of Governments director of transportation, said he’s unsure if the construction will put Bonds Ranch going over those railroads or under them. As this section is still early on in the design phase, the leaders are unsure about how long the road will be shut down, if at all.
Segment 5 focuses on creating a bridge for Bonds Ranch Road to pass over Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway near U.S. 287.
Segment 6 works on connecting Wagley Robertson Road to U.S. 287, creating U-turns at the Bonds Ranch-U.S. 287 intersection and connecting frontage roads. This section will be completed before Segment 5 to give vehicles a way between Bonds Ranch and U.S. 287 while Segment 5 has part of the road shut down.
Construction for Segment 6 will start in summer 2027 and Segment 5 is expected to start in fall 2028.
Rachel Royster is a news and government reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, specifically focused on Tarrant County. She joined the newsroom after interning at the Austin American-Statesman, the Waco Tribune-Herald and Capital Community News in DC. A Houston native and Baylor grad, Rachel enjoys traveling, reading and being outside. She welcomes any and all news tips to her email.
