Month: March 2014

Bank of America in $9.5bn settlement with regulator

FINANCIAL TIMES: Bank of America agreed on Wednesday to a $9.5bn settlement with a US housing regulator, as its former chief executive agreed in a separate case to a three-year ban from serving as an officer or director of a public company. BofA’s pact with the Federal Housing Finance Agency is the largest payout to […]

Analysts say 6 million health care enrollees in sight

USA TODAY: The government will meet — and possibly exceed — its goal of 6 million people enrolled in insurance through the federal and state health exchanges by the March 31 deadline, analysts said Wednesday… On Tuesday, 1.2 million people visited HealthCare.gov, and the website was able to handle the volume, said Julie Bataille, communication […]

Growth goes to central cities

Harbor East symbolizes a population shift taking place across the nation, reflected in new data released today by the Census Bureau. It finds that population growth has been shifting to the core counties of the USA’s 381 metro areas, especially since the economic recovery began gaining steam in 2010. Basically, the USA’s urban core is getting denser, while far-flung suburbs watch their growth dwindle.

Tom Wolf criticizes Kane’s handling of sting operation

HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS: The front-runner in the Democratic race for governor split with his colleagues Tuesday and openly criticized Attorney General Kathleen Kane for not prosecuting the legislators caught taking stacks of cash during a sting operation launched by Kane’s predecessors in office. Kane has said the case was irretrievably damaged, offering a variety of reasons […]

INTELLIGENCER JOURNAL / SUNDAY NEWS

However, it is apparent from articles in the weekday, repeated in the Sunday paper, and now in the form of a Tuesday editorial that the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. (LNP) is engaged in an effort to improve its local image by trotting out the worthy works of its predecessors.

McCord, GOP in dustup over Corbett criticism

But the back-and-forth between Corbett and McCord is increasingly strident and bordering on the personal. It comes at a time McCord has just aired his first two TV commercials, including a 60-second ad that rips Corbett as behaving like a “wholly owned subsidiary” of the natural gas drilling industry and says Corbett “has no sense of what’s going on in working families.”

Banks pay out $100bn in US fines

FINANCIAL TIMES: Wall Street banks and their foreign rivals have paid out $100bn in US legal settlements since the financial crisis, according to Financial Times research, with more than half of the penalties extracted in the past year. The sum reflects a substantial shift in political attitudes towards banks, as regulators and the Obama administration […]

The Gates Foundation lobbies for government to collect data on college graduate lives

BREITBART: A study released by the Gates Foundation is promoting a system that would track the careers of college graduates long after they receive their degrees, attacking the National Association for Independent Colleges and Universities for promoting laws that prevent up-close surveillance of students by the government… While private institutions and some states keep these […]

Chinese kin of Flight MH370 passengers protest at Malaysian Embassy

“The logic, I think, is that as long as it’s directed at the Japanese government or the Malaysian government, it is OK, but it shall not be tolerated if it’s directed at the Chinese government even if the demands are reasonable,” Zhang said. “We still agree the family members have every right and freedom to express themselves, but it is a shame for the government to have such double standards,” he said…