JPMorgan Chase buys Washington Mutual assets

JPMorgan Chase buys Washington Mutual assets

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc. came to the rescue of ailing Washington Mutual Inc. Thursday, buying the ailing thrift’s banking assets after WaMu was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. This is the second time in six months that JPMorgan Chase has taken over a major financial institution crippled by bad bets in the mortgage market.

The deal will cost JPMorgan Chase $1.9 billion, and the bank said in a statement it planned to write down WaMu’s loan portfolio by approximately $31 billion. JPMorgan Chase, which acquired Bear Stearns Cos. last March, also said it would sell $8 billion in common stock to raise its capital position.

Dems unveil stimulus plan

WASHINGTON — Top Senate Democrats on Thursday unveiled a $56 billion plan to stimulate the economy, including proposals to extend unemployment benefits and help states pay for Medicaid.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., released the spending-heavy measure. A vote could occur as early as today.

With most Republicans opposed, however, the Reid-Byrd stimulus plan measure is likely to stall. Democrats are then likely to hold the vote against Republicans in the campaign for control of Congress.

In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that chamber would probably take up a similarly sized economic stimulus plan as early as today, but no proposal was released and a vote appeared unlikely.

Military tribunal shake-up

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — A former U.S. military prosecutor at Guantanamo who accuses his superiors of suppressing evidence refused Thursday to testify in a war crimes case unless he is granted immunity.

Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who was called as a defense witness, revealed a day earlier that he quit over what he called ethical lapses by prosecutors.

His defection has sent ripples throughout the U.S. military’s tribunal system, with prosecutors dismissing his claims as “ridiculous” and defense attorneys in other cases seizing on them as proof the government does not share evidence in good faith.

Gulf fishermen suffering

SAN LEON, Texas — On the eve of October’s peak seafood harvesting season, migrant fishermen are sweeping debris from gutted bay-side homes instead of scooping shrimp and oysters from the Gulf of Mexico’s lucrative floor. The $100 million fishing industry in Galveston Bay is virtually paralyzed.

Hurricane Ike’s impact is being felt among Gulf seafood harvesters, distributors and restaurants. Government and industry officials fear it will take as long as two years for the processing plants, boats and docks along the bay to recover and rebuild.

Hurricanes Ike and Gustav hit the region’s fishermen hard, causing the industry to lose an estimated $300 million in Louisiana alone.

Hundreds of Galveston area fishermen were left jobless and they have few, if any, other options, their employers said.

Stem-cell breakthrough

WASHINGTON — Scientists are reporting that they have overcome a major obstacle to using a promising alternative to embryonic stem cells, bolstering the prospects for bypassing the political and ethical tempest that has embroiled hopes for a new generation of medical treatments.

The researchers said they found a safe way to coax adult cells to regress into an embryonic state, alleviating what had been the most worrisome uncertainty about developing the cells into potential cures.

“We have removed a major roadblock for translating this into a clinical setting,” said Konrad Hochedlinger, a Harvard University stem-cell researcher whose research was published online Thursday by the journal Science. “I think it’s an important advance.”

Defiant Ahmadinejad

NEW YORK — Iran needs the ability to produce nuclear fuel because it cannot rely on other nations to supply enriched uranium to the Islamic regime’s planned reactors, the Iranian president said Thursday.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — speaking to a gathering of selected journalists — also contended that Washington does not have the will to launch a military strike on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, which Tehran insists is for peaceful energy production but the West fears is a clandestine effort to gain atomic weapons.

“We’re not concerned at all that a confrontation will occur,” said Ahmadinejad, who is in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. “What [factors] demand a war?”

Combined dispatchesSFlb