Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., unveiled a sweeping 1,136-page bill Tuesday that, in enacted, would bring about the most comprehensive overhaul of financial regulation since the Great Depression. What upset bankers most was his call to strip the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. of their bank supervisory powers in favor of a new Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration. Dodd said that would stop banks for shopping for the regulator of least supervision. ;
Hundreds of residents who were evacuated from the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina destroyed it are looking at their last Veteran's Day in Washington. For almost all of them, it couldn't come too soon. With 10 months to go before the rebuilt facility reopens on the Mississippi Coast, the veterans talk of little else but getting back to Gulfport.
Senate Democrats, struggling to reach agreement on how to overhaul the country's health care system, got some practical political advice Tuesday from former President Bill Clinton, whose own effort collapsed 15 years ago.
Love her or hate her, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is at the peak of her political power, and she seems to be reveling in the high drama of the moment.
Obama administration officials breathed a collective sigh of relief Sunday when Iraq's parliament, after weeks of delays, approved a law to hold national elections in January, very likely permitting a major post-election withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
Police say Richard Heger, 67, broke into a local tow shop's storage lot to reclaim his 1967 pickup, stole a tow truck to tow it away, did $7,000 damage to the tow company's gate and more damage to a restaurant's sign when the truck broke loose, then lied about his identity to police and spun stories involving President Barack Obama and the CIA.
The term "sanctuary city" is used as shorthand to describe any city that doesn't allow city staff or police to ask people about their status or report them to immigration authorities - with exceptions for suspected criminal activity and when state and federal law requires it.
Sharon Cook is either a hero or a villain. She is either due your thanks for doing everything in her power to protect children from obscenity or she is due your disdain for wantonly taking away the constitutional rights of the patrons of one Kentucky county library.
Goldman Sachs' response to McClatchy's investigative series "Goldman Sachs: Low Road to High Profits."
Garland "Andy" Barr, 36, a former aide to Gov. Ernie Fletcher, became the first Republican to formally announce his candidacy for the seat held by U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky.
Former Kentucky GOP state Rep. Steve Nunn has been indicted on charges that he killed his former fiancee, Amanda Ross, and violated a domestic violence protection order she had received against him. Ross was found shot early on Sept. 11 in front of her town house in Lexington and died later that morning.
Scott Roeder confessed Monday to killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller, saying he had no regrets because "preborn children were in imminent danger." Roeder, 51, said that he didn't consider what he did to be murder and that he had no intention of changing his plea to guilty. "There is a distinction between killing and murdering," he said. "I don't like the accusation of murder whatsoever, because when you protect innocent life, that's not murder."
After pleading guilty to stalking a former girlfriend, Blake Hall, a leading figure in Idaho and national politics for 25 years, was fired Monday as a deputy prosecuting attorney in eastern Idaho and resigned from the Republican National Committee.
Vincent Mosby signed a marriage contract and paid a dowry in a religious ceremony in August, police said. Mosby, 23, didn't legally wed his 14-year-old bride, however, because Missouri law won't allow it without a judge's order. Police said she was pressured into the union because her mother and stepfather thought she was going to be sexually active with a boy her age.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings, once regularly attended a Falls Church, Va., mosque that the FBI has linked to two of the 9/11 hijackers, but the congregation's current spiritual leader Sunday insisted the government's claims of connections are wrong.
For five desperate minutes, emergency room doctors at UC Davis Medical Center frantically tried to revive Scott Hawkins. In those five minutes, the 23-year-old student was hooked up to life support monitors, air pumped into his weakened lungs as he bled on a gurney.
State courts in Kansas will have to close their doors for one week each month beginning in February if the Legislature doesn't restore $8 million to the judiciary budget. The courts would close and place staff on involuntary unpaid leave the weeks of Feb. 15, March 15, April 5, May 10 and 24, and June 7, Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Davis said in a letter to court employees.
When Raul Renato Castro was a baby, his father was convicted of molesting a 5-year-old relative and was sentenced to prison. Now, 14-year-old Castro is accused of molesting 4-year-old Alex Christopher Mercado and drowning the child in a bathtub on Oct. 30. Researchers say the circumstances don't surprise them.
Twelve of the dead were members of the military. One was a civilian.The alleged gunman, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, remains in critical condition and has not regained conciousness, base officials said. A memorial service has been scheduled for Tuesday at Fort Hood. The White House announced that President Barack Obama would attend.
Quran Mahammed Jones allegedly beat Scott Hawkins to death in their dorm suite before he was shot by police officers responding to a report of a disturbance. Court documents say that when police arrived they faced Jones in the common area of the suite with a "crazed look in his eyes." Jones remained hospitalized but has been charged with murder and assault.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors accused former Mi Ranchito restaurant employees Arnoldo Bazan and his wife, Yini De La Torre - niece of the restaurant co-founder - of mixing the pesticide into salsa Aug. 30 and sending at least a dozen people to the hospital.
