Yahoo! News: Politics News

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• Congress approves $9.7 billion in Sandy flood aid
• Ex-Rep. Frank on Senate seat: Put me in, governor
• U.S. regulator sues JPMorgan over WaMu mortgage securities
• Former Representative Giffords visits town of school shooting
• Fed's Bullard: Central banks have let independence slip
• CBO: 'Cliff' deal leaves big deficits in place
• PM Note: Cabinetology, Romney Got… 47 Percent, Barney Wants a Senate Seat, The Trillion Dollar Coin Obsession
• U.S. missile teams in Turkey, missiles come later
• Italy's Monti unveils alliance, rules out minister role
• Fed officials eye timeline for ending asset purchases
• Central banks still hold all the cards
• Obama '08 campaign fined $375,000 by FEC
• U.S. to continue helicopter purchase even if only 1 bidder
• FDA proposes sweeping new food safety rules
• Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows
• Leaders of Sudan, South Sudan start talks to defuse tension
• Clearwire investor seeks to block sale to Sprint
• S&P 500 finishes at 5-year high on economic data
• U.S. public schools cut 11,000 jobs in December
• Exclusive: U.S. House panel probes SEC spending on consultants
• New ND lawmaker 1 of many drafting drone measures
• Canada meets key aboriginal demand amid blockades
• Fed's Plosser sees lasting blow to potential growth rate
• Supreme Court to hear American Indian adoption case
• Idaho Senator Mike Crapo admits to drunken driving
• New rule could turn U.S. hedge funds into informers
• New food safety rules aim for more accountability
• Court faults EPA for Bush-era soot regulations
• Congress approves some Sandy storm relief amid anger over delay
• US criticizes Cambodia over Rainsy election ban
• Idaho senator pleads guilty to DWI charge in Va.
• U.S. senators seek probe into royalties on coal exports
• Italy PM Monti says not eyeing role of finance minister in next government
• At least two New Jersey school districts hire armed guards
• Pakistani girl shot by Taliban leaves British hospital
• Petition Calls for Biden Reality Show
• Supreme Court to review judge's role in plea talks
• "Nobody helped us for an hour:" Indian rape witness

Congress approves $9.7 billion in Sandy flood aid Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:34 PM PST The new Congress on Friday rushed out $9.7 billion to help pay flood insurance claims to 115,000 people and businesses afflicted by Superstorm Sandy, two days after New Jersey's governor and other Northeast Republicans upbraided Speaker John Boehner for killing a broader package for state and local governments in the storm's path.

Ex-Rep. Frank on Senate seat: Put me in, governor Posted: 04 Jan 2013 11:03 AM PST BOSTON (AP) — Newly retired Rep. Barney Frank revealed on Friday that he would like to serve as a temporary successor to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the secretary of state nominee.

U.S. regulator sues JPMorgan over WaMu mortgage securities Posted: 04 Jan 2013 03:08 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. credit union regulator sued JPMorgan and Washington Mutual late Friday over $2.2 billion in mortgage securities sold to credit unions that collapsed because of losses from the securities. The suit is the third the regulator, the National Credit Union Administration, has filed against JPMorgan involving mortgage losses, and the second in the past month. In December, it sued the bank over $3.6 billion in securities sold by Bear Stearns, which JPMorgan acquired during the financial crisis. In June 2011, the NCUA sued over some $1. ...

Former Representative Giffords visits town of school shooting Posted: 04 Jan 2013 03:01 PM PST NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a mass shooting in her Arizona district two years ago, visited Newtown, Connecticut, on Friday to meet with families of the victims of last month's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Giffords arrived at Newtown's town hall and met with First Selectman Pat Llodra, the town's top elected official, and School Superintendent Janet Robinson, who hugged her. "How horrible," Giffords said as she embraced the superintendent, according to the Danbury News-Times. Then Giffords and a small entourage, including ...

