Standard & Poor's is paying about $1.38 billion to settle government allegations that it knowingly inflated its ratings of risky mortgage investments that helped trigger the financial crisis, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
The settlement with the U.S. government, 19 states and the District of Columbia covers ratings issued from 2004 through 2007 by the McGraw-Hill subsidiary. It resolves a court fight that began with a government lawsuit two years ago and involved dozens of depositions and hundreds of millions of documents
S&P paying $1.38B to settle charges over crisis-era ratings
Revenge-porn website operator convicted in San Diego
A San Diego man who prosecutors say ran a "revenge porn" website featuring nude pictures of women often posted by jilted ex-lovers was convicted on Monday of identity theft and extortion charges, prosecutors said.
Kevin Boellart, 28, was found guilty on 27 felony counts by a San Diego County Superior jury after 2-1/2 days of deliberation, according to the California Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted the case.
Obama proposes 14 percent tax on U.S. companies' untaxed foreign earnings
President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget would impose a one-time 14 percent tax on some $2 trillion of accumulated U.S. corporate profits earned abroad and set up a 19 percent tax on future foreign earnings, a White House official said on Sunday.
Revenues from the one-time tax be used to fund infrastructure projects and fill a projected shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.
UN says violence in Iraq kills at least 1,375 in January
The United Nations mission to Iraq said Sunday that violence in the country amid the war against the extremist Islamic State group killed at least 1,375 people in January.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, known as UNAMI, put the number of civilians killed at 790, while identifying the rest as security forces members. It said at least 1,469 civilians and 771 security forces members were wounded.
It said the worst affected city was the capital, Baghdad, with 256 civilians killed and 758 wounded.
Second Oil “Bomb Train” Derailment in Philadelphia in One Year
Today the second major oil “bomb train” derailment occurred in Philadelphia, risking residents’ lives, endangering drivers on one of the nation’s busiest highways, I-95, and putting waterways at risk. One year and eleven days ago, early on Martin Luther King Day 2014, seven cars carrying Bakken Shale crude derailed over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia in a “near miss from disaster.”
That derailment put the entire University of Pennsylvania medical complex, the Schuylkill Expressway, the Veterans Administration, Children’s Hospital, and other major institutions at risk, along with a chunk of Philadelphia’s residential population too big to safely evacuate.
NGO: Israel to build 450 new units in West Bank
The Israeli government on Friday published tenders to build 450 settler homes in the West Bank, the head of an NGO that monitors settlement activity told AFP, in what a senior PLO official called a “war crime.” The Housing Ministry denied the tenders were new.
“It’s the opening of the settlement floodgates,” said Daniel Seidemann, head of the Terrestrial Jerusalem group, adding that the announcements were the first since October 2014 and unlikely to be the last before the March 17 general election.
Bomb blast kills scores at Pakistan mosque
An explosion ripped through a Shia mosque in Pakistan on Friday, just as worshippers were gathering for prayers. The blast killed 35 people and wounded dozens more, underscoring a growing tide of sectarian violence in the South Asian nation.
Attacks against religious minorities have been on the rise in Pakistan, where armed Sunni armed groups often target mosques frequented by Shia, whom the groups do not consider to be true Muslims.
Did Fishermen Find Evidence of an Unknown Group of Primitive Humans?
It isn’t everyday that a fisherman’s catch has the potential to alter what we know about extinct species of early humans.
LiveScience reports that a fossilized jawbone discovered in a fishing net off the western coast of Taiwan may belong to a previously unknown form of archaic human that once dwelled in Asia. The lower right mandible, complete with a short row of thick teeth, is thought to be from a hominin that lived between 10,000 and 190,000 years ago.
Former CIA officer convicted of leaking secrets to journalist
A former CIA officer was convicted Monday of leaking classified details of an operation to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions to a New York Times reporter.
Jurors convicted 47-year-old Jeffrey Sterling of O'Fallon, Missouri, of all nine counts he faced in federal court. On the third day of deliberations, the jurors told the judge that they could not reach a unanimous verdict. However, they delivered guilty verdicts later in the afternoon after the judge urged them to keep talking.
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