By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans learned early Thursday that they will be able to kill language in a measure altering President Barack Obama’s newly enacted health care overhaul, meaning the bill will have to return to the House for final congressional approval.

It appeared initially that deleting the provisions, dealing with Pell grants for low-income students, should not cause major problems for Democrats hoping to rush the bill to Obama and avoid prolonging what has been a politically painful ordeal for the party. Democrats described the situation as a minor glitch, but did not rule out that Republicans might be able to remove additional sections of the bill.

by Luke Mullins, provided byUSNews.com

Negative equity–what you have when you owe more on your home loan than the property is worth–is one of the defining features of the still-unfolding mortgage crisis. It’s a particularly nasty problem because it can lead to all sorts of unpleasant outcomes for the real estate market and the economy as a whole.

Having negative equity, which is also known as being “underwater” on a mortgage, makes homeowners more likely to end up in foreclosure. It restricts a borrower’s ability to refinance or buy another home, which in turn stifles demand for housing. It even reduces the flexibility of the labor market, since underwater homeowners are less willing to leave town to take a different job, says Stan Humphries, the chief economist at Zillow.

Mar 2, 6:21 AM (ET) By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON (AP) – More than a year after Lehman Brothers’ collapse set off a financial panic, Senate negotiators appear close to resolving a narrow dispute that was holding up broad legislation to set new rules for Wall Street.

At issue was whether a government consumer watchdog should be free from bank regulators to write rules that govern everything from credit card and overdraft fees to payday loans and mortgages.

After a flurry of offers and counter proposals over the past three days, the Senate Banking Committee was closing in on a deal that would house a government consumer entity inside the Federal Reserve but give it autonomous power to write regulations, three people familiar with the talks told the Associated Press Monday night.

Associated Press Writer Kristin M. Hall
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – Soldiers and their families on Army bases around the country could see cutbacks in trash pickup, lawn-mowing and other services as the military tries to hold down non-war spending while escalating the fight in Afghanistan.

Even as total defense spending rises, the portion of the Army budget dedicated to running its bases is down 20 percent this year, according to figures provided to The Associated Press by an Army official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about them.

The budgets for individual bases are not yet final. But the proposed cuts vary in size and run as deep as 40 percent at some major installations, including Fort Campbell, according to the figures.

By Christopher Booker Published: 6:10PM GMT 28 Nov 2009

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

A week after my colleague James Delingpole , on his Telegraph blog, coined the term “Climategate” to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney.com senior writer

The same economic pressures that pushed California to the brink of insolvency are wreaking havoc on other states, a new report has found.

And how state officials deal with their fiscal problems could reverberate across the United States, according to the Pew Center on the States’ analysis released Wednesday.

The 10 most troubled states are: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Other states — including Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, New York and Hawaii — were not far behind.

The list is based on several factors, including the loss of state revenue, size of budget gaps, unemployment and foreclosure rates, poor money management practices, and state laws governing the passage of budgets.

Oct 8, 6:42 AM (ET) By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

WASHINGTON (AP) – Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief after a positive cost report on health care overhaul gave them a chance to rally around a Senate plan that significantly expands coverage while trimming the federal deficit.

The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the latest version of the Senate Finance Committee proposal would expand coverage to 94 percent of all eligible Americans at a 10-year cost of $829 billion.

The budget umpires added that the legislation would reduce federal deficits by $81 billion over a decade and could lead to continued reductions in federal red ink in the years beyond.

Sep 10, 5:53 AM (ET) By JEANNINE AVERSA

WASHINGTON (AP) – The recession is ending and the economy is finally growing again. That’s the message implicit in the Federal Reserve’s latest survey of businesses around the country, which found economic activity stabilizing or improving in most regions.

Economists warn the expansion is fragile and will have staying power only if consumers start spending more money. Rising unemployment that keeps Americans cautions could make for a plodding recovery in the months ahead.

All but one of the Fed’s 12 regions indicated economic activity either was “stable,” showed “signs of stabilization” or had “firmed,” according to the Fed’s survey. The one exception was the St. Louis region, which reported the economic decline is “moderating.”