Fed's Bullard: Central banks have let independence slip Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:55 PM PST SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The world's central banks have sacrificed some of their cherished independence as a result of fiscal-like policies undertaken to repair the damage of the global financial crisis, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Friday, calling the ECB one of the worst offenders. James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, described the European Central Bank's bond-buying program as a "fiscalization" of monetary policy, and said it had weakened the ECB's response to the European recession. ...

CBO: 'Cliff' deal leaves big deficits in place Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:52 PM PST The nonpartisan scorekeeper for Congress says the legislation passed earlier this week to avert the "fiscal cliff" could still leave in place deficits averaging more than $900 billion a year over the coming decade if Congress fails to follow its tax increases up with spending cuts.

PM Note: Cabinetology, Romney Got… 47 Percent, Barney Wants a Senate Seat, The Trillion Dollar Coin Obsession Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:51 PM PST Gaining in Popularity Today – A C-SPAN Joe Biden Reality Show – There's a White House petition so it must be serious – http://abcn.ws/1105D3d Running Out of Steam – E Plurbus Trillion - The strange myth of the trillion dollar coin continues to circulate. Greg...

U.S. missile teams in Turkey, missiles come later Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:51 PM PST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers who will man Patriot anti-missile batteries to protect Turkey from the spillover of Syria's civil war began arriving in the country on Friday, the U.S. military said, but the missiles themselves are due later. Turkey formally asked NATO for the missiles in November to bolster security along its 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria, which has been torn by a 21-month insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad. ...

Italy's Monti unveils alliance, rules out minister role Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:41 PM PST ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Friday unveiled the alliance he will lead into February's parliamentary election and said he was unlikely to agree to serve as a minister in another premier's cabinet after the vote. The 69-year-old former European commissioner, who replaced Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister in November 2011 when Italy was scrambling to avert a financial crisis, announced last week that he would run for a second term. ...

Fed officials eye timeline for ending asset purchases Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:37 PM PST SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve could halt its asset purchases this year if the economy improves and unemployment drops, two top Fed officials said on Friday, a view seconded by most economists at Wall Street's top financial institutions. Meanwhile, another top Fed official warned the U.S. central bank's aggressive easing plan threatens the Fed's credibility. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, a voting member of the Fed's monetary policy panel this year, said a drop in the unemployment rate to 7. ...

Central banks still hold all the cards Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:32 PM PST LONDON (Reuters) - If the opening salvos of 2013 tell investors anything, it's to keep their eyes fixed on the world's central banks rather than its more volatile politicians or even spluttering economies. Given the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest musings on Thursday about how long it can safely sustain its current super-easy monetary policy, that's not as unambiguously positive as it proved over the past 18 months. ...

Obama '08 campaign fined $375,000 by FEC Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:30 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign has been fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for reporting violations related to a set of donations received during the final days of the campaign.

U.S. to continue helicopter purchase even if only 1 bidder Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:08 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Friday declined to confirm that it had received only one bid for a $6.8 billion helicopter competition, but said it had procedures in place that would allow the acquisition to continue regardless of the number of bidders. All but one of the contractors expected to bid to build a new combat search and rescue helicopter for the Air Force announced last month that they would not compete, raising the prospect that the Air Force would have to adopt a different approach to the acquisition program. ...

FDA proposes sweeping new food safety rules Posted: 04 Jan 2013 02:08 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens.

Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:59 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — Guest lineups for the Sunday TV news shows:

Leaders of Sudan, South Sudan start talks to defuse tension Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:54 PM PST ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan met late on Friday to try to defuse hostility that has simmered since the south broke away in 2011 and restart cross-border oil flows to rescue their crumbling economies. No details emerged as Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir and South Sudan's Salva Kiir met in the presence of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn who is trying to mediate between the neighbors who came close to war in April. Both leaders will meet alone for the first time at a summit on Saturday, Sudan's state news agency SUNA said. ...

