National / International News

Ex-cabinet minister Chris Huhne resigns as an MP after admitting he perverted the course of justice over claims his ex-wife took speeding points for him.

For this week's Sandwich Monday, we test if two great tastes really do taste great together: we try The Mac, from Cheesie's in Chicago. It's a Grilled Cheese Sandwich, topped with Macaroni and Cheese.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

A carer admits stealing cash from a vulnerable man in his Stockport home after being caught on a hidden camera.

An Iraq war veteran charged with murdering an ex-US Navy Seal sniper is restrained in his cell after becoming aggressive, say officials.

Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne is admitted to a treatment centre in the US.

The Charleston Gazette reports that mine regulators found hundreds of violations but haven't issued any citations.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Researchers show that an idea to produce high-quality rainfall maps using nothing more than mobile phone mast signals works - across a whole country.

You know it’s rough when an investment club stops investing. That’s in large part what happened in recent years at Gene Senter’s Dayton, Ohio, club. Last year, stocks accounted for only around half their roughly $100,000 portfolio. Spooked by the financial downturn, the mostly retired club members had moved the money to safer waters.

Their skittishness about stocks -- even as the S&P and Dow Jones Industrial Average recently hit multi-year highs -- reflects the thinking of a lot of American small investors. They know the importance of stocks in a portfolio, but worry about losing their shirts if the current bull market turns south.

Americans are returning to stocks, but slowly. Mutual fund tracking firm Lipper says that in 2013, stock funds have taken in $20.7 billion more than investors have pulled out. But that’s tip money compared to the far greater amounts investors took out in recent years, often at a loss. Wounds from the latest downturn are still fresh for many Americans.

“They got crushed in the crisis and they just have not come back,” says Tom Roseen, who heads Lipper’s research services.

He adds that many investors also got burned in the dot-com meltdown.

Washington State University finance professor John Nofsinger studies investor psychology. No matter how much media hype kicks up around a rising market, he says it’s not enough to distract investors from what’s happening in their lives.

“People still know friends or relatives that are either out of work or trying to get a better job or those kinds of things and so we’re still a little cautious,” Nofsinger says. “But now we’re at least positive cautious.”

“Positive cautious” is a far cry from enthusiastic. But that may be all the market can ask for from ordinary Americans whose retirement savings have been battered.

As for the Ohio investment club, it’s now wading back into stocks. Members are frustrated with the paltry returns of safe spots like money market funds. At their meeting last month, they took more than half of the cash that was on the sidelines and bought a new batch of stocks.

“We decided that we are investors and we want to be in there,” Senter explains. “Because you’re not getting anything with cash.”

Kai Ryssdal: The Dow Industrials spent most of last week dancing around the 14,000 mark. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were doin' fine as well. Small investors who'd largely bailed out of stocks during the financial crisis started gingerly returning during weeks of encouraging economic and corporate news.

And then, today. The Dow's first triple-digit loss of the year. Marketplace's Mark Garrison looked into why jitters continue as apparently good news abounds.

Mark Garrison: You know it’s rough when an investment club stops investing. That’s in large part what happened in recent years at Gene Senter’s Dayton, Ohio club. Last year, stocks accounted for only around half their roughly $100-thousand dollar portfolio. But at their meeting last month, they added a large batch of stocks.

Gene Senter: We decided that we are investors and we want to be in there, because you’re not getting anything with cash.

And there’s evidence more Americans are doing the same thing, moving away from safe, but low-return spots like money market funds. Mutual fund tracking firm Lipper says stock funds have taken in more than $20-billion dollars this year. But that’s tip money compared to what people took out in recent years, often at a loss.

Tom Roseen: They got crushed in the crisis and they just have not come back into there.

Lipper’s Tom Roseen adds many investors also got mixed up in the dot-com meltdown.

Roseen: Really I think people were burned and they’ve been burned twice in a decade.

Washington State University finance professor John Nofsinger studies investor psychology. No matter how much media hype kicks up around a rising market, it’s not enough to distract investors from what’s happening in their lives.

John Nofsinger: People still know friends or relatives that are either out of work or trying to get a better job or those kinds of things and so we’re still a little cautious. But now we’re at least positive cautious.

“Positive cautious” is a far cry from enthusiastic. But that may be all the market can ask for from ordinary Americans whose retirement savings have been battered. In New York, I'm Mark Garrison, for Marketplace.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei turned to social media recently. Meanwhile, Iran's government has stepped up efforts to identify and target online pro-democracy activists. Analysts say the government is using increasingly sophisticated methods to shrink the online space for free expression.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The Argentine government has ordered a two-month price freeze on all products in the country's main supermarket chains.

You may have caught the news that McDonald's has a new item called Fish McBites. It's the second seafood offering from the fast-food giant. The first being, of course, the Filet-O-Fish. That classic with the fried fish, steamed bun, American cheese and tartar sauce was added nationally in 1965, a way to lure Catholics who didn't eat meat on Fridays. So it's no surprise Fish McBites are debuting near the start of Lent.

