Everyone knows how loose mortgage underwriting led to the go-go days of multitrillion-dollar subprime lending. What isn’t well known is that a parallel subprime market has emerged over the past year — all made possible by the Federal Housing Administration. This also won’t end happily for taxpayers or the housing market. Last year banks issued $180 billion of new mortgages insured by the FHA, which means they carry a 100% taxpayer guarantee. Many of these have the same characteristics as subprime loans: low downpayment requirements, high-risk borrowers, and in many cases shady mortgage originators. FHA now insures nearly one of every three new mortgages, up from 2% in 2006.
A Pennsylvania Democrat who’s considering running against party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter next year, Rep. Joe Sestak, is miffed at the decision by President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders to back Specter in any Democratic primary fight. “I’m kind of disappointed in the Democratic political establishment in Washington, DC,” Rep. Joe Sestak said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
48 year old woman, painting her nails while driving, runs over female motorcyclist killing her.
As she rode her motorcycle in the Lake Zurich area Saturday afternoon, Anita Zaffke stopped for a yellow light. The motorist behind her didn’t, police said, because she was painting her fingernails. Zaffke, 56, of Lake Zurich, suffered fatal injuries when she was struck by a car about 5:30 p.m., Lake County Coroner Richard Keller said.
Often, when the skies above Kanesville Elementary School are clear, children on recess can look up and see a fighter jet from nearby Hill Air Force Base slicing a sharp white contrail into the blue. Some of those jets have cut similar trails across Afghan skies. And that’s as close as most of this suburban school’s students will ever come to the ongoing battle in south Asia. But the war flew much closer to home on Wednesday. In a morning assembly before hundreds of teary-eyed students, a stoic 6-year-old named Jase Spargur accepted the Silver Star — the U.S. military’s third-highest medal for valor — on behalf of his fallen father.
Persistent four year old girl saves mother from likely death.
Persistent efforts by a panicked four-year-old girl to get help to her bloodied, unconscious mother are being hailed as heroic by city police and neighbours. Last night, the condition of the mother — a woman in her 30s initially found clinging to life in her Maitland Pl. N.E. home yesterday — was upgraded to serious but stable. Insp. Rob Williams said the impressive actions of her child to find help likely gave the woman, thought to be injured in a domestic attack, the best chance of survival.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Investigators were searching Monday for a 3-year-old boy kidnapped by two gunmen who broke into his family’s home, tied up his mother and his four siblings, and stole property, authorities said. The California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert late Sunday for 3-year-old Briant Rodriguez, about nine hours after he was taken from his San Bernardino home.
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Pregnant British woman facing death by firing squad for drug smuggling in Laos.
A pregnant British woman facing possible execution in Laos will go on trial this week, the country’s foreign affairs ministry said Monday. Samantha Orobator “is facing death by firing squad for drug trafficking,” said Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve, a London-based human rights group. Orobator, 20, was arrested on August 5, said Khenthong Nuanthasing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman.
Going green isn’t easy, especially during a recession. For two years, the city of Durango, Colo., bought electricity for all its government buildings from wind farms. The City Council ended that program this year, reverting to electricity derived from coal-burning plants and saving the cash-strapped city about $45,000. “It’s very hard for us to lay off an employee to justify green power,” City Manager Ron LeBlanc said. “Those are the trade-offs you have to face.” Across the country, government agencies are either cutting or shrinking programs that use or fund renewable energy projects. Green power — from wind farms, solar power or other renewable energy sources — remains more expensive than traditional power sources.
A woman is recovering in hospital after being shot by her husband in a freak accident beside a fishing lake. Mandy Hudson, 49, was walking with husband Jon, 47, when he stumbled down a rabbit hole and his shotgun went off. She was blasted in the ankle at close range at around 7.30am on Saturday at Bromeswell Lakes near Woodbridge, Suffolk.
Europeans squealing about the U.S. having too much control over the internet.
The United States has too much control over the Internet and needs to give it up, a European Union bureaucrat declared Monday. EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, a Luxembourgian, called for “full privatization” of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), demanding that it be removed from the supervision of the U.S. Department of Commerce when its operating agreement expires on Sept. 30. “In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world,” said Reding in a statement.
Man purchased old book at antique sale, thinks it may contain original Dr. Pepper recipe.
Poking through antiques stores while traveling through the Texas Panhandle, Bill Waters stumbled across a tattered old ledger book filled with formulas. He bought it for $200, suspecting he he could resell it for five times that. Turns out, his inkling about the book’s value was more spot on than he knew. The Tulsa, Okla., man eventually discovered the book came from the Waco, Texas, drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented and includes a recipe titled “D Peppers Pepsin Bitters.”
Postal Service customers who shell out extra bucks to send letters by priority mail aren’t getting their money’s worth, the Daily News has found. The special-delivery service costs more than 10 times as much as first-class mail, but doesn’t get a letter to its destination any faster in many cases. (snip) Even the cash-strapped Postal Service admits that paying $4.95 for a flat-rate priority envelope won’t guarantee faster delivery than a 42-cent stamp.
Quote of the day.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
-Mark Twain
[Think Obama….ed]