TAX CUT MEANT $29B WINDFALL FOR BERKSHIRE
Investor Warren Buffett on Saturday disclosed that the tax legislation signed by President Donald Trump netted a $29 billion windfall to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, the Omaha-based conglomerate he leads.
The one-time benefit comes from savings on future taxes that the company would have to pay if it sold about $170 billion in equities, which run from American Express to Apple to the Cocacola Company. The taxes on the gains that in some cases have been piling up over decades, have dropped from 35 percent to 21 percent under the new tax law.
Berkshire’s 2017 gain “was far from standard: A large portion of our gain did not come from anything we accomplished at Berkshire,” Buffett wrote in his annual letter.
The $29 billion “was delivered to us in December when Congress rewrote the U.S. Tax Code.”
Drug probe at Naval Academy.
MD.» Authorities have
ANNAPOLIS, launched an investigation into a report of illegal drug use at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Naval investigators have officially released only the broadest outlines of the alleged misconduct. Statements have not made clear what drugs are involved or how many midshipmen are under investigation.
But Fox News reported on Friday that three midshipmen have said that three classmates are accused of selling cocaine, LSD and the sedative ketamine bought on the dark web using the digital currency bitcoin.
In a statement sent to The Associated Press on Saturday, Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. David Mckinney says the investigation was launched 2 ½ months ago.
Colombian drug lord extradicted. A suspected drug chief known as the “Pablo Escobar of Ecuador” was extradited to the United States on Saturday, Colombia’s chief prosecutor’s office announced.
Washington Edison Prado had tried unsuccessfully to prevent extradition by claiming membership in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — a status that would have made him eligible for a type of amnesty under a peace deal.
U.S. officials accuse Prado, also known by the alias “Gerald,” of shipping more than 250 tons of cocaine to the United States.
Arkansas man dies when winds topple trailer. A tornado watch on Saturday has been expanded to include five additional states in the central United States as a strong storm system moved from the Plains states and across the Mid-south.
The watch included northeastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, northwestern Mississippi, western Tennessee, western Kentucky and southern Illinois.
The National Weather Service said the system was also capable of producing wind gusts of up to 75 mph and hail up to 2 inches in diameter. Heavy rain and flooding is also possible.
In northeast Arkansas, an 83year-old man was killed after high winds toppled a trailer home. Clay County Sheriff Terry Miller told KAIT-TV that Albert Foster died Saturday night after the home was blown into a pond.
About 50 miles away, the roof was blown off a hotel in Osceola, about 160 miles north of Memphis.
Woman goes to lengths to conceal drugs.
CORSICANA, TEXAS» Police say a Texas woman attempted to hide evidence during an arrest by defecating in her pants and using the feces to conceal drugs.
Officers in Corsicana, about 55 miles south of Dallas, were investigating a report of a theft at a grocery store on Wednesday when they attempted to subdue a female suspect and take her into custody. Police say they placed Shannen Martin in the back of a police cruiser where they say she intentionally defecated in her pants then hid a crack pipe, 2.3 grams of crack cocaine and a Valentine’s Day card in her excrement.