AFP - Scores of flatbed trucks began unloading a huge oil drilling machine Friday to dig a third rescue tunnel to 33 trapped miners, as one drill was nearly one-third of the way down and another lay idle for repairs.
Reuters - The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that downside risks to global recovery have intensified due to recent turbulence in sovereign debt markets and continued weakness in the financial sector.
AFP - More than 450 Chrysler bosses including ex-chairman Lee Iacocca sued Daimler AG and Cerberus Friday claiming they lost 100 million dollars in pensions in the automaker's bankruptcy.
AP - Two Seattle-area men pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges stemming from an illegal tax shelter that enabled wealthy clients — including philanthropist Robert Wood Johnson IV and Hollywood mogul Haim Saban — to avoid paying taxes on $1.3 billion in capital gains.
Reuters - Investors are using options to brace for big swings next week as Wall Street enters the peak of the most volatile month for stocks historically.
AP - PAY CZAR: The Obama administration said Friday it had picked Patricia Geoghegan, a Treasury Department lawyer, to replace Kenneth Feinberg as the government's pay czar.
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — The United States faces a more homegrown, hard-to-predict terrorist threat today than it did nine years ago, and the U.S. government isn't well-equipped to understand it, an expert panel said Friday.
Reuters - The Dow and S&P 500 closed the week with their seventh gain in eight sessions in a turnaround period for stocks that has seen investors' worst fears about the economy start to dissipate.
Reuters - The Treasury Department has selected Patricia Geoghegan to replace Kenneth Feinberg as the "pay czar" overseeing compensation at companies bailed out by the government.
Alaska is among 32 states that have won an agreement from Publishers Clearing House to modify its marketing to avoid misleading consumers into thinking they are sweepstakes winners, the Department of Law said today.
AP - President Barack Obama elevated his longtime adviser Austan Goolsbee to chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers on Friday, signaling his determination to stand by an economic team that has faced criticism for the slow pace of the recovery.
AP - A Texas mother who witnesses said pulled a gun on a seventh-grade volleyball team says she merely waved her finger and never threatened the players.
AP - The Justice Department says it will not seek the death penalty against four current or former New Orleans police officers charged in deadly shootings on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina.
AP - Iran's state news agency has confirmed that Tehran has postponed the planned release of an American woman who has been jailed for more than a year.
AP - Nearly two decades after Holly Washa was raped, tortured and murdered by an Oregon convict who had skipped out on his parole, her family is satisfied that the killer has been put to death, but they question why it took so long.
AP - U.S. Rep. Sanford of Georgia says he did nothing wrong when he awarded a scholarship to his stepdaughter in 2003 through the nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
AP - A land swap that will bring a Revolutionary War museum to Philadelphia and preserve 78 acres of land at nearby Valley Forge was heralded as a victory by those on both sides of what had been a contentious battle over the historic battlefield.
AP - Investigators searched the smoldering rubble of a quiet, middle-class neighborhood tucked into the hills overlooking San Francisco on Friday, looking for answers to why a gas line ruptured and fed a giant fireball that killed at least four people.
AP - Facing big Democratic losses in November, President Barack Obama blamed Republicans and election-year politics Friday for thwarting his efforts to do more to spur a listless national economy. He challenged Congress to quit squabbling and quickly approve "what we all agree on" — a reprieve for expiring tax cuts for the middle class.
AP - Facing big Democratic losses in November, President Barack Obama blamed Republicans and election-year politics Friday for thwarting his efforts to do more to spur a listless national economy. He challenged Congress to quit squabbling and quickly approve "what we all agree on" — a reprieve for expiring tax cuts for the middle class.
AP - For almost a decade, the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was marked by somber reflection and a call to unity, devoid of politics. Not this time.
AP - Elated by a major court victory, gay-rights activists are stepping up pressure on Congress to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy this month. They want to avoid potentially lengthy appeals and fear their chances for a legislative fix will fade after Election Day.
