International Business Times – by Tom O’Conner

Tokyo’s utility company discovered Monday what it suspects could be nuclear fuel debris inside of a reactor at its destroyed Fukushima plant in Japan.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has led efforts to clean up the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after three of its reactors melted down in 2011 following a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 15,000 people and caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Ukraine’s Chernobyl explosion in 1986. The company discovered black lumps resembling a substance that had melted and stuck to the steel of the No. 2 reactor.   Continue reading “Fukushima Cleanup Uncovers Possible Melted Radioactive Fuel At Nuclear Plant Reactor”

Heat Street – by Ian Miles Cheong

A teacher who displayed the Confederate flag to middle schoolers in his history class was forced to retire amid concerns that he was displaying a symbol of hate.

70-year-old Sutter Middle School (Folsom, CA) teacher Woody Hart hanged both a Confederate flag and a Union flag during his lesson on the Civil War.   Continue reading “Teacher, 70, Forced to Retire After Displaying Confederate Flag During Civil War Lesson”

Yahoo News – by James Nord

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota legislators are set to dismantle new ethics regulations that voters imposed on them less than three months ago, a brazen test of whether elected officials or their constituents should have the final say.

The ethics crackdown is one of several November ballot measures that are now facing scrutiny in statehouses across the nation. But the South Dakota law appears to be under the most imminent danger of repeal and directly affects the very lawmakers who are weighing its fate.   Continue reading “South Dakota lawmakers could scrap voter-backed ethics rules”

Yahoo News – by Julia La Roche

Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz sent out a company-wide letter following President Donald Trump’s decision to sign an executive order that bans citizens of seven majority Muslim countries from entering the United States.

The executive order, signed on Friday, temporarily halts citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the US.   Continue reading “STARBUCKS CEO: We’re going to hire 10,000 refugees”

Reuters – by Ethan Lou

U.S. President Donald Trump’s move this week to revive the Keystone XL oil pipeline marked a major step under his “America First” energy plan to boost U.S. drillers and create new U.S. jobs. But the project’s biggest winners may be Canadian.

If built, TransCanada’s Keystone XL from Alberta to Nebraska would yield about $2.4 billion (C$3.2 billion) a year for Canada, split between government revenues, shareholder profits and re-investment into the still-recovering Canadian oil patch, according to a Conference Board of Canada research note prepared for Reuters on Thursday.   Continue reading “Keystone XL pipeline: A ‘Canada First’ energy plan?”

AP – by Rob Gillies

TORONTO (AP) — The company behind the Keystone XL pipeline submitted on Thursday a new presidential permit application to the U.S. Department of State for approval.

The project would move 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast.   Continue reading “TransCanada makes new application for Keystone XL”

Yahoo News

MIAMI (AP) — Miami-Dade County’s mayor instructed jail officials in that South Florida community on Thursday to honor all immigration detainer requests, a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would strip federal funding from sanctuary cities.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez sent a memo to the county’s corrections director saying jails should hold undocumented immigrants detained by police and turn them over to the Department of Homeland Security when requested.   Continue reading “Mayor: Miami-Dade jail to heed immigration detainer requests”

The Hill – by Joe Concha

The White House press office is denying it offered credentials to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s website Infowars, after Jones claimed in a video that he had been offered access.

“He is not credentialed for the White House. The White House Press Office has not offered him credentials,” White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders told BuzzFeed on Thursday morning.   Continue reading “White House denies offering Infowars credentials”

Yahoo News – by Alex Lockie, Business Insider

The State Department is reviewing a last-minute decision by former Secretary of State John Kerry to send $221 million dollars to the Palestinians late last week over the objections of congressional Republicans.

The department said Tuesday it would look at the payment, one of the Obama administration’s final acts in office, and might make adjustments to ensure it comports with the Trump administration’s priorities.   Continue reading “The Trump administration has frozen Obama’s quiet attempt to send $221 million to Palestine”

Yahoo News – by Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump signed directives on Wednesday to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and strip funding from cities that shield illegal immigrants as he charged ahead with sweeping and divisive plans to transform how the United States deals with immigration and national security.

