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New data to be released Thursday show that nearly 270,000 homes across the United States were repossessed by banks in the second quarter alone. A 38 percent jump from the second quarter of 2009, the data puts the U.S. on track to reach more than one million foreclosures this year. “The growing supply of lender-owned properties could set back the nation’s housing recovery but probably won’t sink it completely,” according to experts who spoke to the Los Angeles Times. With government tax incentives for buyers expiring in recent months, sales of homes have fallen across the country. Nearly 900,000 foreclosure notices, the first stage of the repossession process, were filed on U.S. homes over the past three months. “What is happening is that the number of loans that are going into delinquency is abating, but the number of loans that are moving through the foreclosure process is rising,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s. Regulators have been pushing banks to get rid of the troubled loans that have piled up since the housing crisis started, according to Bert Ely, an independent banking consultant. “And the sense is that, in most markets, we are through the worst of it to the extent the economy improves at all,” he said. Which markets aren’t safe? California will probably remain at the center of the crisis, said Rick Sharge, RealtyTrac senior vice president. Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Florida are the other states with the highest rates of foreclosures, according to the Associated Press.
Source: The Los Angeles Times
Shahram Amiri, the Iranian scientist who recently returned home after claiming that he had been kidnapped and tortured by United States intelligence officers, was paid $5 million by the CIA for information concerning his country’s nuclear program, according to a report from the Washington Post. “Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the financial sanctions on Iran,” a U.S. official said. “He’s gone now, but his money’s not. We have his information, and the Iranians have him,” the official added, ominously. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, several U.S. officials speculated that Amiri probably arrived at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington wanting to return home immediately because he feared the Iranian government would hurt his family. His decision to leave “stunned U.S. officials who said he had been working with the U.S. intelligence agency for more than a year,” the Post reported. When Amiri, 32, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last year, Iran accused the United States of kidnapping him. The United States denied the allegations, and earlier this year, ABC News reported that Amiri had voluntarily defected to the United States and was feeding the CIA information about Iran’s nuclear program. Before leaving, though, Amiri sided with the Iranian account, telling a state-run television station that he was abducted and faced “psychological warfare and pressure that are much worse than being in prison” over the past 14 months, CNN reported. While the $5 million payout may seem steep, one official told the Post that Amiri’s intelligence was worth the price. “The support is keyed to what the person’s done, including how their material has checked out over time,” the official said. “You don’t give something for nothing.”
Source: Reuters
Brazil, Estonia, Australia and Norway are the only four countries who have given any money to Haiti six months after an earthquake devastated the island nation. During an aid conference back in March, donors promised to help the country to rebuild with more than $5 billion, but less than two percent of that money has made its way to Haiti, according to a CNN investigation. Because of a lengthy congressional appropriations process, the United States has delivered $0 of the $1.15 billion it pledged. “I’m going to call all those governments and say, the ones who said they’ll give money to support the Haitian government, I want to try to get them to give the money, and I’m trying to get the others to give me a schedule for when they’ll release it,” President Bill Clinton told Anderson Cooper earlier this week. He blamed the worldwide economic crisis for the slow response. Spain, Canada, France and Venezuela are also among the countries that have pledged money but delivered none of it. “Compared with other disasters, coordination systems in Haiti have actually functioned reasonably well,” U.N. spokesman Farham Haq said Wednesday. “But within that constraint, what we’ve been trying to do is coordinate the aid responses as best as we can, and we are trying to provide food as quickly as possible.” Private donations, which are not tied to government pledges, have kept aid organizations working since the earthquake struck, killing more than 200,000 Haitians and injuring another 300,000-plus.
Source: CNN
As part of the Affordable Care Act, insurance plans created after September 23 of this year will include free preventative care services. Speaking at George Washington University Hospital with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Dr. Jill Biden and other health care professionals, Michelle Obama announced the new guidelines Wednesday. “One of the services provided under the new guidelines, obesity screenings, directly impacts the first lady’s signature issue, the Let’s Move campaign to prevent childhood obesity,” CNN reported. In addition to obesity screenings, the guidelines also require insurance plans created after they go into effect to cover copayments and other fees for screenings for diabetes, breast and colon cancer and other ailments. The plans will also cover tetanus shots as well as tests for blood pressure and cholesterol. “I never would have thought to ask for a [body mass index] screening myself. You know, I was like any mother, my kids were perfect. They still are,” Obama said. “And that’s how most parents think. It’s hard to recognize the problem early enough.” The new guidelines will help parents to recognize problems early as they also require insurance plans to cover regular visits to a pediatrician, immunizations, developmental assessments and vision and hearing screenings for children. Americans who decide to stay on their existing plans after the Affordable Care Act goes into effect will not be entitled to receive free preventative services.
