– Jailed for a MySpace parody, the student who exposed America’s cash for kids scandal (Guardian):
Less than a minute into the hearing the gavel came down. “Adjudicated delinquent!” the judge proclaimed, and sentenced her to three months in a juvenile detention centre. Hillary, who hadn’t even presented her side of the story, was handcuffed and led away. But her mother, Laurene, protested to the local law centre, setting in train a process that would uncover one of the most egregious violations of children’s rights in US legal history.
– Army captain charged with stealing $690000 (AP):
PORTLAND, Oregon – An Army captain accused of stealing nearly $700,000 from the U.S. government while serving in Iraq pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges including theft of government property and money laundering.
– IMF: Fifth of Britain’s GDP spent so far on bailouts (Guardian):
Alistair Darling has already spent almost a fifth of Britain’s GDP on bailing out its shattered banking system – more than any other major economy, according to a grave assessment of the world financial crisis published today by the International Monetary Fund.
– G7 outlook worsens, OECD says (Telegraph):
The outlook for all the world’s major economies worsened in January, and all four BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are now experiencing a “strong slowdown”, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Friday.
– The US Financial System Is Effectively Insolvent (Forbes):
For those who argue that the rate of growth of economic activity is turning positive–that economies are contracting but at a slower rate than in the fourth quarter of 2008–the latest data don’t confirm this relative optimism. In 2008’s fourth quarter, gross domestic product fell by about 6% in the U.S., 6% in the euro zone, 8% in Germany, 12% in Japan, 16% in Singapore and 20% in South Korea. So things are even more awful in Europe and Asia than in the U.S. There is, in fact, a rising risk of a global L-shaped depression that would be even worse than the current, painful U-shaped global recession.
– Bernanke Says Fed to `Forcefully’ Deploy All Tools to Revive U.S. Economy (Bloomberg):
“Mr. Bernanke has never been right. He has been in the government for six or seven years, he has never been right.” – Jim Rogers (“We are going to have another Depression in the U.S.”)
– Minnesota Bank Asks Why It Pays for Wall Street Greed (Bloomberg):
Every taxpayer should ask that question too. – March 6 (Bloomberg) – TCF Financial Corp., the Wayzata, Minnesota-based bank that never made a subprime loan and hasn’t lost money since 1995, is asking why it should help clean up the mess made by Wall Street. “I’m kind of bitter,” said William Cooper, chief executive officer of the 448-branch bank, adding that over the years TCF has invested about $1 billion in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s fund that guarantees bank deposits. “We pay for the excesses of our competitor over and over again.”
– Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy (New York Times):
“The current pace of decline is breathtaking,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG. “We are now falling at a near record rate in the postwar period and there’s been no change in the violent downward trajectory.”
– America loses 23,000 jobs every day and output suffers biggest slump in 25 years (Times Online)
– Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad submits resignation (AP)
– Obama’s backsliding on torture (Guardian)
– Lloyds to Cede Up to 75% Stake to U.K. for Insuring $367 Billion of Assets (Bloomberg)
– US judge sets bail conditions for fund manager Nadel (Reuters):
NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge set a $5 million bond, house detention and other conditions of bail on Wednesday for accused Florida hedge fund manager Arthur Nadel, who authorities say was on the run for two weeks in January before the FBI arrested him.
– Fatal Tsvangirai crash ‘was not accident’, says MDC (Telegraph):
The wife of Zimbabwean leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been killed in a car crash in what his party claims may have been an assassination attempt.
– Obama ends Bush ban on embryo stem cell research (Guardian)
– Health Canada finds bisphenol A in soft drinks (CBC):
A Health Canada study of canned pop has found the vast majority of the drinks contain the chemical bisphenol A, a substance that imitates the female hormone estrogen and is banned in baby bottles. Out of 72 drinks tested, 69 were found to contain BPA at levels below what Health Canada says is the safe upper limit.
– Bird flu spreading afresh (The Daily Star):
Avian influenza has started spreading in different poultry farms across the country again as department of fisheries and livestock detected the bird flu virus and culled birds at different places.