Many of the doctors who cared for the wounded from Thursday's rampage had seen similar wounds during rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan. But few were prepared for the grim and chaotic scene that unfolded as ambulance after ambulance began ferrying gunshot victims to the hospital emergency room.
The day John Timoney was sworn in as Miami police chief in 2003, 11 of his troops stood trial for concocting evidence and planting guns in a spate of shootings. Seven would be convicted. Within two years, Timoney's administration would clean up the mess, turning a sometimes trigger-happy force into one where no officer fired a weapon for 20 months. Bad cops were punished. Crime dipped. Now the chief finds himself in a very public political fight, with his Miami career on the line.
When Jaycee Lee Dugard resurfaced in August, she denied being the 11-year-old girl kidnapped in 1991 and defended Phillip Garrido as a "great person." She became defensive as officers questioned her, then asked for a lawyer. She tried to convince police she was fleeing an abusive husband in Minnesota. Then the young woman told police the truth, ending the 18-year mystery of her disappearance.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist suspected of killing 12 soldiers at Fort Hood Thursday, was in the "deployment window" and was headed for Afghanistan, not Iraq, as some sources had reported. Witnesses said he shouted the traditional Muslim blessing "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire.
Federal prosecutors accused former restaurant employees Arnoldo Bazan and his wife, Yini De La Torre of mixing pesticide into salsa Aug. 30 at the restaurant her uncle founded and sending at least a dozen people to the hospital. Prosecutors allege the couple poisoned the salsa to make customers sick so the restaurant would be blamed and hurt financially.
The massive base -- one of the largest U.S. Army bases in the world -- has seen its share of incidents. Until the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 -- ironically, the gunman in Thursday's bloodshed also attended Virginia Tech -- the Fort Hood area was the scene of the deadliest mass killing in U.S. history -- the 1991 Luby's Cafeteria killings that took 23 lives.
A pair of charred dolls were discovered this week in the backyard of burn victim Michael Brewer's Deerfield Beach home, according to a report released by the Broward Sheriff's Office on Thursday.
At least 12 people were killed and 31 wounded in a mass shooting at Fort Hood Army Base near Killeen, Texas, when at least one gunman opened fire on soldiers preparing to be deployed. The shooting broke out at the base's readiness center at about 1:30 p.m. The gunman, identified as Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was captured alive. Investigators were trying to determine if he had accomplices.
Jonathan Edward Drake, 23, is being held in the Ada County Jail on a felony charge of aggravated battery after Boise police say he sprayed lighter fluid on a woman late Wednesday night and then threatened her with a lighter.
A well-known Bradenton nuisance-animal trapper, who admitted to staging the capture of a 14-foot python on July 25, has been arrested on charges stemming from the hoax.
Scott Roeder confessed Monday to killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller, saying he had no regrets because "preborn children were in imminent danger." Roeder, 51, said that he didn't consider what he did to be murder and that he had no intention of changing his plea to guilty. "There is a distinction between killing and murdering," he said. "I don't like the accusation of murder whatsoever, because when you protect innocent life, that's not murder."
After an intense three-month campaign for the votes of North Carolina's House members, players in the health care debate are now likely to focus their full attention on Sen. Kay Hagan, a moderate, pro-business Democrat, who is regarded as one of a handful of senators who could play a pivotal role as the Senate takes up the landmark legislation to expand access to health insurance. Hagan has already been the subject of television commercials by the pharmaceutical industry, two mailers by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina and hundreds of pickets at her Raleigh district office.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated Monday that California's budget will fall out of balance by $5 billion to $7 billion this fiscal year, on top of a $7.4 billion gap already projected for 2010-11.
Ian Pearl, a 37-year-old who lives in Southwest Ranches, Fla., is the inspiration for "Ian's Law," legislation being introduced by two New York state legislators that would require insurance companies to get approval from the state before dropping coverage plans for existing clients.
Cuba's blogosphere has taken on a decidedly harsher face in recent months. Some Cubans whose blogs once focused largely on the frustrations of daily life are moving toward sharp-edged commentaries against the Castro government and activities that some fear will eventually lead to a crackdown by the communist government.
A federal judge has taken the rare step of ordering self-described anti-terrorism investigator Paul David Gaubatz to remove from his Web site some 12,000 documents that his son allegedly stole from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
As an underdog U.S. Senate candidate courting the GOP's conservative wing, Marco Rubio takes a hard-line position against illegal immigration: no amnesty. But as the powerful speaker of the Florida House, presented with a slew of bills aimed at curbing illegal immigration, he didn't put a single proposal up for a vote.
Bank of America said Monday it has lent nearly $760 billion in the past year, or almost $17 for every dollar it has received in government loans. In its third-quarter Impact Report, the bank highlighted recent consumer-friendly changes, such as an effort to pull back on overdraft fees and a "clarity commitment" to mortgage and home-equity borrowers, giving them a one-page, plain-language summary of the terms of their loans.
