A Cape Cod property owner who can't build a house on a lot she owns because of local wetlands regulations has not suffered a regulatory taking of her property and the town government doesn't have to pay her, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled.
The court overturned a jury verdict awarding property owner Janice Smyth $640,000 – the difference between what an appraiser says the property is worth if it's unbuildable ($60,000) and how much it would be worth if she could build a house on it ($700,000).
Autocrats are replacing democrats worldwide because people are concluding that the centrist parties they turned to for years aren't delivering on basic services like protecting national borders, columnist Patrick Buchanan writes.
President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency on Friday, February 15 to take money appropriated for the U.S. military to extend the wall along America's southern border with Mexico may be pushing the bounds of the U.S. Constitution, Buchanan writes, but presidents have been doing that since at least Thomas Jefferson and later been praised for it.
