The new federal agency charged with enforcing consumer finance laws is emerging as an ambitious sheriff, taking on companies for deceptive fees and marketing and unmoved by protests that its tactics go too far.
In the 14 months it has existed, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched dozens of enforcement probes and issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding data, testimony and marketing materials -- sometimes amounting to millions of pages -- from companies that include credit card lenders, for-profit colleges and mortgage servicers.
Consumer regulator barks; an industry shudders
Report: US Navy deploys warships to Libyan coast
Two U.S. Navy destroyers are steaming their way toward the Libyan coast in the latest move by the White House and Pentagon to bolster American security forces in the country.
The USS Laboon and USS McFaul, both Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, have reportedly been sent to the waters near the North African nation, according to reports by CNN. It remains unclear as to what the warships' mission will be once they arrive on station in the Mediterranean, but both vessels are armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Witch hunt in Iraq : Gays in 'hell on earth'
In post-occupation Iraq being gay, or even looking gay, can be a death sentence.
It's very difficult to determine how many homosexuals have died in so called "honour killings" by their own families or in the hands of the militias. But a BBC investigation has found that law enforcement agencies are involved in ongoing, systematic and organised violence against gay people, while the government refuses to acknowledge it.
TVNL Comment: Another perk of Operation Iraq Freedom! Thanks, PNAC.
Terry Jones: Florida pastor linked to fatal bombing protests
The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three American members of his staff were reportedly killed Tuesday in riots sparked by outrage at a film backed by Gainesville pastor Terry Jones, the Gainesville pastor whose burning of Korans last year led to days of rioting in Afghanistan.
The deaths were reported by Libyan officials after attacks on U.S. diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and Cairo, Egypt. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged the film, which conservative Muslims said denigrated Islam and its holiest figure, Muhammad, as the likely cause, although she made it clear she felt "there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."
A September 11th Catastrophe You've Probably Never Heard About
On September 11, 1957, 55 years ago tomorrow, a national catastrophe was unfolding, one you likely have never heard about before. At the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility near Denver, inside the plutonium processing building, a fire had started in an area designed to be fireproof.
Soon it was roaring over, through, and around the carefully constricted plutonium as one Cold-War-era safety feature after another failed. The roof of the building, the building itself, were threatened. And plumes of radioactive smoke went straight up into Colorado's late summer night air. High into the air, if you believe the witnesses.
More Gas “Plumes” Documented In Bradford County, PA
Some of the consequences of stray methane leaking from natural gas wells are easier to spot than others. Overflowing water wells and bubbling methane puddles are easy to document. But methane plumes are odorless and invisible, so you need some sophisticated equipment to track it.
Equipment like the “portable laser-based methane measurement system and combustible gas indicator” that Gas Safety, Incorporated’s Bob Ackley used to document methane plumes near Leroy Township, Bradford County, on July 25.
You Only Believe the Official 9/11 Story Because You Don't Know the Official 9/11 Story
I don't believe the official story of 9/11 because I know the official story of 9/11!
During the past 10 years I have not met a single individual who, after doing research on the subject, switched from questioning the official narrative of the events of 9/11/2001 to believing the official narrative of those events.. It is always the other way around. Why do you think that is? There are good reasons for this, and I will try to explain this phenomenon right now.
The term "conspiracy theorist", perhaps the most misapplied description in our vernacular, is often used to describe 9/11 truthers. Perhaps that term does apply to a segment of the 9/11 truth movement. But in most cases a more accurate description of 9/11 truthers is probably "expert", or "scholar", or "researcher." You see, much of the doubt cast on the official narrative of the events of 9/11 has not come in the form of speculated accusations, or "theories." In fact, it has come in the form of questions that have been raised after a careful study of the official and undisputed events and details.
Florida voters facing a long, long ballot in November
Brace yourselves, Florida voters: The election ballot you'll see this fall is longer than ever. It's so long that voters will have to fill out multiple sheets with races on both sides, then feed those multiple pages through ballot scanners, one page at a time.
It's a pocketbook issue, too: Some people who vote by mail will have to dig deeper and pay at least 65 cents postage and up to $1.50 to return their multipage ballots in heavier envelopes.
The 100 species at risk of extinction - because Man has no use for them
The spoon-billed sandpiper, three-toed sloth and a long-beaked echidna named after Sir David Attenborough are among the 100 most endangered species in the world, according to a new study.
The list of at-risk species has been published as conservationists warn that rare mammals, plants and fungi are being sacrificed as their habitats are appropriated for human use. More than 8,000 scientists from the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC) helped compile the list of species closest to extinction, which was published by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
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