After pleading guilty to stalking a former girlfriend, Blake Hall, a leading figure in Idaho and national politics for 25 years, was fired Monday as a deputy prosecuting attorney in eastern Idaho and resigned from the Republican National Committee.
Let me tell you a few things I believe: I believe that in most cases, I have no right to judge your culture by the standards of mine. I believe what seems exotic to me might be enlightened to you. I believe no culture has a monopoly on morality.
But I also believe you don't run down your daughter because she has a page on Facebook and won't marry the guy you choose. That is not honor. It is, in fact, the opposite — an act of appalling cowardice suggestive not simply of religious extremism, but of a people in fear of the sexuality and independence of women.
In this lonely corner of the world, the first sign of distress is the luggage. When one of the few international flights that are still operating here touched down one recent afternoon, the returning passengers emerged from baggage claim as if from a big shopping trip. Old metal trolleys squealed under the weight of mundane items: tires, a laptop computer, tubs of detergent and duffel bags crammed so tightly with food that tin cans bulged through the fabric.
A U.S.-brokered accord that was supposed to return ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to power has collapsed and his supporters pinned much of the blame Monday on the Obama administration.
A federal judge has taken the rare step of ordering self-described anti-terrorism investigator Paul David Gaubatz to remove from his Web site some 12,000 documents that his son allegedly stole from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Iran has charged three Americans with espionage, after they strayed during a hiking trip in northern Iraq this past July, in a move likely to complicate U.S. overtures toward Iran.
As her fellow college graduates busy themselves with spamming every available e-mail inbox with resumes, 25-year-old Lizbeth Mateo keeps to the same Los Angeles coffee shop she's worked in for the past five years.
Industry experts say a compelling value message is going to be one of the main motivators to get consumers spending this holiday season. But don't expect the wild 75 percent off discounts of last year, when retailers got caught with an inventory backlog and were forced to take major markdowns to get the merchandise off the shelves.
Mohammad Rafi Hamdard, a food importer in Kabul, puts the following prices on the United Nations decision to withdraw staff from Afghanistan: $15 more for a ton of flour, $5 more for 50 kilograms of sugar and $3 more for a carton of cooking oil.
For many California state employees, the financial costs of furloughs on three Fridays each month are painful. For a subset of workers who aren't burdened by mortgages or school tuition, however, it means something completely different: More time to party.
Attorneys for two Florida teenagers who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that such sentences violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment and that juveniles should get a chance at release.
Nancy Garrido's court-appointed attorney has been removed from the case, pending a possible appeal later this month, court records indicate.
Kentucky lawmakers are at the center of a political feud over how to best derail the so-called "pain-pill pipeline" from Florida to the Bluegrass State, a multi-state trafficking scheme that has contributed heavily to the state's crippling prescription drug addiction epidemic. A program that bears a powerful Kentucky congressman's name has received four times more funding than another program backed by other less senior lawmakers from the state.
Lawyers for two Florida men who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles will argue to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that the penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.
After nearly a dozen delays and a final, rowdy session, Iraq's parliament on Sunday passed a law setting national elections for January, averting for now a political crisis that threatened to unravel the country's slow progress toward stability. Two major issues were decided: Officials will use voter rolls from 2009 to decide who can vote in the conflicted Kirkuk area and candidates will be listed by name on the ballot so voters can vote for individuals, not parties.
In the world of dog mushing, there aren't many jobs with a steady paycheck. Professional mushers live off the bounty of their race earnings, dog breeding skills and marketing savvy. And within a federal government that employs 19.7 million people, there is one — exactly one — dog mushing job. And it's open.
Off the coast of Washington state, mysterious algae mixed with sea foam have killed more than 8,000 seabirds, puzzling scientists. A thousand miles off California, researchers have discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex roughly twice the size of Texas filled with tiny bits of plastic and other debris.
Keeping a campaign promise, President Barack Obama hosted 386 heads of state — leaders from more than half of the United States' 564 federally recognized Indian tribes. Tribal leaders were able to ask questions and express concerns over issues, such as reservation shopping, that effect their tribes.
Miners are digging gold out of the ground in Alaska at a faster clip than they have in almost a century. Last year's gold production tipped the scales at 800,000 ounces. The last time that much gold was mined in Alaska was 1916.
As if the Taliban, car bombs, roadside bombs, leftover Soviet land mines, political unrest and errant NATO air attacks weren't enough, Afghans are facing a new killer: the H1N1 flu pandemic. The government has declared a state of emergency, and closed schools, universities and even wedding halls and public bathrooms for three weeks to slow the spread of the virus, which has killed 10 people in the capital in less than two weeks.
The Haitian Senate unanimously approved Jean-Max Bellerive, a longtime technocrat, as prime minister Friday, hoping that a man with long ties to Haiti's political power brokers and the international community can lead this nation through its fifth change of cabinets in five years.
A certain wisdom comes with being poor. Be grateful if you can't lay claim to it.
Miss enough paychecks, fall behind on enough bills and people get savvy quick to the ways of making do.