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FatWallet.com, an Internet source for online coupons and deals, will move to Beloit from Rockton, Ill., this week. The move was sparked by a new law in Illinois that requires online retailers to collect sales tax. FatWallet is not an online retailer of products, but is an affiliate of Amazon.com and other online retailers. The new law requires online retailers to collect sales tax in states where they have an affiliate, warehouse, distribution center or other presence. The company, which has 54 employees, will move to 100 E. Grand Ave. FatWallet's move was sparked by an Illinois law that takes...

Let us be clear. Compared to the real disaster at hand, the hypothetical threat from the nuclear stations is zero. The reactors in question were all shut down four days ago. The control rods have been inserted, and the cores have been salted with boron. It is physically impossible for them to sustain a fission reaction of any kind at this point, let alone cause another Chernobyl. Only the fission-byproduct decay heat remains, and it is fading fast as the short half-life material (which accounts for most of the radioactivity) performs its decay reactions and ceases to exist. At this...

All four units at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant have now achieved cold shutdown - where coolant water is at less than 100ºC - with full operation of cooling systems, Tepco reported. All the reactors shut down automatically during last week's earthquake and have remained safe. While unit 3's shutdown went as expected, damage to the emergency core cooling systems of units 1, 2 and 4 led to the announcement of emergency status. These three reactors were prepared for potential pressure release, but this was never required. Unit 1 announced cold shutdown at 1.24 am on 14 March and...

There’s word that workers will be getting some of the largest profit sharing checks in the history of the automaker. The exact amount is not expected to be known before February 14, but a senior UAW official tells the Detroit News that he anticipates GM bonuses to top the average check of nearly $1800...

The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt Wednesday, and ordered the federal agency to pay attorneys' fees for several offshore oil companies. "Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government's contempt of this court's preliminary injunction order," he wrote.

<p>The U.S. economy accelerated in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Real gross domestic product rose at a 3.2% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, up from a 2.6% rate in the third quarter. The gain was slightly below expectations.</p>

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that Rahm Emanuel can stay on the ballot for mayor of Chicago.

An appellate court tossed out Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature $31 billion construction program, widespread plans for video poker and higher taxes on candy and booze, declaring Wednesday in a ruling that they were unconstitutional. The justices ruled the problem with the law is that it violated the state’s basic constitutional tenant that legislation must address a single subject only. They wrote that wide-ranging issues in one of four bills passed in 2009 failed to have a “natural and logical connection.” The decision knocked out all four laws that represented the backbone of the public works program Quinn put together with...

Abbott Laboratories said it is axing 1,900 workers, including about 1,000 of its more than 13,000 people in Northern Illinois as part of a restructuring. Most of the cuts will take place in the North Chicago-based company’s Lake County pharmaceutical manufacturing operations... Abbott blamed the cuts on new fees and pricing pressures associated with the healthcare reform law and a “challenging regulatory environment” at the Food and Drug Administration, which approves new drugs.

The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a court decision that knocked Rahm Emanuel out of the mayoral race. Earlier, the Supreme Court ordered the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to put Emanuel’s name back on the mayoral ballot while it considered Emanuel’s appeal of Monday’s Illinois Appellate Court ruling that tossed him out of the race to replace Mayor Daley. The Supreme Court said it will not accept any new legal briefs or even hear oral arguments on the case. Instead, the court will rely on the briefs already filed at the appellate court level.

The two Appellate Court judges responsible for tossing Rahm Emanuel from the ballot in February's mayoral race both won their jobs after being anointed by a Chicago political power broker who openly supports an Emanuel opponent. Longtime Appellate Court Judges Thomas E. Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall — who on Monday ruled that Emanuel's stay in Washington precludes him from running for mayor this year — were both judicial candidates slated for election by the Cook County Democratic Party judicial slating committee chaired by Ald. Edward Burke, 14th. Burke, one of Chicago's most powerful politicians, holds huge sway in...

