If a Toronto developer has his way, penguins, sharks and otters may become the newest residents in New York City’s Times Square. The Wall Street Journal reports that septuagenarian Jack Shefsky has signed an early agreement to purchase a seven-story building in the area (11 Times Square, to be exact) with the intent of converting it into a $100 million aquarium. Due to the logistical difficulties of housing an aquarium in a skyscraper, Shefsky says that the aquarium will have fewer fish than most, and will instead feature alternate exhibits, like a pirate museum. “It’s anything but an aquarium in the format you might imagine,” Shefsky told the Journal. Assuming all goes as planned, construction could start as soon as April and the aquarium could even be open to the public by September 2011.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Protestors marked the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution on Thursday by taking to the streets and chanting “Death to the Dictator” and “Iranians – support us, support us,” as President Ahmadinejad made the bombastic announcement that Iran had become a nuclear state. In anticipation of today’s protests, the government took severe measures to crack down on opposition, sending hundreds of security forces armed with tear gas, live ammunition and paintballs all across the city, and deploying helicopters to monitor the crowd. Opposition websites have reported several instances of clashes between police and protestors, but in light of a government lockdown on technology, it’s not clear how big the protests are, or how many people have been arrested. The Times of London reports that the government has blocked text and internet messaging systems, while The Wall Street Journal says that last night, the government “permanently suspended Gmail” and announced plans to replace it with a national email service. According to Mashable, residential satellite dishes and cell phones have also been taken from members of the opposition. During the protests, government forces briefly detained Zahra Eshraghi, the granddaughter of revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as well as her husband Mohammad Reza Khatam, who is the brother of a former pro-reform president. Oppostion leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammed Khatami are reported to have been attacked during the protests. According to the Guardian, (which is liveblogging the protests) at least 120 people have been arrested across Iran—no word on Tehran—and opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is reported to be in Tehran among the protestors.  The Atlantic’sAndrew Sullivan is also monitoring events.

Source: The Times of London

Following his State of the Union in January, President Obama switched his primary focus from health care reform to the economy and job creation in an effort to boost approval numbers and help his fellow Democrats in what should be an interesting election year. His first step is to push a bipartisan jobs bill through Congress. “The bill includes tax cuts to please Republicans and its passage would hand President Barack Obama a badly needed political victory,” the Associated Press reported. Unfortunately, “even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece▬a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers—would work only on the margins.” Everyone can agree that a high unemployment rate is bad for the country, the budget, and the economy, but analysts believe that a tax break isn’t going to push struggling businesses to hire more people. “They need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.” Obama was pushing for a plan to give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each new worker they hire, but, in an effort to earn bipartisan support, his original proposal has been amended. The legislation, in its current form, would exempt employers from paying Social Security tax on the wages of new employees—provided they were unemployed immediately before taking the new position—and would qualify them for a $1,000 credit on future tax returns.

Source: The Associated Press

Sweden has moved into the No. 1 spot—pushing the United States down to the second—in a new report that ranks countries based on their usage of telecommunications technologies (cell phones, computer, networks, etc.). The report, released annually, was created by London Business School professor Leonard Waverman. The Connectivity Scorecard takes into account dozens of indicators, including usage of technology and technological skills. “Sweden not only has the best current mix of attributes, but it also shows few signs of losing its lead,” said Waverman, according to Reuters. “By contrast, there is the beginning of a gap in what was once the essence of U.S. leadership in most industrial and service sectors—education and skills.” Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands round out the top five.

Source: Reuters

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that Iran finished producing its first batch of 20 percent enriched uranium for use in Tehran’s medical reactor. Additionally, in a speech before thousands of Iranians gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, “the hardline president said Iran would soon triple its daily production of low-enriched uranium (3.5 percent),” AFP reported. Ahmadinejad has said that the country’s nuclear program is peaceful, but other countries are worried that any steps toward enrichment are dangerous ones that will lead to the development of weapons. The United States, Russia, and China have all threatened sanctions if the program continues, but Ahmadinejad warned that Iran already had the ability to enrich uranium up to 80 percent. “Experts say that once Iran has enriched uranium to the 20 percent level, there is nothing to stop it carrying on to the 93 percent level needed to produce nuclear weapons as the technology is the same,” AFP reported. But is Ahmadinejad lying? Al Jazeera considers it: “John Large, a independent nuclear engineer, said that it was simply not possible for Tehran to have completed the 20 percent enrichment of any of its stockpiles in such a limited time.” “Even to produce tiny amounts, representative amounts, of uranium enriched to 20 percent would be an impossible task,” Large told Al Jazeera.

