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End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled
Executives raised myriad questions with management. From the outset, “we did a fair amount of warnings to make sure that the leadership, especially at the board level, were aware of these risks”, said the senior executive.
Where would the 9mn people due to populate The Line come from? How quickly could they be reasonably expected to arrive? Could construction and manufacturing start quickly enough? Would the levels of imports required overheat the economy? What if oil prices sank, drying up Saudi Arabia’s key source of revenue? What if the necessary materials could not be found? And did the Gulf nation really have the scientific and technical expertise to execute such a vast scheme?
Yet the pressure to deliver was relentless. The board expected the chief executive to “move things very quickly”, said the senior executive. “Dates had been given to the crown prince about what was achievable, but without the detail of knowing how it could be done,” said the senior design manager. When those dates were made public, there would be a loss of face if they weren’t met. “That’s where tensions grew.”
Staff were “being put into a position of effectively having to lie about the timescales and the cost of delivering the vision”, they added.
What remains
The Line — or at least its beginnings — can already be seen from space. Satellite imagery shows excavation and tunnelling work for the railway system, the “spine” connecting The Line to Neom International Airport, stretching for 150km — from the coast into the Hejaz mountains.
In a valley between two mountain ranges, levelling work is evident for the airport and its runways. “In true Neom fashion, there’s a mountain at the end of the runway that had to be blown up,” said the senior architect. Construction work has now stopped on both the spine and the airport. No new target for the airport has been set.
The foundations for The Line’s first modules — perhaps the largest piles ever laid by man — are also visible, waiting to support the world’s largest occupied building, if it ever arrives. The village of Qayal, which was a few kilometres from the “hidden marina”, has been razed. Fifteen members of the Huwaitat tribe who protested against their eviction were sent to prison, some for up to 50 years, and three others were sentenced to death, according to human rights observers.
At the marina, excavations by late last year had dug out 100mn cubic metres of soil, the equivalent of 40 Great Pyramids of Giza. Ships will access it via a canal leading more than a kilometre inland from the coast.
The chandelier, the upside-down office building hanging from the giant arch above the marina, remains in the plans. But Neom no longer intends to base its headquarters there. Neom’s deputy chief executive Rayan Fayez acknowledged last month that the project’s budget “evolves every day”, adding that it was a good point to “reassess what worked and what hasn’t worked”.
With the goal now to build just three of the 20 modules originally planned, the ambition for The Line’s first phase is a faint echo of what it once was. One person familiar with the project said work had effectively stopped, with efforts now focused on completing a few small buildings around the marina. Some of the earlier piling work has been covered with sand.
“I think as a thought experiment, great,” said one urban planning expert who works in Saudi Arabia. “But don’t build thought experiments.”
News
Map: 7.0-Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Alaska
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 4 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “light,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times
A major, 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck near the Alaska-Canada border on Saturday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The temblor happened at 11:41 a.m. Alaska time about 56 miles north of Yakutat, Alaska, data from the agency shows.
U.S.G.S. data earlier reported that the magnitude was 6.7.
As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.
Aftershocks in the region
An aftershock is usually a smaller earthquake that follows a larger one in the same general area. Aftershocks are typically minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.
Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles
Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.
When quakes and aftershocks occurred
Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Alaska time. Shake data is as of Saturday, Dec. 6 at 3:57 p.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Saturday, Dec. 6 at 7:26 p.m. Eastern.
Maps: Daylight (urban areas); MapLibre (map rendering); Natural Earth (roads, labels, terrain); Protomaps (map tiles)
News
National Park Service drops free admission on MLK Day, Juneteenth while adding Trump’s birthday
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Park Service will offer free admission to U.S. residents on President Donald Trump’s birthday next year — which also happens to be Flag Day — but is eliminating the benefit for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth.
The new list of free admission days for Americans is the latest example of the Trump administration downplaying America’s civil rights history while also promoting the president’s image, name and legacy.
Last year, the list of free days included Martin Luther King Jr Day and Juneteenth — which is June 19 — but not June 14, Trump’s birthday.
The new free-admission policy takes effect Jan. 1 and was one of several changes announced by the Park Service late last month, including higher admission fees for international visitors.
The other days of free park admission in 2026 are Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Constitution Day, Veterans Day, President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday (Oct. 27) and the anniversary of the creation of the Park Service (Aug. 25).
Eliminating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved Americans were emancipated, removes two of the nation’s most prominent civil rights holidays.
Some civil rights leaders voiced opposition to the change after news about it began spreading over the weekend.
“The raw & rank racism here stinks to high heaven,” Harvard Kennedy School professor Cornell William Brooks, a former president of the NAACP, wrote on social media about the new policy.
Kristen Brengel, a spokesperson for the National Parks Conservation Association, said that while presidential administrations have tweaked the free days in the past, the elimination of Martin Luther King Jr. Day is particularly concerning. For one, the day has become a popular day of service for community groups that use the free day to perform volunteer projects at parks.
That will now be much more expensive, said Brengel, whose organization is a nonprofit that advocates for the park system.
“Not only does it recognize an American hero, it’s also a day when people go into parks to clean them up,” Brengel said. “Martin Luther King Jr. deserves a day of recognition … For some reason, Black history has repeatedly been targeted by this administration, and it shouldn’t be.”
Some Democratic lawmakers also weighed in to object to the new policy.
“The President didn’t just add his own birthday to the list, he removed both of these holidays that mark Black Americans’ struggle for civil rights and freedom,” said Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. “Our country deserves better.”
A spokesperson for the National Park Service did not immediately respond to questions on Saturday seeking information about the reasons behind the changes.
Since taking office, Trump has sought to eliminate programs seen as promoting diversity across the federal government, actions that have erased or downplayed America’s history of racism as well as the civil rights victories of Black Americans.
Self-promotion is an old habit of the president’s and one he has continued in his second term. He unsuccessfully put himself forward for the Nobel Peace Prize, renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace after himself, sought to put his name on the planned NFL stadium in the nation’s capital and had a new children’s savings program named after him.
Some Republican lawmakers have suggested putting his visage on Mount Rushmore and the $100 bill.
News
A 3-D Look at Trump’s Proposed White House Ballroom
The ballroom design featured 50-foot ceilings, arched windows on three sides and skylights. It included elevated terraced walkways wrapping on two sides of the building, and a main visitors’ entrance on the east.
An enclosed passageway above the east colonnade connected the White House residence to the ballroom on the second floor.
Though the design proposed by McCrery Architects would have dwarfed the rest of the White House complex, Mr. Trump wanted to go even bigger.
Mr. Trump’s vision is to build a ballroom more than twice as large as the one shown here in the proposal by McCrery Architects.
Mr. Trump has said that the ballroom — which is expected to cost $300 million — would not be paid for by taxpayers. He said that he has already raised $350 million from donors, including from major tech and crypto companies.
Davis R. Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that Shalom Baranes Associates, which is based in Washington, D.C., would join “a team of experts to carry out President Trump’s vision on building what will be the greatest addition to the White House since the Oval Office.”
A White House official said that McCrery Architects would continue to serve as a “valuable consultant” on the project.
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