Economic Scene: Immigration Reform Issue: The Effect on the Budget

The stars could hardly have shone brighter on the prospects for immigration reform than in the early months of 2007. The coalition pushing for change included the oddest of bedfellows — roping together business groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce with the Service Employees International Union, the fastest-growing union in the country. It had an impeccable bipartisan pedigree,...

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.How I feared chemo, afraidIt would change me.It did.Something dissolved inside me.Tears began a slow drip;I cried at the news storyOf a lost boy found in the...

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Gas Buildup and Spark Blamed in Pemex Blast

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s attorney general said Monday that a buildup of gas ignited by a spark from a faulty electrical system had caused the explosion at the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, which killed at least 37 people last week. Jesús Murillo Karam, the attorney general, said a team of investigators from Mexico, Spain, the United States and Britain had found no evidence...

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Superdome officials worried about a power outage

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The cause of a 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl remains under investigation, but public records released Monday show that Superdome officials were worried about a power outage several months before the big game.An Oct. 15 memo released by the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District, which oversees the Superdome, says tests on the dome's electrical feeders showed they had...

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DealBook: Suit to Accuse S.&P. of Fraud in Mortgage Bond Ratings

The Justice Department late Monday filed civil fraud charges against the nation’s largest credit-ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, accusing the firm of inflating the ratings of mortgage investments and setting them up for a crash when the financial crisis struck.The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is the first significant federal action against the ratings industry, which during...

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Medicines Co. Licenses Rights to Cholesterol Drug

The drug, known as ALN-PCS, inhibits a protein in the body known as PCSK9. Such drugs might one day be used to treat millions of people who do not achieve sufficient cholesterol-lowering from commonly used statins, such as Lipitor. The Medicines Company will pay $25 million initially and as much as $180 million later if certain development and sales goals are met, under the deal expected to...

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Study Belies Israeli Claim of ‘Hate’ in Palestinian Texts

JERUSALEM — An academic study of the contents of Israeli and Palestinian Authority textbooks, to be published Monday, finds that each side generally presents the other as the enemy, but it undermines recent assertions by the Israeli government that Palestinian children are educated “to hate.” Though unusually comprehensive, the report is unlikely to resolve more than a decade of fierce wrangling...

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Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Family

Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was “very rare” for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.“This is the first time I’ve heard of it happening in our little town,” Beavers told ABCNews.com.The...

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Oh the drama! Super Ads go epic

NEW YORK (AP) — Super Bowl ads this year morphed into mini soap operas.Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson shrugged off aliens so he could get more milk for his kids in a Super Bowl spot for the Milk Processor Education Program. Anheuser-Busch's commercial told the story of a baby Clydesdale growing up and returning to his owner for a heartfelt hug years later. And a Jeep ad portrayed the trials and triumphs...

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New Questions Raised Over a Bank of America Settlement

Bank of America has long rued its decision in 2008 to acquire Countrywide Financial, the subprime mortgage giant. To date, the bank has set aside some $40 billion to settle claims of mortgage misconduct that occurred before it acquired the freewheeling lender. It has been a regular refrain at Bank of America. Last month, Brian T. Moynihan, the bank’s chief executive, told Bloomberg television...

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