Clearwire investor seeks to block sale to Sprint Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:48 PM PST (Reuters) - A large Clearwire Corp shareholder on Friday stepped up its campaign against the planned sale of the wireless service provider to its majority owner, Sprint Nextel Corp, saying it plans to ask the U.S. telecoms regulator to block the deal. Crest Financial's general counsel also said on a call with reporters that it will ask the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to block Sprint's plan to sell 70 percent of itself to Softbank Corp of Japan for $20 billion. ...

S&P 500 finishes at 5-year high on economic data Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:48 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index ended at a five-year high on Friday, lifted by reports showing employers kept up a steady pace of hiring workers and the vast services sector expanded at a brisk rate. The gains on the S&P 500 pushed the index to its highest close since December 2007 and its biggest weekly gain since December 2011. Most of the gains came early in the holiday-shortened week, including the largest one-day rise for the index in more than a year on Wednesday after politicians struck a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff. ...

U.S. public schools cut 11,000 jobs in December Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:44 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Local U.S. governments cut jobs for the fourth straight month in December, including 11,000 in public schools, dragging down the nation's fragile economic recovery, jobs data showed on Friday. Local government jobs are now at their lowest level since October 2005, with the bulk of the decline coming from layoffs of teachers and other school employees, according to the Labor Department. ...

Exclusive: U.S. House panel probes SEC spending on consultants Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:41 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House Oversight Committee is probing the Securities and Exchange Commission's spending on outside consultants from Booz Allen Hamilton, saying it is concerned about possible waste. In a January 3 letter to SEC Chairman Elisse Walter, shown to Reuters, House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa gave the agency until January 17 to turn over a lengthy set of documents laying out payments made to Booz Allen and details on how the SEC chose to hire the consulting firm, among other matters. ...

New ND lawmaker 1 of many drafting drone measures Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:39 PM PST A freshman lawmaker from North Dakota is one of numerous state legislators around the country suggesting regulations to limit the use of unmanned planes for law enforcement, an effort that's gaining bipartisan support and fostering unlikely political alignments.

Canada meets key aboriginal demand amid blockades Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:38 PM PST OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's prime minister will meet with native leaders next week to discuss social and economic issues, an olive branch to an angry aboriginal movement that has blockaded rail lines and threatened to close Canada's borders with the United States. Stephen Harper made no mention of the aboriginal protests in a statement on Friday announcing the January 11 meeting. But the meeting is a key demand from native Chief Theresa Spence, who has been on a hunger strike for 25 days on an island within sight of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. ...

Fed's Plosser sees lasting blow to potential growth rate Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:33 PM PST SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The United States economy likely suffered a lasting decline in its trend potential growth rate as a result of the severe 2007-2009 U.S. recession, a top official of the Federal Reserve said on Friday. "Any of you who have looked at the data of the most recent ... recession, it certainly looks like we've had a permanent shock," Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, told a panel at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. "The problem is we won't know the answer to that for many years to come. ...

Supreme Court to hear American Indian adoption case Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:26 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Taking up a case described as a "human tragedy," the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal by a couple who were ordered to turn over a 27-month-old girl they had raised since birth to her biological father simply because he was an American Indian. In a brief order, the court accepted the appeal of Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who had been caring for the girl until a family court ordered them to turn her over to her biological father, Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation. ...

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo admits to drunken driving Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:26 PM PST (Reuters) - Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of drunken driving, apologized for breaking his Mormon faith's prohibition against alcohol and asked for public forgiveness. Crapo, who previously had said he doesn't drink, was pulled over on December 23 for running a red traffic signal in Alexandria, Virginia, a Washington suburb. Police arrested the three-term senator after he failed field sobriety tests. ...

New rule could turn U.S. hedge funds into informers Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:18 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. financial regulators are pushing to turn hedge funds into informers on the white collar crime beat. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is working on a rule that would require U.S. hedge funds to file formal reports notifying U.S. authorities of any suspicious trading by employees or outside parties, the regulatory agency said. ...

New food safety rules aim for more accountability Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:18 PM PST (Reuters) - U.S. regulators proposed new food safety rules on Friday that aim to make food processors and farms more accountable for reducing foodborne illnesses that kill or sicken thousands of Americans annually. The new rules, required by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) that was signed into law two years ago, were announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday. "These proposed regulations are a sign of progress," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who has been a critic of the FDA. ...