A girl raped by three teenagers and a 22-year-old pleaded that she was only 14 years old during an attack her assailants recorded on a cell phone camera, prosecutors said during a bond hearing today for one of the suspects. Vicente Hernandez, 22, of Cicero, was ordered held on $600,000 bail after being charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault. The three other suspects -- Alex Picallo, 16, Majeed Khalifeh, 18, and Jonathan Leanos, 19, were charged Wednesday. Khalifeh and Picallo then went into the room and assaulted the girl while Hernandez and Leonas used their cell phones to record the...

Gov. Pat Quinn and the leaders of both houses of the Illinois General Assembly have agreed on raising the state income tax. If the bill passes, the plan would raise the personal income tax rate from the current 3 percent to 5.25 percent. That’s a 75 percent increase. In real dollars, that would mean if you currently owe $1,000 in taxes, next year you would owe $1,750. The increase is for four years. After that, the personal income tax would go down to 3.75 percent. The Democratic leaders in the Illinois General Assembly believe this income tax increase, a corporate...

Joe Miller 27.1% Scott McAdams 25.9% Another candidate you have to write in 25.3% Undecided 21.7% Survey conducted 10/29/10-10/31/10 Hays Research has been authorized to release the following polling results done on behalf of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. A survey of 502 likely voters in Alaska were asked who they would vote for in the upcoming US Senate race. This survey had a sample size of n=502 and a margin of error of +/- 4.4%.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski told POLITICO unequivocally that she plans to caucus with the Republican Party if she wins her write-in campaign Tuesday. “I have caucused with the Republicans in the past, I will be caucusing with the Republicans when I go back in January,” said Murkowski in a phone interview, responding to recent news reports speculating whether she’d buck the party, and comments Murkowski made over the weekend saying that if elected, she would represent Alaska before the Republican Party.

Dan Fagan, the conservative talk show host who lately spends much of his three-hour radio show slamming U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and extolling the virtues of Republican Joe Miller, has been yanked off the air. About halfway through Fagan's show Thursday afternoon, a caller phoned in to say he had just registered as a write-in candidate in the Senate race, which includes Miller, Murkowski, and Democrat Scott McAdams. The caller's provocation -- and the reason Fagan liked the idea -- was the fact that the Division of Elections has been providing voters who ask with a list of the write-in...

An ongoing federal grand jury investigation of the Manchin administration took a new turn Monday, with sources confirming that federal subpoenas were issued for the state Aviation Division director and for records maintained by the Aviation Division. The subpoenas were issued for director Keith Wood and for division flight records. Department of Justice investigators first issued subpoenas in August 2009, seeking records from the Division of Highway's Right-of-Way Division. That sparked speculation that the investigation might have something to do with then-Manchin chief of staff Larry Puccio, co-owner of Puccio and York LLC, a Fairmont-based real estate appraisal firm. The...

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."... Obama can "take his endorsement and shove it," declared Democrat Frank Caprio, battling Republican-turned-independent Lincoln Chafee in a gubernatorial race rated tight in the polls. Chafee endorsed Obama during the 2008 campaign for the White House.

Republican Congressman Mark Kirk is now barely ahead of Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois’ up-and-down race for the U.S. Senate. The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Kirk picking up 44% of the vote, while Giannoulias, the current state treasurer, draws 40% support. Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones earns the vote from four percent (4%) of voters, and eight percent (8%) prefer some other candidate. Five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) The race is still a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Senate Balance of Power rankings. The survey...

The Taliban is out in Afghanistan -- well, in the videogame version anyway. Following a backlash from military families and politicians, Electronic Arts has modified its latest version of the "Medal of Honor" series so that the game no longer pits U.S. troops against the Taliban. The multi-player format game, set in modern-day Afghanistan, was initially designed so that players would either inhabit the role of coalition forces or enemy fighters, labeled as the Taliban. British Defense Sec. Liam Fox also spoke out against the game, saying, "At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have...