News

05.06 02:41 LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Angelo Mozilo, who built the largest U.S. mortgage lender, was charged with securities fraud and insider trading on Thursday, making him the most prominent defendant so far in investigations into the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and housing bust.

05.06 01:06 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration stepped up its push for tougher bank and financial firm rules on Thursday, scheduling a briefing for lobbyists, with a focus on insurance oversight, and sending a top regulator to a Senate hearing to discuss plans for regulating derivatives markets.

05.06 00:31 MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. judge said a shipwreck found by an American treasure hunting company is the Spanish warship Mercedes and its loot should be returned to Spain, but the firm said on Thursday it would contest the non-binding decision.

05.06 00:19 CHICAGO (Reuters) - The outbreak of the new H1N1 flu virus has begun to wane with the start of summer in North America, and U.S. health officials said on Thursday they are looking to lessons learned as they prepare for its return in the autumn.

04.06 23:34 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp co-founder Angelo Mozilo and two other former executives at the once-largest U.S. mortgage lender were sued by U.S. stock regulators on Thursday.

04.06 23:27 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An elementary school student has died from the new H1N1 virus in California, the state's third death from the infection, health officials said on Thursday.

04.06 23:18 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Buying food aid closer to where it's needed is usually cheaper and faster, a U.S. government watchdog said on Thursday, but aid donors must be careful not to overwhelm local markets with demand.

04.06 22:53 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Merchants and retailers would be able to negotiate with banks to reduce costs associated with credit card purchases, according to legislation introduced on Thursday by lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives.

04.06 22:46 DALLAS (Reuters) - A man who sent more than 60 threatening letters, all but one laced with white powder, to banks and federal offices last year was sentenced on Thursday to nearly four years in prison.

04.06 21:13 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three Chinese dissidents who spent much of the past 20 years behind bars for marring Mao Zedong's portrait at Tiananmen Square said the students who led that movement have failed to continue the struggle.

04.06 20:25 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Jamie Laird had hoped to retire comfortably some day from the machinist's job he has held for 30 years, but his western Illinois manufacturing plant is closing and he now fears for his family's economic future.

04.06 17:16 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nine people have been indicted on charges of conspiring to defraud Washington Mutual Bank and DLJ Mortgage Capital Inc, a unit of Credit Suisse Group AG, in a $92 million mortgage fraud scheme, prosecutors said on Thursday.

04.06 16:50 MADRID (Reuters) - The government has welcomed a Florida court decision ordering U.S. treasure hunters to return to Spain over 500,000 silver and gold coins raised from the seabed.

04.06 16:29 BENTONVILLE, Arkansas (Reuters) - Discounter Wal-Mart Stores Inc says it will add more than 22,000 jobs in its U.S. namesake stores in 2009.

04.06 15:58 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Jamie Laird had hoped to retire comfortably some day from the machinist's job he has held for 30 years, but his western Illinois manufacturing plant is closing and he now fears for his family's economic future.

04.06 03:12 BOSTON (Reuters) - Harvard University is creating an endowed professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual studies, the first of its kind in the United States and reflecting a rise in sex-related academia nationwide.