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June 2016 - page 5

Voters Will Be Left Hanging By State Dept.’s Clinton Email Slow-Walk

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The State Department is poised to wait until after the general election to publish informative emails sent and received through a private server by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as top US diplomat. Correspondence revealing just how involved Secretary Clinton was in pushing the contentious Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) won’t be released until late November, the International Business Times reported on Monday. Officials at State initially told reporter David Sirota that his Freedom of Information Act request for Secretary Clinton’s messages on TPP would be fulfilled…

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Yellen Chuckles When Asked if Trump Election Would Trigger Global Financial Collapse

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Fed Chair Janet Yellen laughed in response to a question about the possibility of a Donald Trump victory in November causing “an economic crash all over the world.” “I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing for you,” she said, while chuckling. “We’re very focused on doing our jobs, and we’ll see what happens.” Yellen was responding Monday morning to an audience member’s question after addressing the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia. The speech came as the national spotlight is on the Fed, with the central bank looking likely to…

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LIBOR Probe Snares More Suits

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The Department of Justice on Thursday announced indictments against two former traders for their role in manipulating a key interest rate that impacts more than $300 trillion in global financial contracts. Matthew Connolly and Gavin Campbell Black are facing ten conspiracy and wire fraud charges for working to manipulate LIBOR—the London Interbank Offered Rate—in order to increase profits for their employer, Deutsche Bank AG. Connolly was a director at the bank’s Pool Trading Desk in New York. Black served as a director for the bank in…

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U.S. Set to Spend Billions More Annually on Climate Change from Hurricane Damage Alone

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Climate change will eventually force the US government to spend billions more annually due to hurricane damage alone, according to a Congressional Budget Office report published Thursday. The influential legislative forecaster said the federal government currently spends $18 billion every year on hurricane recovery, but that amount, adjusted for inflation, will grow to $24 billion by 2075. Overall, the study predicted that hurricane damage will by 2075 account for $39 billion in all spending, public and private. The CBO said the US currently spends $28 billion on…

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Former State Dept. Spox Faces Questions Over Distorted Media Clips

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The State Department admitted this week that it selectively edited a video clip of a 2013 news conference to remove a reporter’s question about negotiations with Iran. Press Secretary John Kirby confirmed that the inquiry from Fox News reporter James Rosen had been purposefully removed from the video recording of the proceedings. The department had previously claimed the missing portion was the result of a glitch. The edit occurred during the tenure of a previous spokesperson at State, Jen Psaki, who now serves as the…

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C.F.P.B. Releases Payday Lending Rule, Calls for Credit Union-Style Services to Fill Void

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray touted existing alternatives to payday lending on Thursday, as the agency released long-anticipated rules to curtail abusive loansharking. Cordray described the so-called “small-dollar” credit market as fundamentally broken, and said he hoped the proposed regulations would push the financial industry toward less predatory practices. “We are not intending to disrupt existing lending by community banks and credit unions that have found efficient and effective ways to make small-dollar loans to consumers that do not lead to debt traps…

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In Financial Sector, Big Banks Hurt Almost Exclusively by Plunge in Oil Prices

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Lower crude prices aren’t just hurting oil companies, they’re also inflicting pain on the country’s largest banks. Commercial and industrial loan payments overdue by three or more months were up in the first quarter by $3.3 billion, according to an FDIC report published Wednesday. The 2.4-percent uptick in commercial and industrial delinquencies was “the first quarterly increase in total noncurrent loan balances in 24 quarters,” the federal banking regulator said. The report noted the trend resulted from “[s]harply lower energy prices,” and that it disproportionately impacted…

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Federal Environmental Stewards Face Increasing Violence

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Numbers released from the federal government show that officials tasked with patrolling public lands and forests are dealing with a growing number of assaults on the job. The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reported that abusive incidents against its officers rose by 87 percent last year. The US Forest Service (USFS) reported a 60 percent uptick in violence against its employees. The data was released by the agencies in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental…

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Appeals Court Reaffirms Virginia Transgender Boy’s Bathroom Rights, as Dissenting Judge Calls for SCOTUS Ruling

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A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va. declined to reconsider a high profile ruling it made in favor of a transgender student. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that it would not rehear a case brought by Gavin Grimm. A 16-year-old transgender boy, Grimm was granted the right by the court to sue his local school board for attempting to keep him out of the boys’ bathroom. Grimm was born female but came out as a transgender male in high school. He was allowed…

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