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The House is expected to take up the $1.5 trillion tax bill today, and the Senate could follow this evening or Wednesday morning; lawmakers hope to get it to President Trump’s desk by Christmas. Republicans announced they are one step closer to passing the major tax cut after Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she'd vote for the bill, reports CNBC. On Sunday, CNN reported that John McCain will likely miss this weekÂ’s tax bill vote — a scenario that made Collins' vote even more important. McCain, suffering from brain cancer, is recovering in Arizona after being hospitalized for a viral infection. Senator Jeff Flake now remains the only Republican hold out on the bill.
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US blames North Korea for WannaCry
North Korea is “directly responsible” for the WannaCry cyber attack, the Trump administration said. “We do not make this allegation lightly,” homeland security adviser Tom Bossert wrote in The Wall Street Journal; he is expected to release a formal statement Tuesday morning (CNBC). In October, the British government also said “we can be as sure as possible” the attack came from North Korea. WannaCry — which infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries earlier this year (CNBC) — has been linked to Lazarus Group, a hacking entity that works on behalf of the North Korean government, a White House official told CNBC.
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Derailed train was going too fast
An investigation is still ongoing (it will take 7-10 days), although the National Transportation Safety Board was able to determine that the train was traveling 80 mph in a 30 mph zone. All of the train’s 12 coaches derailed during the crash, with some dangling perilously from the overpass, reports The New York Times. Cranes were being brought to the site about 40 miles north of Seattle. Amtrak train 501, which departed Tacoma around 8 am, was carrying 78 passengers and five crew.
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6 people on the train were killed, according to The Tacoma News Tribune
At least 70 people were sent to St Joseph Hospital
20 people were sent to the Madigan Army Medical Center emergency center
The train hit cars; people were injured on the roadway, but no motorists were killed.
All lanes are blocked in the heavily-traveled area near Joint Base Lewis-McChord
The train that overturned is a new Amtrak train. It provides service from Seattle to Portland
It's unclear what caused the derailment
Amtrak train 501 derailed near Lacey
The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble! Not for long!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2017 -
The End Result
The end result is more frequent, more reliable, and faster Amtrak Cascades service.
The improvements will allow passenger trains to use the bypass route without being delayed by freight or Sounder trains. After the completion of other capital rail projects, two additional daily round trip passenger trains could be added. Freight train traffic will not increase on this line beyond the minimal amount that utilizes it today.
When completed, the Point Defiance Rail Bypass project will bring a total of six daily round trip Amtrak Cascades trains and one Coast Starlight train through Tacoma, Lakewood, and DuPont intersections, with an average crossing time of 45 seconds per intersection and a maximum speed of 79 mph.Project Benefits
- Improved Amtrak Cascades reliability.
- Faster, more frequent Amtrak Cascades service.
What is the project timeline?
The environmental and design process began in July 2006, and was completed in 2008.
The new line opens to service on Dec. 18, 2017.https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Rail/PNWRC_PtDefiance/default.htm
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Get this....
This was the 1st day of a new high speed route opened.... (it obviously didn't go well)
New Amtrak Cascades Tacoma Dome Station to be dedicated Dec. 15; station opens to travelers Dec. 18
WSDOT will dedicate the new Tacoma Dome Station in Freighthouse Square at 2 p.m., Friday, Dec. 15, with a ribbon cutting, speeches and celebration. The station opens to travelers on Monday, Dec. 18 when Amtrak Cascades trains begin using the Point Defiance Bypass route in and out of South Tacoma. Visitors during the ribbon cutting will get a sneak peek inside the station and will also see one of the new locomotives outside the station and a large historical interpretive display inside the station walkway. They'll also learn about Sound Transit's Tacoma Trestle project at the far end of the newly completed second platform.Start date announced for service expansion; use of Point Defiance Bypass route
Amtrak Cascades' new service schedule will start Dec. 18, which is also the start of the trains running on the Point Defiance Bypass route and the opening of the new Tacoma Dome Station in Freighthouse Square. The new schedule adds two more daily roundtrips between Seattle and Portland, cuts travel time and improves on-time reliability. It also marks the end of the nearly $800 million Cascades High-Speed Rail Capital Program.Watch time-lapse photos or a time-lapse-video of the new station construction at Freighthouse Square.
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PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. - A southbound Amtrak train plunged off a bridge onto Interstate 5 south of Tacoma Monday morning, killing an unknown number of people and injuring others.
"We have fatalities and casualties," said Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. "This is a regional mass casualty response."
All southbound lanes of Interstate 5 are closed south of Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
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PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. - A southbound Amtrak train plunged off a bridge onto Interstate 5 south of Tacoma Monday morning, killing an unknown number of people and injuring others.
All SB lanes of I-5 blocked near Mounts Road in Pierce County due to derailed train car. Avoid area! pic.twitter.com/SBH7dCc6yg
— WSDOT Tacoma Traffic (@wsdot_tacoma) December 18, 2017 -
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If your head is not spinning already, consider the amount of narrow money that is held in banks and wallets, under mattresses and in piggy-banks around the world: $31 trillion. 'Narrow' money is defined as physical money: the coins and notes that used to be the standard form of currency before the rise of more derivative forms of payment, such as checks and electronic forms of money.
'Broad' money also includes the deposits in easily accessible bank accounts that can be converted into cash relatively quickly. The sum of money under this definition is $83.6 trillion.
