General Motors should make restitution to victims’ families and face criminal action if merited for the way it handled defective ignition switches that caused fatal auto accidents, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill said on Sunday. McCaskill, as chairwoman of the Senate subcommittee on consumer protection and product safety, led a blistering round of questioning of GM chief executive officer Mary Barra last week. In an appearance on ABC’s […]
General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra came under withering attack for her company’s decade-long failure to deal with defective parts linked to fatal crashes, in a hearing where U.S. Senators accused the company of “criminal” behavior and “a culture of cover-up.” Democratic and Republican senators, including some former prosecutors and state attorneys general, challenged Barra’s assertion that GM had vastly improved its safety and management practices since […]
Congress’s investigation of a deadly defect in some General Motors cars widened on Tuesday, and a House committee ordered the automaker and a federal regulator to provide details on steps they took to get unsafe cars off the road. In another development, federal prosecutors in New York are examining whether GM is criminally liable for failing to properly disclose the defect, according to a source familiar with […]
WASHINGTON — Members of Congress called for immediate sanctions against Russia and an emergency aid package for Ukraine as the crisis in eastern Europe escalated Saturday. The day after President Obama said Russia would face “costs” for intervening in Ukraine, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the president needs to articulate what those costs are — and immediately impose them. “None of us should be under any illusion […]
Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) helped American customers hide as much as $10 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service, more than double the amount previously known, according to a U.S. Senate committee. A report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations criticized the Zurich-based bank for failing to discipline any senior executives in the face of widespread tax evasion fostered by 1,800 Credit Suisse employees […]
President Barack Obama was sued by Senator Rand Paul over U.S. electronic surveillance he claims is illegal, adding to challenges that may land post-Sept. 11 government data collection in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Kentucky Republican announced today that he had filed his complaint in Washington federal court. Paul was joined as co-plaintiff by FreedomWorks Inc., a Tea Party-backed group. The filing couldn’t be immediately confirmed in […]
The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved a one-year extension of federal borrowing authority on Tuesday after Republicans caved into President Barack Obama’s demands to allow a debt limit increase without any conditions. The 221-201 vote, carried mainly by Democrats, marked a dramatic shift from the confrontational fiscal tactics House Republicans have used over the past three years, culminating in last October’s 16-day government shutdown. It came […]
Janet Yellen, fresh from taking the helm of the Federal Reserve, made it clear on Tuesday she would not make any abrupt changes to U.S. monetary policy, saying the central bank was on track to keep reducing its stimulus even though the labor market recovery was far from complete. In her first public comments since becoming Fed chief earlier this month, Yellen said the central bank must […]
The health of the U.S. economy and the extraordinary and controversial measures the Federal Reserve has taken to support it will top the agenda on Tuesday when Janet Yellen testifies to lawmakers for the first time as head of the Federal Reserve. Yellen, in just her second week on the job since succeeding Ben Bernanke earlier this month, will want to reinforce the central bank’s determination to […]
|By Pankaj Mishra| There is a great, virtual storm blowing through India today, and the most frantic people in the country seem to be those trimming their sails to it. I refer to the shrewdly concerted campaign to make Narendra Modi seem like India’s natural and inevitable leader — a veritable miracle worker who, emerging triumphant in elections due by May, will raise despondently low growth rates […]
President Barack Obama banned U.S. eavesdropping on the leaders of close friends and allies on Friday and began reining in the vast collection of Americans’ phone data in a series of limited reforms triggered by Edward Snowden’s revelations. In a major speech, Obama took steps to reassure Americans and foreigners alike that the United States will take into account privacy concerns highlighted by former spy contractor Snowden’s […]
A bipartisan budget deal announced in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, though modest in its spending cuts, would end three years of impasse and fiscal instability in Washington that culminated in October with a partial government shutdown. While praised by the Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the agreement faces a challenge from some House conservatives […]
The Federal Reserve is expected to maintain its massive bond-buying campaign when it concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday and may point to softer readings on the U.S. economy to signal that the policy will be extended into 2014. The central bank, which will announce its policy decision at 2 p.m., has held interest rates near zero since late 2008 and has quadrupled the size of its […]
From Saudi Arabia to Israel, traditional U.S. allies in the Middle East are beginning to ask: Is America turning its back on us? President Barack Obama’s diplomatic overtures to old foe Iran and his last-minute refusal to attack Syria have officials in Israel, the Gulf countries and Turkey wondering if Washington is deliberately neglecting them to avoid being dragged into a Middle East facing deeper sectarian strife […]
President Barack Obama will declare the glitches in a new healthcare website “unacceptable” on Monday and outline ways for consumers to sign up for insurance while his team scrambles to fix problems that have tainted the rollout of his signature healthcare law. Fresh from two weeks of budget battles that have consumed Washington, Obama will hold an event at 11:25 a.m. (1525 GMT) in the White House […]
The United States held out the prospect of quick sanctions relief for Iran on Monday if Tehran moves swiftly to allay concerns about its nuclear program, although both countries said any deal would be complex and take time. Six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – are to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear program in Geneva on Tuesday and […]
Asian shares rose to their highest in nearly five months on Tuesday on heightened hopes for a deal in Washington to reopen the U.S. government and avert a possible debt default, though investors will remain wary until they see the final outcome. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.8 percent to its highest since May 23. Japan’s Nikkei share average added 0.5 percent, hitting […]
Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen. Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt — […]
Asian shares, oil prices and the dollar came under pressure on Monday as politicians in Washington showed no signs of making progress to resolve the U.S. budget standoff, while safe-haven gold inched higher. Financial bookmakers expected European shares to follow Asia lower and open down between 0.4 and 0.5 percent. Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on ending the government shutdown, let alone reaching a deal on […]
President Barack Obama said he expects Congress will reach an agreement to raise the nation’s $16.7 borrowing limit in time to avert a default. “America has never not paid its bills,” Obama said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I don’t expect to get there.” The interview was released today as a partial shutdown of the U.S. government entered its fifth day and less than two […]
President Barack Obama met with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress on Wednesday to try to break a deadlock that has shut down wide swaths of the federal government, but there was no breakthrough. After more than an hour of talks, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Obama refused to negotiate, while House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of […]
President Barack Obama on Wednesday scaled down a long-planned trip to Asia, as a U.S. government shutdown entered a second day with no end in sight to the funding row in Congress that triggered it. Obama is expected to leave on Saturday for summit meetings in Indonesia and Brunei. Malaysian media quoted Prime Minister Najib Razak as saying he would now skip a subsequent visit to Kuala […]
The dollar held near a 7-1/2 month low against a basket of currencies on Tuesday as much of the U.S. government began to shut down after Congress failed to agree a compromise bill to fund government operations. Competing spending measures flew back and forth between Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate late into Monday night in Washington but Congress deadlocked over efforts by some Republicans to […]
U.S. stock futures and the dollar came under pressure on Monday as a shutdown of the U.S. government seemed ever more likely, while the euro had political troubles of its own as the Italian government teetered on the edge of collapse. Hardly helping was a surprise downward revision to activity in China’s factory sector. While the final HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) did edge up to 50.2 […]
