Financial Markets and Economy
Big Oil May Finally Get to Drill in the Arctic, But Is It Worth It? (Bloomberg)
Far above the Arctic Circle, one of the longest-running controversies in U.S. oil drilling is about to reignite.
Bouyed by Donald Trump’s election, Republicans are pushing to allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the frigid wilderness in northern Alaska that’s been a political battleground for drillers and conservationists for decades.
Run-Up Since Election Slows as Investors Consider Risks (NY Times)
With just days to go before the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president, once ebullient markets have eased a bit as investors have begun to ponder more seriously the risks of a Trump administration.
Mexico's Peso Is Top Performer on Trump's Inauguration Day (Bloomberg)
The Mexican peso is the best performer among major currencies as Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 45th U.S. President. The currency rallied as much as 1.8 percent while the new commander in chief spoke on the steps of the Capitol in Washington.
As Trump Vows to Kill Climate Plan, California Pushes Back (Bloomberg)
California plans to reduce oil-refinery emissions 20 percent by 2030, providing more details about its effort to impose the nation’s strictest air-quality rules just as President Donald Trump takes office vowing to roll back federal climate policies.
On Climate Change, Even States in Forefront Are Falling Short (NY Times)
Is there a more environmentally conscious state than California? It has been at the forefront of climate policy for decades — from demanding stringent fuel economy and emissions standards to wholeheartedly embracing renewable energy from the sun and wind.
How Liquid Are U.S. Life Insurance Liabilities? (Federal Reserve Bank Of Chicago)
This article describes the liquidity of various life insurance products and provides a measure that can be used to characterize the liquidity of the liabilities of the industry as a whole or of a particular firm.
As Its Housing Bubble Pops, Chinese Real Estate Firms Halt Monthly Pricing Data (Zero Hedge)
Earlier this week we reported that after 19 straight months of continued acceleration in home prices, China's latest housing bubble may have finally burst (again) after December prices in the 70 cities tracked by the NBS, rose by 12.7%, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in the previous month – the first annual decline in nearly 2 years.
Companies
Buffett Back in Money on IBM, Reversing $2.6 Billion Loss (Bloomberg)
International Business Machines Corp. has climbed above the price that Warren Buffett paid for shares in the computer company, reversing more than $2 billion in paper losses for his Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Why Tesla's recent stock rally has caught Wall Street off guard (Business Insider)
For the past few years, Tesla has presented a pattern appealing to skeptics of the company's future — and investors who want to short the stock, or who are just Tesla bears.
Technology
Amazon will help train veterans for tech jobs (Engadget)
Last week, Amazon said it would bring 100,000 full-time jobs to the US by 2018. This week, the online retailer announced a registered apprenticeship program with the US Department of Labor that will offer training to veterans.
The Honda CR-V is an intuitive and comfy ride for the everyday driver (Business Insider)
Honda's CR-V has posted seven straight years of sales gains and was the automaker's most popular vehicle in 2016. As I make my way through different SUVs, like the Subaru Forester and the Nissan Rogue, it only made sense to take the CR-V out for a spin too.
Graphene's superconductive power has finally been unlocked, and it's crazier than we expected (Science Alert)
It's official: graphene has been made into a superconductor in its natural state – which means electrical current can flow through it with zero resistance.
The most common password format is one of the worst ways to protect yourself online — here's what you should be doing (Business Insider)
Your password may seem difficult to break because it's complex and hard to remember. However, there is a way to make passwords that are easy to remember and more secure than your current one.
Bet You Didn't See This Coming: 10 Jobs That Will Be Replaced By Robots (Fast Company)
I was recently talking to a friend of mine who’s an accountant. He has his own accounting firm and lives an upper-class lifestyle in the Chicago suburbs. As he's an accountant with an additional degree in economics, naturally the conversation veered to the future of the economy.
ICYMI: A soft robot sleeve to keep your heart going (Engadget)
Today on In Case You Missed It: A soft robotic device made by Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital researchers has been tested on pigs and so far, seems quite promising in treating heart disease.
Tech Can Make Your Conversations With Kids Way More Effective (Popular Science)
In a classroom at a transitional housing program in San Mateo, California, Brianna is talking about her 2-year-old daughter, Hope. She’s having trouble getting Hope to talk to her—but the toddler is perfectly happy to converse with the television while she watches Little Einstein.
21st-century censorship (Columbia Journalism Review)
Two beliefs safely inhabit the canon of contemporary thinking about journalism. The first is that the internet is the most powerful force disrupting the news media.
Politics
The Inauguration Of Donald Trump (The Daily Show)
At Donald Trump's inauguration, the new president paints a bleak picture of America, and Michelle Obama can't hide her disdain for the incoming First Family.
Hillary Clinton Is Stoic at Her Rival’s Inauguration (NY Times)
This was not the inauguration Hillary Clinton thought she would be attending. Some Democrats, still bitter about her election night defeat, grumbled privately that she should have skipped Donald J. Trump’s swearing-in, as 60 House Democrats did on Friday. But a groundswell of supporters praised her fortitude.
A most dreadful inaugural address (The Washington Post)
Twenty minutes into his presidency, Donald Trump, who is always claiming to have made, or to be about to make, astonishing history, had done so. Living down to expectations, he had delivered the most dreadful inaugural address in history.
Donald Trump Strikes Nationalistic Tone in Inaugural Speech (The Wall Street Journal)
President Donald Trump delivered what historians and speechwriters said was one of the most ominous inaugural addresses ever, reinforcing familiar campaign themes of American decline while positioning himself as the protector of the country’s “forgotten men and women.”
