Saturday, June 27, 2009
41st bank failure of year
WASHINGTON — Regulators have shut down Community Bank of West Georgia, marking the 41st failure this year of a federally insured bank.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the failed bank, based in Villa Rica, Ga. It had $199.4 million in assets and $182.5 million in deposits as of May 15.
The FDIC says it will mail checks to depositors for the amounts of their insured funds. Direct deposits from the government, such as Social Security and veterans’ benefits, will be transferred to United Community Bank in Blairsville, Ga.
Judge orders Madoff to forfeit over $170B
NEW YORK — A federal judge has ordered disgraced financier Bernard Madoff to forfeit over $170 billion.
Madoff is due in court Monday for sentencing in his massive fraud case.
Federal prosecutors say in court papers filed Friday that sentencing guidelines require a 150-year term. They said any lesser sentence should still make sure he’s behind bars for life.
Madoff’s lawyer has said his client should serve only 12 years.
The 71-year-old former Nasdaq chairman was arrested late last year after telling his sons that his secretive investment advisory business was a giant Ponzi scheme.
He pleaded guilty to securities fraud and other charges in March and has been in jail since.
At least 9 die in crash
MIAMI, Okla. — A tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped on a northeast Oklahoma turnpike Friday afternoon, killing at least nine people, authorities said.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. George Brown said traffic was stopped on the Will Rogers Turnpike northeast of Miami because of an earlier crash when the big rig slammed into at least three cars, which then crashed into more vehicles.
Brown feared that rescue crews might find more bodies as they worked to get to an automobile pinned under the semitrailer. Two of those who died were in that car, but troopers could not tell if there more victims in the vehicle.
Investigators don’t believe the driver of the tractor-trailer tried to stop before the crash, Brown said. The speed limit in the area is 75 mph.
Taliban attack in Kashmir
ISLAMABAD — The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack Friday on security forces in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, calling it a sign that recent military strikes targeting the group’s top leader have not hampered his ability to hit back.
It was the first time the intensifying conflict between Pakistani forces and the Taliban has reached Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan enclave that has long been a flashpoint for violence between Pakistan and archrival India.
The assault was meant to show that the Taliban could strike wherever it wishes in Pakistan, a spokesman for the militants said, indicating they were likely not trying to stoke tensions between the nuclear armed adversaries.
Conn. action inspired by Blagojevich scandal
HARTFORD, Conn. — Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced Friday she has signed a bill pushed by Democrats after the Rod Blagojevich scandal that strips her of the power to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat and instead requires a special election.
Connecticut is the first state, Rep. James Spallone said, to enact such a change after the impeachment and removal from office of Blagojevich, who’s accused by federal authorities of trying to sell President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
Russia defies U.S. court on Jewish documents
WASHINGTON — Russia told a U.S. court Friday that judges have no authority to tell the country how to handle sacred Jewish documents held in its state library that were seized by the Nazi and Soviet armies.
The documents are at the center of a lawsuit brought by members of Chabad-Lubavitch, which follows the teachings of Eastern European rabbis and emphasizes the study of the Torah. The group is suing Russia in U.S. court to recover thousands of manuscripts, prayers, lectures and philosophical discourses by leading rabbis dating back to the 18th century.
The case is being handled by the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, Royce Lamberth, who in January ordered Russia to preserve the documents over Chabad’s fears they are not being properly cared for and could be sold on the black market.
Associated Press