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The total market value of publicly traded shares at stock exchanges around the world is $66.8 trillion. Not only is that a fabulously large amount of money, it is also subject to the laws of supply and demand, and highly fiduciary. A run towards or away from stocks would thoroughly deregulate the global economy, and nothing more dramatic than a minus sign in front of that amount would lead to the collapse of global civilization.
Does that sound overly dramatic? If the see-sawing rise of Bitcoin tells us anything, it is that people are losing their trust in money, and other traditional measures of wealth. Let's talk again when the total value of all cryptocurrencies surpasses that of the world's supply of gold...
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-compared-to-all-of-the-worlds-money-2017-6
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"For Strong Evangelicals This Is Part Of The Biblical Prescription That JERUSALEM SHALL RETURN!"
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Senator Al Franken "I Will Be Resigning As A Member Of The U.S. Senate"
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Apple’s macOS High Sierra is having a rotten week. First, an update featured a bug that let anyone create a root account on a Mac without a root password (if you don’t speak geek, it made it easy for anyone to gain admin rights to your computer). Turns out the patch to fix the bug introduced an entirely new bug. Luckily, there’s a quick fix...for now.
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Figure out Facebook’s algorithms, and you too can rule the Newsfeed. It’s a strategy executed to perfection by Bored Panda, a digital publisher that’s amassed more than 30 million likes, shares, reactions, and comments on its FB page just this past month (far more than BuzzFeed, CNN, and NYT). Even more remarkable? This isn’t some Silicon Valley unicorn. The 41-person team operates out of Vilnius, Lithuania.
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Harry Potter must’ve used his remaining PTO for the holiday season, as Barnes & Noble
(-11.54%)blamed an 8% sales drop on the absence of a new book from the popular series. And despite promises of a rebound from CEO Demos Parneros, investors couldn’t overlook the glaring $30 million loss.It’s nothing new for the struggling book chain, which watched shares fall 37% this year. But this could mean its final chapter in the public markets.
Barnes & Noble is already attracting suitors to take it private, with Sandell Asset Management writing up a deal for $650 million. It declined...primarily because the deal meant taking on $500 million in debt. But how long can it keep stiff-arming fate?
As it stands, Barnes & Noble lost $345 million since 2010, nearly 120 store leases are set to expire each year moving forward, and non-book inventory has been sitting on shelves, gathering dust.
Moving forward, Barnes & Noble has decided to “place a greater emphasis on books.” Certainly a compelling strategy for a bookstore.
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President Trump and China President Xi Jinping were one belly-bump shy of a bromance during last month’s trade talks. But now, U.S. and China are back at each other’s throats.
U.S. hits first
The Trump administration voted against recognizing China as a “market economy” in the WTO—a status that would allow China to export goods around the world at cheaper prices than competing countries.
What allows China to sell at cheaper prices? For one, government-backed subsidies that enable Chinese companies to trim expenses from their operations.
But China’s up in arms about the U.S.’ opposition. That’s because after joining the WTO in 2001, it was guaranteed market economy status 15 years later.
So naturally, Xi kicked back
As the world’s steelmakers gathered Thursday to discuss a global oversupply, China crossed its arms and refused to slow down production (or at least, to be the only one slowing down production).
And that’s an issue, considering the country controls~50% of the world’s supply.
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This must mean that Amazon will launch it's own browser, operating system soon..... hardware soon thereafter?
Will the Amazon phone relaunch?
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Coming soon to an office near you: Alexa for Business. Amazon’s virtual assistant is entering the workplace as a new tool for booking conference rooms, launching meetings, and maybe eventually getting your coffee order right.
A leader in the voice-recognition field with the Echo, Amazon’s making professional waves—WeWork is already on board with the service. New Alexa “skills” will give workers the ability to dim lights, adjust room temperature, and send a notification to refill the printer (this will only get confusing for the office intern, Alexa).
The effort to bring Alexa to work comes as the service is flanked by competitors Google, Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana. But that shouldn’t hamper growth too much. Alexa device usage could reach 128 million by 2020.
It’s still up in the air whether companies will be comfortable having a smart-speaker listening in on sensitive conversations, but Amazon insists nothing is sent to the cloud until a user says “Alexa.”
“Alexa, please don’t share our company secrets.”
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With the passion over Catalan independence having apparently cooled off, Madrid is taking precautions to ensure things stay that way. The Spanish government has introduced an unusual ban in Barcelona - targeting the city's fountains.
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And they wonder why the deadly prison riots happen so often down there?
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Brazilian prosecutors have opened an investigation into three penitentiaries in Goias state after videos surfaced showing what seem to be prison guards torturing inmates. In videos believed to have been shot between 2014 and 2015, but only obtained this week by prosecutors, several guards can be seen repeatedly using stun guns on inmates who were already under control. Violence is rife in Brazil's overcrowded prison system. Earlier this year several prison riots left dozens of inmates dead.
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Estonia to launch own cryptocurrency
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Estonia is planning to launch the Estcoin in a bid to become a global ICO hub, VentureBeat reports. If it achieves this goal, Estonia would be the first nation to launch a cryptocurrency. Kaspar Korjus, managing director of Estonia’s e-residency program, which allows individuals to obtain Estonian citizenship without living in the country, detailed the proposal for the e-tokens in a blog post on Monday. “By not embracing crypto, governments are failing to unlock a powerful driver of economic growth and risk losing relevance entirely,” Korjus wrote in the post.