"One of the most expensive green energy projects ever undertaken in American history looks like it is now on borrowed time after eating up massive amounts of taxpayer dollars and killing thousands of birds.

"Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) -- a major utility company -- announced in January that it is terminating power purchase contracts with the owners of Southwestern California's Ivanpah Solar Power facility, a massive and unique solar project that received hundreds of millions of subsidy dollars as it launched in 2014. Just over a decade after it started operations, the facility appears to be headed toward its demise after killing thousands of birds because it could not provide the utility sufficiently cheap energy.

"'PG&E determined that ending the agreements at this time will save customers money,' the company said in its Jan. 17 statement on the plant. The original owners of the plant -- which cost about $2.2 billion to build -- included Google and NRG Energy, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal."

Read the entire article here.

"Panamanian president Jose Raul Mulino said his country would not renew its agreement with China's Belt and Road Initiative following a visit from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a move that will make it the first Latin American country to leave the initiative.

"Mulino, speaking to reporters on Sunday after Rubio's first foreign trip as America's top diplomat, said he believes the agreement is due for renewal in a year or two. He said he would study 'whether it can be finished earlier or not.'

"The news is a blow to Beijing, which views Panama as critical to its foreign influence efforts in the Western Hemisphere. Chinese businesses operate ports near the Panama Canal, which the United States owned and operated until moving control to Panama in 1999."

Read the enitre article here.

"President Trump on Thursday said he plans to follow through on Saturday on his threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada.

"'We'll be announcing the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for a number of reasons,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He cited the influx of migrants at the southern border, the flow of fentanyl into the United States and the trade deficit the U.S. has with its neighbors.

"'I'll be putting the tariff of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico, and we will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries,' he said. 'Those tariffs may or may not rise with time.'"

Read the entire article here.

"The midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the nation's capital was preceded by months of harrowing near misses at airports across America, as well as increasingly shrill warnings that the nation's air traffic control and safety system is stretched to the limit.

"Just 14 months before Wednesday night's fatal mishap near Ronald Reagan National Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration received a safety expert report that warned America's air traffic control system is suffering from quality control issues and staffing shortages that put safety at risk.

"That report warned that 'challenges, in the areas of process integrity, staffing, and facilities, equipment, and technology, all have ties to inadequate, inconsistent funding. Together, these challenges contribute to increased safety risk and should be regarded as incident precursor.'"

Read the entire article here.

"In his first hours in office, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order curtailing the practice of unlimited birthright citizenship. Many think the Fourteenth Amendment calls for citizenship for everyone born in America. Left-wing attorneys general in 18 states have filed suit to stop the order. But the case isn't as clear cut as some would contend.

"At the heart of the debate is this phrase: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.'

"This central clause raises questions about its application for some children of non-citizens and illegal immigrants. By revisiting the original debates surrounding the amendment's language and reviewing its implications, Trump's call for limiting the scope of birthright citizenship appears reasonable."

Read the entire article here.

"President Trump is exposing a fundamental flaw in the basic Biden-Harris theory of illegal immigration.

"Specifically that America is somehow at fault because people jump our borders and that we need to bribe the origin nations of the illegal flood with goodies like trade deals and spending on spurious 'root causes,' all because an evil and guilty United States has to pay and pay and pay before even thinking of maybe asking nicely for repatriations.

"For proof, witness Sunday's almost-instant cave-in by Colombian President Gustavo Petro after he tried to go head to head with Trump on the issue."

Read the entire article here.

"The federal government reported $161.8 billion in improper payments during the most recent fiscal year, according to a new watchdog report.

"Improper payments have been a significant issue for the federal government, with executive branches reporting an estimated $2.8 trillion worth since 2003, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

"The report found a total of $161.8 billion in improper payments in 2024 alone. That figure is likely an undercount because not all federal agencies follow reporting guidelines."

Read the entire article here.

"Apocalyptic global warming predictions of doom have long been fashionable, quasi-religious beliefs of 21st-century liberalism. But after the recent wildfires that have devastated the state, some California Democrats will be clinging to climate change as a matter of political survival.

"The epic incompetence demonstrated both by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass during the crisis isn't just a matter of bad optics and some excruciatingly embarrassing moments for two career politicians. It has also created the possibility that even in a one-party state completely dominated by the Democrats, they might be held accountable for their egregious lack of leadership and terrible decisions that turned a natural disaster into an unprecedented catastrophe that has cost dozens of lives and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and buildings.

"While the notion that this might be a turning point to reverse the overwhelming advantage possessed by Democrats in California might be fanciful, the two are highly vulnerable to recall elections that, especially in the case of Bass, might actually force her from office."

Read the entire article here.

"Most state 2025 legislative sessions kicked off last week or this week. The remaining states will have their sessions underway by early February. Louisiana is the only exception, and it is not scheduled to convene its legislature until April.

"During the legislative sessions, K-12 education will continue to be a common top policy area throughout the country. Efforts to enact and expand school choice legislation will be front and center in several states, as has been the case since 2021."

Read the entire article here.

"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:

"Section 1. Purpose. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans' speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' and 'malinformation,' the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government's preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society."

Read the entire executive order here.