April 17 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp has reached a record $500 million settlement with investors who claimed they were misled by its Countrywide unit into buying risky mortgage debt.

The settlement is the largest to resolve federal class-action litigation over mortgage-backed securities, surpassing a $315 million accord with the bank's Merrill Lynch unit that won court approval last May.

Bank of America said the settlement resolves claims on about 80 percent of the unpaid principal balance of Countrywide-issued residential mortgage-backed securities, and 70 percent of similar claims against the bank overall.

Demonstrators from MoveOn.org and Working America picket against federal budget cuts outside John Boehner's office in West Chester, Ohio. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

The country’s largest non-union workers’ group will soon announce plans to establish chapters in every state, achieve financial self-sufficiency and extend its organizing—so far focused on politics and policy—directly into the workplace.

“This organization has done really what nobody else thought could be done,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told The Nation, “and that’s recruit more than three million people without a union to be part of the labor movement.”

That organization is Working America, the AFL-CIO affiliate for workers without a union on the job. Created ten ye ... Read more »

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00 By Dean Baker, Truthout | Op-Ed

Since the Oklahoma City in 1995 where Timothy McVeigh used a homemade truck bomb with two tons of fertilizer, racing fuel and a blasting cap to destroy the federal building and kill 167 people, there have been a dozen domestic bombings where domestic or foreign-born attackers have sought to tried to kill people to send a message. 

These bombing are distinct from the 34 police officers who have been "murdered by domestic right-wing political extremists” since Oklahoma City, according to the  Southern Poverty Law Center. And they do not include the worst gun massacres in the U.S. since then, which include: Littleton, CO in 1999 (15 dead); Blacksburg, VA in 2007 (32 dead); Ft. Hood, TX in 2009 (12 dead); Tuscon, AZ in 20 ... Read more »

Sahil Kapur - April 16, 2013, 4:52 PM  

Senate Democrats were desperately working Tuesday to keep alive the modest bipartisan legislation to expand mandatory background checks to some gun sales, claiming momentum in public and offering new concessions to skeptical senators in private.

The epic struggle to pass even a minimal tightening of gun laws — a scaled-back version of the universal checks that 90 percent of Americans support — is yet another testament to the power of the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, which opposes the compromise.

The deal announced last Wednesday by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales was supposed to be the breakthrough that secured 60 votes for the cause. It didn’t happen. Democrats conceded Tuesday that they lacked the necessary votes to overcome a filibuster and were seeking to win over fence-sitting senators by consi ... Read more »