Court faults EPA for Bush-era soot regulations Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:15 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — An appeals court is siding with environmental groups that had challenged Environmental Protection Agency regulations on soot as too weak.

Congress approves some Sandy storm relief amid anger over delay Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:14 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Congress on Friday approved $9.7 billion in initial relief for victims of Superstorm Sandy, but New York and New Jersey lawmakers seethed over delays in passing the rest of a $60.4 billion federal aid package. The House of Representatives voted 354-67 to keep the National Flood Insurance Program solvent and able to pay claims of thousands of homeowners who suffered flood damage in coastal New York, New Jersey and Connecticut from the October storm. ...

US criticizes Cambodia over Rainsy election ban Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:11 PM PST The U.S. says Cambodia's decision to bar exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy from July elections calls into question the vote's legitimacy.

Idaho senator pleads guilty to DWI charge in Va. Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:09 PM PST ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Michael Crapo pleaded guilty Friday to a charge of driving while intoxicated and then apologized for his actions and asked forgiveness from his constituents.

U.S. senators seek probe into royalties on coal exports Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:06 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two influential U.S. senators have asked the Interior Department to examine whether coal companies are dodging hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments on lucrative sales to Asia, citing a Reuters investigation into the matter. The lawmakers who lead the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee want officials to find out whether miners are short-changing taxpayers when they tap the coal-rich Powder River Basin in eastern Montana and Wyoming. The basin is mainly federal land and so taxpayers are due a share of those sales. ...

Italy PM Monti says not eyeing role of finance minister in next government Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:05 PM PST ROME (Reuters) - Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Friday he was aiming to lead the next government and he was unlikely to agree to be economy minister in another premier's cabinet after February elections. "I do not think I would have the motivation to commit myself to serve a government that did not agree with me on at least 98 percent of policy," he said when asked whether he would consider the role of economy minister in an interview on La 7 television. (Reporting By Catherine Hornby)

At least two New Jersey school districts hire armed guards Posted: 04 Jan 2013 01:01 PM PST (Reuters) - At least two New Jersey school districts this week put armed police guards at the entrance to public schools in the wake of the Connecticut elementary school massacre. In Marlboro Township in central New Jersey's Monmouth County armed guards were on duty on Wednesday to check every child, teacher and visitor as they arrive and leave any of the district's eight schools, which serve children in pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade. ...

Pakistani girl shot by Taliban leaves British hospital Posted: 04 Jan 2013 12:56 PM PST LONDON (Reuters) - A Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls' education has been discharged from a British hospital after doctors said she was well enough to spend time recovering with her family. Fifteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by the Taliban in October and brought to Britain for treatment, was discharged on Thursday but is due to be re-admitted in late January or early February for reconstructive surgery to her skull, doctors said. ...

Petition Calls for Biden Reality Show Posted: 04 Jan 2013 12:56 PM PST Can't get enough of Vice President Joe Biden?  A petition on the White House website  calls for a weekly reality TV featuring Biden at his finest moments. The petition reads, "Vice President Joe Biden has a demonstrated ability to bring people together, whether at the...

Supreme Court to review judge's role in plea talks Posted: 04 Jan 2013 12:53 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether a defendant's guilty plea must automatically be thrown out if the presiding federal judge plays a role in plea negotiations. The case involved the interpretation of federal criminal procedure rules that instruct courts not to participate in such talks, but which say an error can be excused if a defendant's "substantial rights" are not affected. ...

"Nobody helped us for an hour:" Indian rape witness Posted: 04 Jan 2013 12:53 PM PST NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Passers-by left a gang-raped Indian student lying unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour, a male friend who was assaulted with her said on Friday in his first public comments on the case that provoked a global outcry. The 23-year-old student died in hospital two weeks after she was attacked on December 16 in a private bus in New Delhi, prompting street protests over the Indian authorities' failure to stem rampant violence against women. ...

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