The Republican president is expected to take additional steps in the coming days to limit legal immigration, including executive orders restricting refugees and blocking the issuing of visas to people from several Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and North African countries including Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen.   Continue reading “Trump orders building of Mexico border wall, targets U.S. ‘sanctuary’ cities”

Tax Revolution Institute – by Alex Vidal

Let’s hope you were able to get in all your binge watching before the new year, as online streaming entertainment may very well be the next thing that we enjoy slapped with a tax.

Many cities across the country have found that taxes from utilities have taken a hit with the rise in the number of people who have decided to “cut the cord” from cable companies. During the second quarter of 2016 alone, over 812,000 people cancelled their paid television subscriptions and switched to various streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and SlingTV, which only require internet access.   Continue reading “The Netflix Tax: Coming to a Screen Near You”

USA Today

Early to bed and early to rise might make you healthy, wealthy and wise, but stashing $17.5 million in your mattress could land you in federal prison.

At least, that’s what will happen if those bills turn out to be ill-gotten proceeds racked up during an elaborate intercontinental pyramid scheme, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts. Federal prosecutors say they’ve charged a Brazilian man, Cleber Rene Rizerio Rocha, 28, with money laundering. Agents also seized over $17 million in cash hidden in a bed box spring at a Westborough, Mass. apartment, prosecutors said.  Continue reading “Feds seize $17.5 million hidden in mattress”

Yahoo News

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel announced plans on Tuesday for 2,500 more settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, the second such declaration since U.S. President Donald Trump took office signaling he could be more accommodating toward such projects than his predecessor.

A statement from the Israeli Defence Ministry, which administers lands Israel captured in a 1967 war, said the decision was meant to fulfil demand for new housing “to maintain regular daily life”.   Continue reading “Israel plans more than 2,500 new settler homes to start Trump era”

USA Today

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed five more executive actions Tuesday in a blitz of executive power meant to speed approvals of high-profile energy projects like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

In reversing the Obama administration policy to disapprove the Keystone pipeline, Trump emphasized that the construction isn’t a done deal. “It’s something that subject to a renegotiation of terms by us,” he said. “We’ll see if we can get the pipeline built. A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs.”   Continue reading “Trump signs five more orders on pipelines, steel and environment”

Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will focus immigration enforcement efforts first on criminal immigrants in the country illegally, his administration said on Monday, offering hope to more than three-quarters of a million young immigrants protected from deportation under the Obama administration.

Those protected from deportation under former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have been worried that Trump would follow through on a campaign pledge to immediately end the “illegal amnesty.”   Continue reading “Trump admin backs off pledge of immediate immigration change”

Sent to us by Tax Revolution Institute.

Tax Revolution Institute – by Chloe Anagnos

The federal tax code is 187 times longer than it was a century ago, according to the accounting firm Wolters Kluwer, CCH, which has analyzed it since 1913.

Since 1984, when the tax code was 26,300 pages, it has nearly tripled to the length it is today.   Continue reading “The 3 Most Confusing IRS Tax Penalties”

Reuters

U.S. refiner Phillips 66 on Monday said it would buy crude from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) after submitting a winning bid in an auction held earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Energy.

It was not immediately known which other companies submitted winning bids for the up to 8 million barrels of sweet crude being sold from the strategic reserves.   Continue reading “Phillips 66 to buy crude from U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve”

Reuters

A pipeline in the western Canadian province of Saskatchewan has leaked 200,000 liters (52,834 gallons) of oil in an aboriginal community, the provincial government said on Monday.

The government was notified late in the afternoon on Friday, and 170,000 liters have since been recovered, said Doug McKnight, assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of the Economy, which regulates pipelines in Saskatchewan.   Continue reading “Canada oil pipeline spills 200,000 liters on aboriginal land”

Argus Media

Washington, 23 January (Argus) — President Donald Trump’s administration moved to block pending regulations that have not yet taken effect, such as a pipeline leak reporting rule and tax guidelines for master limited partnerships.

A memo issued today freezes publication of last-minute regulations from President Barack Obama’s administration that have been completed but not yet published in the Federal Register. It also imposes a 60-day delay on published regulations that have not yet taken effect, a change that might apply to new refinery safety regulations issued last month.  Continue reading “Trump freezes last-minute energy regulations”