Filet-O-Fish has never outsold burgers at McDonald's, but the company is one of the largest buyers of fish in the United States, says Kerry Coughlin, a regional director with the Marine Stewardship Council. The council recently certified all McDonald's fish as sustainable. This morning, she says, several council staff brought in their wrappers from the sandwich and the cardboard boxes of the new Fish McBites, to show off the "wild-caught Alaskan pollock" language on the packaging.

Coughlin says the Alaskan fishery is sustainable because the managers make sure the boats don't catch too much, too fast.

"Ensuring that they will have a supply of fish to keep that business going," she says.

In addition to the green halo, fish gives McDonalds another reputation boost with moms, says marketing analyst Maria Bailey.

"Millenial moms like to have their children have a broader range of flavors and tastes in their diet," she says.

They might see a McBites Happy Meal as a way to introduce the fish flavor. Plus she finds these younger moms tend to me more conscious of health. Sure it's battered, fried fish, but compared to rumors and concerns over beef (remember "pink slime"?), it's better.

"They want to keep their children safe, and fish seems like a safer route," Bailey says.

A Fish McBites Happy Meal has 135 calories less than a cheeseburger meal. However, if you pick up another seasonal item on the menu, the oh-so-popular Shamrock Shake, it probably negates any health savings.

Mitt Romney's eldest son reportedly is considering a bid for the Massachusetts Senate seat long held by new Secretary of State John Kerry. His candidacy would bail out Republicans there who were deflated by former Sen. Scott Brown's decision not to run in the June 25 special election.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

This would be the first federal enforcement action against the credit rating agency, which some criticize of giving a rosy picture of the mortgage bonds market before its collapse.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The Canadian penny is withdrawn from circulation as production costs exceed its monetary value, although it will remain legal tender.

Malala Yousafzai, the schoolgirl who was shot and wounded by the Taliban in Pakistan after campaigning for womens' rights, says she has been given a 'second life'.

Banks will be broken up if they do not follow new rules to ring-fence risky investment operations from High Street operations, the chancellor has announced.

Hostage negotiators in the US are trying to secure the release of a five-year-old boy who was kidnapped seven days ago. Police say he is being held captive in a bunker in Alabama.

The U.S.  Department of Justice -- along with the attorneys general in many states -- are reportedly set to file civil charges against the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's. The suit, which could be filed as early as this week, would allege that S&P fraudulently rated mortgage bonds in the lead up to the financial crisis.

S&P responded to news of the civil suit with a statement:

A DOJ lawsuit would be entirely without factual or legal merit. It would disregard the central facts that S&P reviewed the same subprime mortgage data as the rest of the market -- including U.S. Government officials who in 2007 publicly stated that problems in the subprime market appeared to be contained -- and that every CDO that DOJ has cited to us also independently received the same rating from another rating agency.

Since the financial crisis, critics have said the U.S. government failed to prosecute or punish Wall Street for many of the actions that led up to the crisis. Government prosecutors have argued that misdeeds in this arena are hard to prove.

"The behavior that brought the fiscal crisis was risky and stupid but perhaps not illegal," said Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Perez, who is covering the story. And S&P may be the first named in a suit, but they won't be the last. Perez says this is probably just beginning of a wider effort.

But how successful will it be? Ratings agencies in the past have cited the First Amendment -- that they have the right to say whatever they like about bonds. But that might not apply in the case of fraud -- which might be what the Justice Department will argue.

So we begin this Monday with a stock quote: ticker symbol MHP. The McGraw Hill Companies, Incorporated. Off almost 14 percent at the close -- and you can blame it all on McGraw Hill’s wholly owned subsidiary, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's.

There are reports today that the Department of Justice and a whole mess of state attorneys general are set to file suit -- perhaps this week -- charging S&P with fraudulently rating mortgage bonds in the lead up to the financial crisis.

Evan Perez is covering the story for the Wall Street Journal. So we asked him -- why'd it take so long?

Perez says the Department of Justice has felt pressure since the financial crisis of 2008 to bring criminal charges against those responsible. "The behavior that brought the fiscal crisis was risky and stupid but perhaps not illegal."

But how successful will it be? Ratings agencies in the past have cited the First Amendment -- that they have the right to say whatever they like about bonds. But that might not apply in the case of fraud -- which might be what the Justice Department will argue.

S&P has responded to news of the civil suit with a statement:

A DOJ lawsuit would be entirely without factual or legal merit. It would disregard the central facts that S&P reviewed the same subprime mortgage data as the rest of the market -- including U.S. Government officials who in 2007 publicly stated that problems in the subprime market appeared to be contained -- and that every CDO that DOJ has cited to us also independently received the same rating from another rating agency.

And S&P may be the first named in a suit, but they won't be the last. Perez says this is probably just beginning of a wider effort.

Some people with damage to a specific region of the brain called the amygdala do not feel fear. If you make them handle a snake or show them a scene from a scary movie such as The Shining, they won't be affected. But breathing in air with high levels of carbon dioxide can send them into a panic.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us