Politico - The Susan B. Anthony List is looking to build a conservative firewall for Kelly Ayotte this weekend to hedge any late momentum by surging Ovide Lamontagne in the New Hampshire GOP Senate primary.
AP - A 25-year-old soldier from Iowa who exposed himself to enemy gunfire to try to save two fellow soldiers will become the first living service member from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the Medal of Honor, the White House announced Friday.
AP - The son of a pastor who suspended plans to burn copies of the Quran to mark the 9/11 anniversary says Islam's holiest text will not be torched at their Florida church Saturday.
AP - The blue-collar suburb of Bell, already under investigation for possible misuse of funds and voter fraud, is also facing a federal probe into whether it violated the civil rights of Hispanics by deliberately targeting their cars for towing, officials said Friday.
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — Lonny and Robin Kocina started their business in the laundry room of their house more than 20 years ago, and they now employ about 45 people. However, they worry that Washington lawmakers are about to stifle their effort to keep their business growing.
AP - President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money. Now, he's hemming and hawing on that.
Reuters - Fidel Castro said on Friday his recent comment that communist-led Cuba's economic model does not work was badly understood and that what he really meant was that capitalism does not work.
The Christian Science Monitor - The extraordinary popularity of the television series "Mad Men," which recently won its third consecutive Emmy for Best Drama, suggests an interesting and important shift in Americansâ attitudes toward our culture and history. That shift may have profound, if so far subtle, political implications.
States are intensifying theirefforts to confront the challenge of winnowing down budget shortfalls by raising sales tax rates, increasing the number of items taxed, and more aggressively asserting nexus.
Reuters - President Barack Obama accused Republicans on Friday of holding the middle class hostage and defended his efforts to stimulate the sluggish economy as he tries to reverse grim election prospects for his fellow Democrats in November.
AFP - US President Barack Obama said Friday the "hole" left by the worst recession in decades was "huge" and admitted the recovery had been "painfully slow," but vowed his policies were working.
AP - An idled tour boat and nearby vessels made repeated, unanswered calls to the tugboat guiding the massive barge that hit and sank the smaller craft in the Delaware River, killing two Hungarian students, according to a preliminary federal report released Friday.
U.S. News & World Report - While the nation's real estate crash has been a nightmare for homeowners, it has created some outstanding opportunities for would-be buyers. Home prices in 20 major cities dropped 33 percent from the summer of 2006 to the spring of 2009--and in certain markets, the plunge was even steeper. At the same time, the federal government's efforts to revive the housing market have helped drive financing costs to record lows. Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates fell to an average of 4.32 percent for the week ending September 2. That's the lowest level in nearly 40 years of record-keeping. ...
Reuters - President Barack Obama on Friday named a member of his inner circle as top White House economist and gave a strong personal endorsement to a leading candidate to run his new consumer protection bureau.
Reuters - President Barack Obama on Friday named a member of his inner circle as top White House economist and gave a strong personal endorsement to a leading candidate to run his new consumer protection bureau.
Reuters - All candidates vying to be the next so-called Sheriff of Wall Street say they will find the bad apples without overturning the applecart in the financial capital's fragile economic recovery.
AP - A surgical team amputated the arm of a conductor Friday to free him from the wreckage of a locomotive that struck a slow-moving freight train on tracks 50 miles east of Los Angeles.
Reuters - Wholesale inventories surged the most in two years in July, adding to signs that economic growth in the third quarter of the year may prove a bit stronger than many forecasters had expected.
Reuters - Wholesale inventories surged the most in two years in July, adding to signs that economic growth in the third quarter of the year may prove a bit stronger than many forecasters had expected.
AP - Swiss police say they may have to change tactics in their hunt for a fugitive gunman who shot and seriously wounded one officer in the western city of Biel.
AP - The U.S. was slow to take seriously the threat posed by homegrown radicals and the government has failed to put systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon, according to a new report compiled by the former heads of the Sept. 11 Commission.