Source: CNN
Bringing in considerably more than expected, Roy Rogers’ stuffed and mounted horse sold for $266,500 to a Nebraska-based cable TV network. RFD-TV, which says that Rogers is representative of the company’s values, purchased the movie cowboy’s sidekick, Trigger, at a Christie’s auction in New York City on Wednesday. The network hopes to eventually start its own Western musuem. Until then, Trigger, which was preserved by Rogers back in 1965, will sit in the company lobby. ”It came to our attention a little too late,” said network owner Patrick Gottsch, who wanted to purchase the entire Rogers collection. “By the time we lined up the right financing and kind of got our arms around the value of the collection, it was literally 24 hours ago.” Gottsch’s network primarily airs agricultural, country living and equine programming. Once displayed in the now-closed Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum, Trigger was only one of more than 1,000 items included in the auction. “Auctioneer Cathy Elkies said it was the ‘most colorful, emotional and sentimental’ sale she had experienced in her 20 years at Christie’s,” the Associated Press reported. “Many of the bidders in the packed hall came in Western attire and cowboy boots, and there were more than a few tears.” Among those crying was Roy Jr., Rogers’ son, who told the crowd how difficult it was to part with his father’s belongings. “We hope you get a piece of Roy and Dale and take it home and you’ll get to pass it on to your children,” he said.
Source: The Associated Press
When Apple announced that it would be holding a special press conference on Friday, Twitter immediately lit up with speculation about a new product launch. Afterall, most new Apple products have been announced by CEO Steve Jobs under similar conditions. But, as one Gawker writer pointed out, Friday afternoon, right before the weekend hits, is the best time for companies to announce bad news. Without giving out any additional details, Apple Inc. acknowledged that the press conference would be about the iPhone 4, the company’s latest product, which has been plagued by criticism over problems associated with its antenna design. Consumer Reports recently retracted its recommendation of the phone. ”Given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4, it’s going to be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone,” Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research, told the Wall Street Journal. Given that the antenna problem doesn’t affect safety, a full recall of the iPhone is unlikely. “But financial analysts said Apple could give away its $29 rubber ‘bumper’ cases, which they said would solve the antenna reception problem,” the Journal reported. “Analysts estimate that such action would cost Apple $1 to $5 a phone.” The press conference, which was first announced on Wednesday, will be held at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
A day after leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met to pass a resolution that condemns the tea party, a grassroots anti-tax political movement, for tolerating racism among its members, CNN contributor Roland Martin invited a Tea Party Express spokesman onto The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Mark Williams, “asked to tell racists ‘you’re not welcome’ in the tea party,” the Huffington Post reported, “replied ‘Racists have their own movement. It’s called the NAACP.’” On the show, which aired Wednesday night, Williams accused Martin of driving racist people to tea party events by talking about the issue consistently on the air, by convincing them that tea party events are where they will “find a happy home.” “You’re not going to lie on CNN. I never said that,” Martin responded. “I have said consistently, the Tea Party people have an absolute right to assemble, to protest. But what I have said, there is no room in that movement for racists. And what I’ve said is, you should come out and say you’re not welcome here.” That’s when Williams broke in to call the NAACP a racist organization, adding that members are “a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color.” “That’s nonsense,” Martin responded before Blitzer broke in to end the heated debate. The Huffington Post has video of the exchange on its website.
Source: The Huffington Post
Despite continuing to deny any involvement in the sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year, North Korean officials have agreed to meet with members of the United States-led United Nations Command to discuss the incident. “The UN Command enforces the armistice that ended the Korean War nearly 60 years ago; talks between it and North Korea are used to help ease tensions,” the BBC reported. These talks, the result of months of disagreements between both nations on the Korean peninsula and various members of the United Nations Security Council, are meant to lead to higher-level talks between military officers. South Korea, which blamed its neighbor to the north of sinking the Cheonan and killing the 46 sailors onboard after a months-long investigation, expects that Pyongyang will continue to deny involvement when North Korea’s Colonel Pak Ki-yong meets with U.S. Colonel Kurt Taylor in the border village of Panmunjom. “A statement from the UN Security Council, released last week, praised South Korean ‘restraint’ over the incident,” the BBC reported. “But it did not explicity condemn North Korea — in a move correspondents say was a means of security Chinese support for the statement.” China, which holds permanent veto power on the Security Council, is allied with North Korea and has supported the country in its condemnation of forthcoming joint naval exercises by South Korea and the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit South Korea next week with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “discuss and likely approve” the exercises, which are meant to “send a clear message of deterrence to North Korea.”
Source: BBC
A British court today released a mass of classified documents dealing with the government’s handling of British Guantánamo detainees as part of a lawsuit brought by six former detainees. The 900 pages of documents so far released are heavily redacted, and barely scratch the surface of the 500,000 documents the government says it’s obliged to release under a disclosure order imposed by Britain’s high court. Still, the Guardian reports, the documents provide a rare snapshot of the internal deliberations that led to Britain’s Labour leaders decision to support the transport of British nationals to Guantánamo and include new details about the apparent mistreatment of one detainee who was reportedly blinded in one eye during an interrogation. “They also appear to show how little regard was given within the government to the illegality of its own actions,” the newspaper notes. The documents’ release came as a High Court judge ruled that the detainee’s lawsuit should be allowed to proceed, over-ruling the government’s request that the hearings be suspended so an independent inquiry into the detainee’s alleged torture could get under way.
Source: The Guardian
