Page 24 - Infrastructure Needs News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> what's the status of dams in your region right now? what's the area of your greatest concern there? >> sure. i think so far we've had close to a dozen dams give way. they're all across the entire region. our greatest concern is, obviously, let's make sure we're doing everything we possibly can to keep people safe. public safety, making sure -- we've had a cuff few the last couple nights. we'll reassess it and whether or not we'll have a curfew. protecting people, sometimes protecting people from themselves is number one. infrastructure needs, obviously, making sure our roads are safe is a b...

Focused on the priorities. number one priority is preservation of life. after that we want to make sure our people have shelter, have food, have water. and we're assessing all of our infrastructure needs. we have a long way to go. we prosecute making great progress. when we started this disaster, we had 130,000 people without water. that number is down to about 42,000. we're still engaged in significant search and rescue, almost 2,000 homes. 350 people rescued from their homes. we're still counting. fatalities. missing folks. it's tough out here. it's tough out here. i'm very encouraged by the...

That thing kind of swept through. senator cruz and senator mcconnell got into it a little bit. where are you on the highway bill and the xm bank? >> the highway bill i have a lot more affinity for because every billion dollars you spend building highways you create 13,000 jobs. if you build it with a strategic goal in mind there's an advantage. infrastructure in this country is in desperately bad shape, so we need to look at the revamping of highways bridges, overpasses. $3 trillion worth of infrastructure needs. i don't think the xm bank is something worth defending. i believe the marketplace...

Before. let's start with brazil, example of the toll the world cup and take on a country, violent protests, worker strikes on the streets. a story line as you know leading up to the games. where are we now with that? >> i would say that, while the brazilian people are by no means happy about this tournament being hosted in their home country, the fears about protests and strikes have sort of fizzled out since the cup has started. and i say that, that doesn't indicate that the people are happy about the tournament because we have pew polling right before the tournament started that said 60% of ...

Differently had the congress been willing to work with the administration? what could we have done to make this unemployment number even better? >> that's the sad part, joy. there is easy stuff we could have done, no-brainer stuff. investing in all manner of infrastructure needs, expanding broadband, investing in transit cars, improving our roads and bridges, making our buildings more energy efficient. if we had done any of those things, which many folks had been calling for for quite a long time, we would see not only improvement in the employment prospects for people that build things but la...