CORRESPONDENTS

Greg Gordon

Payback time for AIG: Treasury, Congress go after the bonuses

Amid the growing public outcry over American International Group's payment of $165 million in executive bonuses, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said late Tuesday that the money would be deducted from the government's latest $30 billion infusion of bailout funds to the insurer. Separately, lawmakers in Congress sought to recoup the bonuses by taxing them. | 03/17/09 21:16:00 By - Greg Gordon and Kevin G. Hall

Regulatory reports show 5 big banks face huge loss risk

Their latest financial reports show that Citibank, Bank of America, HSBC Bank USA, Wells Fargo Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase have "current" net loss risks from derivatives — insurance-like bets tied to a loan or other underlying asset — of $587 billion as of Dec. 31. That's more than the banks' combined $497 billion in so-called "risk-based capital," the assets they hold in reserve for disaster scenarios. | 03/09/09 17:19:00 By - Greg Gordon and Kevin G. Hall

Watchdog: Bush FDA decision put patients in danger

The Food and Drug Administration put patients' lives at risk by halting enforcement of 30-year-old requirements that medical device makers meet federal laboratory standards prior to testing their products on humans, a watchdog group charges in a new report. | 02/18/09 00:05:00 By - Greg Gordon

Watchdogs: Government overpaid for Wall Street assets

The federal government overpaid by about $78 billion for stock and other troubled assets when it bailed out big banks last year, and it lacks sufficient internal controls to police and protect taxpayers' investment in the institutions, government watchdogs said Thursday. | 02/05/09 19:07:00 By - Kevin G. Hall and Greg Gordon

For bank execs, $500,000 a year is a big comedown

The chief executives of 10 banks that have gotten at least $161 billion in federal bailout money were doing swell the last year in which their income was publicly disclosed. Together, they earned more than $200 million in 2007. That could come to an end under limitations President Obama announced Wednesday. | 02/04/09 21:03:00 By - Greg Gordon

Questions, but few answers, about Geithner's finances

President Obama's nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, failed to pay self-employment taxes for four years, but little else is known publicly about his finances. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner wasn't required to file financial disclosure statements. His confirmation hearing is Wednesday. | 01/20/09 19:22:00 By - Greg Gordon

Bailed-out Wall Street helps float Obama inauguration

The watchdog group Public Citizen says nearly 80 percent of the $35.3 million raised by the Presidential Inaugural Committee to date has come from 211 wealthy donors, including a number from Wall Street firms benefiting from the mushrooming federal bailout. | 01/14/09 20:20:26 By - Greg Gordon

Internal probe slams Bush Justice official for illegal hiring

A former acting chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division considered political affiliations in hiring and personnel actions — which is illegal — and lied in congressional testimony to conceal his misconduct, internal investigators say in a report that was made public Tuesday. | 01/13/09 11:51:00 By - Greg Gordon

Watchdog: Bush ex-officials used leverage in private sector

Shortly after leaving his job as U.S. energy secretary in early 2005, Spencer Abraham took a $60,000-a-year post as a director of Occidental Petroleum, which soon became the first firm in 20 years to ship oil to the U.S. from Libya. | 01/12/09 19:39:00 By - Greg Gordon

Obama to become president amid tightest security ever

Barack Obama will be sworn in as America's first African-American president under the tightest security ever, shielded by a new, heavily armored Cadillac limousine, bullet-resistant glass, fighter planes overhead and Secret Service SWAT teams toting automatic weapons. | 01/08/09 15:41:00 By - Greg Gordon

Obama's Justice nominees signal end of Bush terror tactics

In filling four senior Justice Department positions Monday, President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he intends to roll back Bush administration counterterrorism policies authorizing harsh interrogation techniques, warrantless spying and indefinite detentions of terrorism suspects. Obama's pick of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to take charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit that churned out the legal opinions that justified harsh detainee treatment, was especially telling. | 01/05/09 17:43:00 By - Greg Gordon

Scientists doubt inventor's global cooling idea — but what if it works?

Backed by a computer model, a little-known inventor is making public a U.S. patent petition for what he calls the most "practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable" and beneficial way to curb global warming and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise. Spray gigatons of seawater into the air, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, and let Mother Nature do the rest. | 12/21/08 06:00:00 By - Greg Gordon

Water vapor's effects on atmosphere are debated

Ron Ace's idea to cool the planet by evaporating water could provoke controversy because it collides head-on with a concern of environmental scientists: that water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas. | 12/21/08 06:00:00 By - Greg Gordon

Bush shoe incident caught Secret Service flatfooted

Although the Secret Service put everyone who attended President George W. Bush's Baghdad news conference through several layers of security Sunday, the agency appeared to be caught off guard when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the president. Agents were forced to the side of the room, which was so crowded that Iraqi journalists added a chair to the front row, then crammed in two additional bodies. There was no room for Army Gen. Ray Odierno's security detail either. | 12/15/08 18:56:00 By - Greg Gordon and Adam Ashton

Homeland security nominee is tough on immigration

Few people have been closer to the center of the debate over illegal immigration than Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, the top Democrat in a conservative state with little sympathy for illegal immigrants. | 12/01/08 19:39:00 By - Greg Gordon

Sign up for email newsletters now!

Sign up for email newsletters now!

Never miss a McClatchy story