Buried deep in the tax returns released by Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign are references to dozens of offshore holdings with names like Ursa Funding (Luxembourg) S.à.r.l. and Sankaty Credit Opportunities Investors (Offshore) IV, based in the Cayman Islands.
Mr. Romney, responding to opponents’ barbs about his use of overseas tax havens, has offered a narrow defense, saying only that the investments, many made through the private equity firm he founded, Bain Capital, have yielded him “not one dollar of reduction in taxes.”
It would be so easy to be cynical about the suit New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman brought Monday night against JPMorgan Chase, seeking to hold the bank liable for the alleged mortgage securitization fraud committed by Bear Stearns before JPMorgan acquired Bear in March 2008. I could start with the political expediency of the 31-page complaint, which, on the eve of the first presidential debate, provides the Obama administration with an answer to critics who have accused regulators of going easy on big banks. Indeed, the case is so politically charged that, according to Reuters, Schneiderman's federal colleagues on the administration's mortgage fraud task force were peeved that the New York AG filed the suit Monday, ahead of a joint federal-state press conference Tuesday.
BEIRUT (AP) — A Hezbollah commander and several fighters have been killed inside Syria, a Lebanese security official said Tuesday, a development that could stoke already soaring tensions over the Lebanese militant group's role in the civil war next door.
Hezbollah's reputation has taken a beating over its support for the Syrian regime, but any sign that the group's fighters are taking part in the battle raises fears that the conflict could expand into a wider fight engulfing the region.
Hezbollah has stood by Syrian President Bashar Assad since the uprising began 18 months ago, even after the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain.
About four months after being defrocked by the Diocese of Camden in 2002, Thomas Harkins had a new job as a security officer, including patting down passengers, with the Transportation Security Administration at Philadelphia International Airport.
The TSA hired the former priest before completing a background check, the agency recently confirmed. According to a church document, the diocese revealed to the TSA in 2003 as part of the background check that Harkins had been removed from ministry because of allegations he had molested two grade-school girls. Harkins was never criminally prosecuted, but the diocese settled civil lawsuits for $195,000.
Feminist writer Naomi Wolf says we’re seeing vaginas 24/7, and she’s not just talking about her latest book, “Vagina, A New Biography.”
There’s the Russian punk-rock band with a bawdy label in its name, sentenced to two years in jail for an unauthorized performance in a cathedral. And Lisa Brown, a Michigan state representative who was banned from speaking on the house floor the day after saying “vagina” during a debate on abortion legislation. Todd Akin, a U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri, claimed that “legitimate rape” victims couldn’t get pregnant, and some women in last year’s Tahrir Square protests in Cairo were subjected to virginity tests.
A top North Korean diplomat lays the blame for unceasing tensions between the Koreas solely on the US. The Korean peninsula is the world’s biggest hotspot, he acknowledged, mentioning thermonuclear conflict as a possibility.
Speaking at the final session of the UN 193-member General Assembly, North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Pak Kil-yon announced that, “Due to the continued US hostile policy towards the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea], the vicious cycle of confrontation and aggravation of tension is an ongoing phenomenon on the Korean Peninsula, which has become the world's most dangerous hotspot where a spark of fire could set off a thermonuclear war."
After World War II the US government dumped millions of kilograms of unexploded bombs into the Gulf of Mexico. This is no secret; many governments dumped their unexploded ordnance into oceans and lakes from 1946 up until the 1970s when it was made illegal under international treaty.
Now that technology has advanced enough for oil companies to drill deep sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, those forgotten payloads have become a real hazard.
(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) employees who say the world's largest retailer's labor practices are unfair voiced their concerns to Wall Street analysts on Monday, claiming that problems like long lines and empty shelves are systemic.
Five employees, two of whom have worked for the chain for more than 20 years, outlined problems they say they see, including unsafe conditions and low wages.
A handful of sell-side analysts turned out to hear from Walmart workers nearly a year after a similar meeting was held near Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Main 
