US drops charges in money-transfer investigation

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City of Industry, CA DETROIT (AP) -- A company accused of illegally transferring money overseas from food-stamp fraud in Michigan will pay $25,000 and open its books as federal investigators try to determine where cash landed and who received it.


At the government's request, a judge dismissed all criminal charges Thursday against North American Money Transfer, based in Stone Mountain, Ga.

The company was indicted last year after the government found food-stamp recipients had used an Ypsilanti store to take cash off their electronic debit-style cards and send it to Somalia, Europe and the Middle East.

The store moved at least $265,000 to a credit union account in Seattle maintained by North American Money, the indictment says. The company has denied wrongdoing and said it had no knowledge that money sent overseas was linked to fraud from the federal food program. [Read the full article]

NEW YORK (AP) -- A new proposal from President Barack Obama to limit the size and trading capabilities of big banks sent shares of major financial institutions plummeting Thursday.

From the White House, Obama vowed to fight big banks with tougher regulations that he believes would head off the cascading failures that required billions in bailout funds for Wall Street.

He wants new rules that would restrict banks in the use of depositor money and also limit how big financial institutions can become.

"The market certainly perceives this can only have a negative impact on big bank profits," said Hal Reichwald, co-chair of the banking and specialty finance practice group at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP.

The new rules could mean national banks would lose the tools that have helped offset huge loan losses over the past year, but they are also some of the same tools that got them into trouble in the first place. [Read the full article]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frustrated by the harshest job market in the country, 31,000 unemployed Michigan residents stopped looking for work last month. So did thousands in Oregon, Massachusetts and West Virginia.

Layoffs struck government workers in Washington state and New Jersey. Retail hiring fell in Missouri, Minnesota and Massachusetts.

Such trends have emerged in a dozen states that have released their employment data in advance of a federal report Friday on state joblessness. The data illustrate patterns visible nationwide but more pronounced in some areas.

A big concern for economists is the high number of people dropping out of the work force. Once unemployed workers stop looking for jobs, they're no longer counted in the unemployment rate.

In Oregon, with the nation's eighth-highest jobless rate, nearly 13,000 people stopped looking for work in December. The state's unemployment rate rose to 11 percent from 10.7 percent. [Read the full article]

AP - Citizens United President David Bossie, right, meets with reporters outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, Jan. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A bitterly divided Supreme Court vastly increased the power of big business and unions to influence government decisions Thursday by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.

The ruling reversed a century-long trend to limit the political muscle of corporations, organized labor and their massive war chests. It also recast the political landscape just as crucial midterm election campaigns are getting under way.

In its sweeping 5-4 ruling, the court set the stage for a wave of likely repercussions -- from new pressures on lawmakers to heed special interest demands to increasingly boisterous campaigns featuring highly charged ads that drown out candidate voices. [Read the full article]

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