With Trump in Charge, Climate Change References Purged From Website (NY Times)
Within moments of the inauguration of President Trump, the official White House website on Friday deleted nearly all mentions of climate change. The one exception: Mr. Trump’s vow to eliminate the Obama administration’s climate change policies, which previously had a prominent and detailed web page on whitehouse.gov.
The FBI is leading an investigation into Donald Trump’s connections with Russia (Salon)
The FBI is leading a multi-agency investigation into possible links between Russian officials and President-elect Donald Trump.
Russia Fears That Trump Won’t Be Such a Great Deal After All (Bloomberg)
Russia is giving Donald Trump the kind of fawning television coverage usually reserved for Vladimir Putin, with its most popular propagandist hailing the president-elect this week as “a man of his word.”
Bumpy road to confirmation: Donald Trump’s Cabinet tripped up by revelations of unpaid taxes, undocumented household staffIt is becoming painfully obvious that Donald Trump’s early decision to forego extensive reviews of his Cabinet nominees in favor of “gut instinct and his chemistry with people” is coming back to haunt him.
Americans don’t know the difference between Obamacare and ACA (Alternet)
Jimmy Kimmel’s team took to the streets to prove, once again, that when it comes to the heath care debate, it’s all in a name.
How Donald Trump Just Raised Many Mortgage Bills (TIME)
In one of his very first substantive moves as president, Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that will result in a hike to many first-time homeowners’ mortgage bills.
The ACLU welcomes President Trump with a Freedom of Information Act request over conflicts of interestThe American Civil Liberties Union is welcoming President Trump to the White House with a gift — a Freedom of Information Act request about his numerous conflicts of interest.
Trump’s HHS pick won’t say whether health care is a right (Think Progress)
In a heated exchange with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump’s choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, avoided a direct question over whether he believes that health care is a right for all Americans.
President’s Trump biggest weakness is that he has no choice but to govern (Think Progress)
Donald Trump became president thanks to an unlikely confluence of factors—they include the covert interference of a foreign power, some unforced Democratic errors, a global tide of rising white populism, and sheer dumb luck. But the man himself deserves ample credit for the central innovation of his presidential campaign: Its unprecedented assault on the very fabric of reality.
Trump Issues Executive Order Scaling Back Parts of Obamacare (NY Times)
In his first executive order, President Trump on Friday directed government agencies to scale back as many aspects of the Affordable Care Act as possible, moving within hours of being sworn in to fulfill his pledge to eviscerate Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
Trump has bared his fangs to Merkel. He will do untold damage to Europe (The Guardian)
Who still wants to bemoan the demise of the “special relationship”? Enter Donald Trump, Britain’s latest best friend. “I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing,” he assured the UK by way of the Times on Monday.
Infrastructure Spending Deemed Most Important Trump Promise (Gallup)
Two-thirds of Americans (69%) say it is "very important" for President-elect Donald Trump to keep his campaign promise to enact major spending on infrastructure renewal. More than half say Trump's promises to reduce income taxes for all Americans, establish tariffs on foreign imports and deport illegal immigrants convicted of crimes are very important.
Donald Trump is now violating the emoluments clause (Daily Kos)
Oddly enough, the ability to sign this petition was disabled at the time of this article was written. But even assuming that the page was working properly, and the petition racked up the requisite number of votes, there’s a good reason to think it would never be acted on.
Dan Rather Pens Pensive Essay on President Trump's Inauguration: "I Have Never Seen My Country So Divided, So Fearful" (The Hollywood Reporter)
Just hours after Donald Trump was officially sworn in as President of the United States, Dan Rather took to Facebook to share his thoughts on what he called the most "divisive" transition of power.
The Geopolitics of 2017 in 4 Maps (Mauldin Economics)
International relations and geopolitics are not synonymous… at least, not the way we understand them at Geopolitical Futures. “International relations” is a descriptive phrase that encompasses all the ways countries behave toward one another. “Geopolitics” is the supposition that all international relationships are based on the interaction between geography and power.
Trump’s EPA nominee seems unfamiliar with mainstream scientific research (Think Progress)
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt — President-elect Donald Trump’s contentious pick for EPA administrator — started his confirmation hearing on Wednesday on shaky scientific ground, casting false doubt on the link between human activity and climate change and stating that he did not know whether there was such a thing as safe levels of lead for human consumption.
The Following Words Had Never Appeared In An Inaugural Address, Until Today (Zero Hedge)
That Trump's inaugural address was provocative is putting it mildly. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the initial reaction of the Financial Times.
Health and Biotech
These are the 3 diseases scientists say we really need to worry about becoming epidemics (Science Alert)
Charities, governments, and scientists from across the world gathered in Switzerland on Thursday to hammer out a plan of action to stop three of the world’s most potentially devastating diseases from turning into full-blown, global epidemics.
Life on the Home Planet
The last 100 years in 10 minutes (Holy Kaw)
The last one hundred years have been among the craziest in world history. Just take a look at this video, which summarizes all the wild events––and raises the question, what next?
The second “Logan” trailer is out and it looks awesome (Holy Kaw)
There’s another Wolverine movie coming out, and unlike some of the other films this one looks pretty good. Take a look at this awesome trailer.
16 Killed in Fiery Bus Crash on Italian Highway (Associated Press)
A bus carrying Hungarian school students home from a skiing trip to France slammed into a highway barrier in northern Italy and caught fire, killing at least 16 people, police said Saturday. Thirty-nine people survived, though some were seriously injured.
Perhaps We Should Eat Crickets (Big Think)
Insects can be found on the menu or at food carts in countries like Thailand, China, Mexico, Japan, and Ghana. Around 80% of the world's nations consume insects. Some of the most popular types of insects to eat include beetles, caterpillars, ants, cicadas, and crickets.
