President Obama was in Ohio this week, speaking in the Cleveland area about the state of the nation’s economy. He surprised reporters (and no doubt Congressional Republicans as well) when he announced that he was appointing former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as head of the new federal consumer financial protection bureau.
WASHINGTON — Four House lawmakers received VIP discounted loans from the former Countrywide Financial Corp., the lender whose subprime mortgages was largely responsible for the nation’s foreclosure crisis, according to congressional investigators.
ATLANTA — It’s a startling number: 1 in 4 women surveyed by the government say they were violently attacked by their husbands or boyfriends. Experts in domestic violence don’t find it too surprising, although some aspects of the survey may have led to higher numbers than are sometimes reported.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers told Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday to fire some Justice Department subordinates over the flawed arms-trafficking investigation called Operation Fast and Furious.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday it has lost $5.1 billion in the past year, pushing it closer to imminent default on a multibillion-dollar payment and to future bankruptcy as the weak economy and increased Internet use drive down mail volume.
GAINESVILLE, Ga. — In the violent underground novel Absolved, right-wing militia members upset about gun control make war against the U.S. government. This week, federal prosecutors accused four elderly Georgia men of plotting to use the book as a script for a real-life wave of terror and assassination involving explosives and the highly lethal poison ricin.
WASHINGTON — Unprecedented drug shortages are threatening the lives of cancer patients and other seriously ill people, and the Obama administration’s plan to tackle them is but a small step toward solving a complex problem. President Barack Obama ordered the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to take new steps to send out early warnings about looming shortages and try to avert them.
ATLANTA — The federal government asked an appeals court Friday to stop Alabama officials from enforcing a strict immigration law that has already driven Hispanic students from public schools and migrant workers from towns, warning that it opens the door to discrimination against even legal residents.