Taking shape: Construction of the Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital is underway with the first concrete slab for the new facility being poured on Monday. OLOL says teams began pouring the concrete at 2 a.m. and by 10 a.m. had placed 22,000 square feet of slab, amounting to more than 500 cubic yards of concrete. Slab-on-grade pours are expected to continue through the summer, and steel will go up next month, the hospital says. The freestanding Children’s Hospital is expected to be complete in 2019. OLOL broke ground on the 130-bed hospital, located on land between Essen Lane and Bluebonnet Boulevard, in February 2016.
Upheld: A federal appeals court today upheld as lawful the government’s bailout of American International Group in the heat of the financial crisis, The Associated Press reports. The court also overturned a lower-court decision favoring the insurance giant’s former CEO. Today’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit says a company controlled by ex-AIG chief Maurice Greenberg didn’t have a legal right to pursue its claim against the government. Greenberg had alleged that the $85 billion bailout of the teetering AIG in September 2008 violated the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment by taking control of the company without “just compensation.” Read more.
Record-setting: Domestic oil output will climb to a record 9.96 million barrels a day in 2018, up from 9.9 million barrels projected last month, according the Energy Information Administration’s monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook. Bloomberg reports the outlook, released today, projects that production will average 9.31 million barrels a day in 2017, up from 9.22 million projected in April. U.S. explorers have added rigs this year, partially undermining oil-production cuts that started in January by OPEC and 11 other exporters. The U.S. tally of active oil rigs has more than doubled in the past year to 703 last week, according to Baker Hughes Inc. The lag between drilling and reaching maximum production signals that output will climb further in coming months, according to the report. Read more.
