The government’s $25 billion settlement Thursday with banks over fraudulent foreclosure practices begins a long-promised reckoning with the financial industry over its role in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, officials said.
Floyd Norris pushes back against the claim the falling unemployment rate put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is misleading because it doesn’t count the growing number of people who’ve given up looking for work:
LivingSocial snapped up its latest deal for $3 million: the renovation of a historic Penn Quarter building where it will set up an experimental retail “experience” space.
After a dramatic remodeling of the six-story, 120-year-old former insurance building at 918 F St. NW, the company will host small dinners by big-name chefs, intimate concerts and other productions in an effort to carry it beyond its business model of online daily deals, which some critics say lacks long-term potential.
Italy’s efforts to curb public debt will be for naught unless the nation’s economy starts growing again, Prime Minister Mario Monti said Thursday in calling for Germany and other European nations to turn their focus to economic renewal.
The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee over possible violations of insider-trading laws, according to individuals familiar with the case.
The International Energy Agency Friday shaved its forecast for global oil consumption, citing the slowdown in world economic growth.
The IEA said it expects oil consumption to rise a relatively meager 800,000 barrels a day, or 0.9 percent, in 2012, according to its latest monthly market report. That would be 300,000 barrels a day less than the IEA forecast just a month ago.
With the Justice Department on the cusp of allowing two major acquisition deals among technology companies, the firms involved — including giants Google, Apple and Microsoft — are trying to reassure regulators that their battles over intellectual property won’t harm the industry.
Even before the world knew him as a genius, the FBI had the book on Steve Jobs.
In a 1991 background check, the FBI pegged Apple’s co-founder as brash and unlikable and noted his early drug use.
Most tellingly, the agents, evaluating Jobs for an appointment under President George H.W. Bush, said acquaintances found him to have a peculiarly driven nature.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved a construction and operating license for new nuclear power reactors for the first time since 1978, giving Southern Co. the green light to build two new units at its existing Vogtle site in Georgia.
Only a few employers will take advantage of rules allowing some small businesses to avoid pending health reform measures, rendering the rules relatively obsolete and minimizing their impact on health insurance costs, according to new analysis and simulations conducted by health policy researchers.
The median price of Washington area home sales fell 1 percent to $310,000 in January 2012, compared with the same period a year ago, but segments of the market showed signs of strength, even though overall inventory levels remain limited.
You’ve read how Facebook and Twitter fueled the Arab Spring uprising. You are watching the videos coming out of Syria on Facebook. But most likely you have not witnessed the power of social media impacting politics in near real time right here at home in America. Sure, activism groups and politicians have tapped social media to raise money. But to date, no flash mob has ever stopped a bill in its tracks or beaten down in less than 48-hours legislation pushed by some of the most well-funded, well-connected lobbies on K Street. But that’s exactly what happened on Jan. 20 when a loosely organized campaign to stop PIPA and SOPA swept the Internet and shook the power structure of Washington D.C.