Source: AFP

Some say the recession is over, some say it isn’t. One thing that almost everyone can agree on is that the housing market and, more specifically, its downturn, played a large part in shaping our current economic climate. Good news and bad news, then. Foreclosure filings in the United States numbered 315,716 in January, a 10 percent drop from the previous month (but 15 percent more than January 2009), according to a new report that RealtyTrac will release today. The bad news: “While January’s decrease may indicate foreclosure prevention efforts are gaining traction, the data has been volatile in recent months and foreclosure appear poised to rise again,” Reuters reported. High unemployment rates are keeping many home owners from making their monthly mortgage payments. “January foreclosure numbers are exhibiting a pattern very similar to a year ago: a double-digit percentage jump in December foreclosure activity follows by a 10 percent drop in January,” James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, wrote in a statement obtained by Reuters. “If history repeats itself we will see a surge in the numbers over the next few months as lenders foreclose on delinquent loans where neither the existing loan modification programs or the new short sale and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure alternatives works.”

Source: Reuters

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that two out of every three Americans are “dissatisfied” or “angry” with the way the federal government works. “Public dissatisfaction with how Washington operates is at its highest level in Post-ABC polling in more than a decade—since the months after the Republican-led government shutdown in 1996—and negative ratings of the two major parties hover near record highs,” the Washington Post reported. The poll was conducted over telephone and surveyed 1,004 randomly selected adults. “Eight in 10 conservative Republicans hold negative views about the way government works, but by contrast, 59 percent of liberal Democrats said they were ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘satisfied’ about the role government was playing.” Among the polls other findings: On average, Americans believe 53 cents of every dollar they give in taxes is “wasted”; 35 percent of Americans hold a favorable opinion of the tea party movement, with 40 percent holding unfavorable ones; tea party supporters are overwhelmingly white, conservative, and disapproving of Obama.

Source: The Washington Post

For a while there it looked like Amazon.com was going to be able to keep strong-arming publishers into selling e-book versions of their titles for $9.99. But with the competition growing (have you heard of the new iPad?), many of which are more willing to work with publishers, Amazon executives have finally given in. As a result, “the price of many new releases and best sellers is about to go up, to as much as $14.99,” the New York Times reported. Publishers are celebrating this as a victory. They see digital editions of books as the future, but selling them for significantly less than hardcover versions is hurting the already crippled industry. The problem? It looks like it won’t be easy to convince buyers to play along. In the past, “when digital editions have cost more, or have been delayed until after the release of hardcover versions, these raucous readers have organized impromptu boycotts and gone to the Web sites of Amazon and Barnes & Noble to leave one-star ratings and negative comments for those books and their authors,” according to the New York Times. One such boycotter noted that three weeks after leaving a negative review for a new release, it was in the remainder bin. The higher prices will appear within the next few months.

Source: The New York Times

Sarah Palin received a lot of attention for the keynote speech she recently delivered at the first tea party convention. Attendees, who paid more than $300 to hear Palin speak, even broke into a chant at one point: “Run, Sarah, run.” I, like everyone else, assume that the supporters wanted the one-time Alaskan governor and vice presidential candidate to run for president. But, if a new poll from the Washington Post/ABC News is to be trusted, those Tea Partiers might be the only ones that feel that way. According to the poll, “71% of Americans do not feel that Palin is qualified to be President. That includes a sharp drop in Republican support, where 45% believe she is qualified compared to 66% who thought she was last fall,” the Huffington Post reported. “Overall, 37% have a favorable view while 55% have an unfavorable view of the former Alaska Governor.”

Source: The Huffington Post