The federal judge overseeing much of the massive litigation over withdrawn painkiller Vioxx yesterday capped fees for plaintiffs' attorneys at a relatively low 32 percent of the $4.85 billion settlement, saying he had to ensure fees were reasonable.

U.S. District Judge Elden Fallon wrote in an order that while the limit is below the usual 33.3 percent to 40 percent that lawyers collect when they take cases on a contingency, it won't result in "a paltry award" for the lawyers.

A multi-million dollar verdict Wednesday against the Belleville Diocese in the case of a child abused by a predator priest in the 1970's.

That victim Jim Wisniewski is now 47 years old and living in Champaign, Illinois.

But Wisniewski says the emotional scars of what happened in his childhood are still with him.

The alleged sexual abuse took place when Jim was an altar boy at St. Theresa's Catholic Church in Salem, Illinois.

Jim says it started when he was just 12 years old in 1973 and went on for three to four years.

The drive south from New Orleans toward the Gulf of Mexico is a study in coastal vulnerability.

As the road winds through marshes and skirts bayous, dry land grows sparser by the mile.

Soon, water dominates the landscape, and the danger that a storm surge from a hurricane coming ashore would pose becomes clear.

At the far edge of this web of wetlands, roughly 60 miles south of New Orleans, lies one of the most strategically important ports in the United States.

Target Corp. has agreed to pay $6 million in damages to plaintiffs in California unable to use its online site as part of a class action settlement with the National Federation of the Blind, a leading advocacy group for blind people.

As part of the settlement, announced Wednesday, Target will place $6 million in an interest-bearing account from which members of the California settlement class can make claims. Furthermore, the settlement requires Target to implement internal guidelines to make its site more accessible to the blind by Feb. 28, 2009, with assistance from the NFB.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) might have to borrow money from the Treasury Department to see it through an expected wave of bank failures, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The borrowing could be needed to cover short-term cash-flow pressures caused by reimbursing depositors immediately after the failure of a bank, the paper said.

The borrowed money would be repaid once the assets of that failed bank are sold.

The state Medical Association says the number of medical malpractice lawsuits against West Virginia doctors and hospitals is going back up.

But recent claims are still below the totals reported earlier this decade, before legislative reforms went into effect.

According to the association, 315 medical malpractice lawsuits were filed in 2003. There were 130 in 2004 and 174 last year. Through July of this year, 75 were filed.

Executive Director Evan Jenkins says West Virginia has gone from one of the worst states in terms of its medical liability climate to one of the best.

Reforms approved in 2001 and 2003 included capping damage awards and limiting a doctor’s or hospital’s share of a damage award to the percentage of blame assigned by a jury.

Countrywide Financial Corp. has been sued by New Mexico's investment and pension funds, which accuse the company of misleading investors.

The lawsuit — filed on behalf of the state Investment Council, the Educational Retirement Board and the Public Employees Retirement Association — accuses the mortgage lender of duping investors about the value and safety of mortgage-backed securities.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in state district court in Santa Fe, also names a number of Countrywide affiliates as defendants.

AARP, the national advocacy group for older Americans, is being accused of age discrimination.

Bonita Brady, a 63-year-old from Michigan, says the group passed her over for a series of jobs because she was too old, despite excellent job reviews.

She joined AARP in Chicago in 1996 as a health representative. She also worked for AARP in Washington before moving to the Lansing office in 2007.

Brady says she lost her job in a reorganization and was passed over for nine vacancies. She sued last week in federal court in Michigan and is seeking more than $25,000.

A message seeking comment was left with AARP lawyer Julie Badel in Chicago.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo is turning up the heat on some of the largest banks in an apparent effort to convince them to voluntarily agree to work out amends with the customers of auction rate securities.

On Monday, his office announced that it is expanding its investigation into the ARS scandal and has sent letters to JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia alerting the banks that his office will look into the firms' behavior "pertaining to misrepresenting auction rate securities to investors as safe, cash-equivalent products, when in fact they faced increasing liquidity risk."

Also on Monday, Morgan Stanley informed Cuomo's office, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators that it would buy back $4.5 billion worth of ARS to pay back investors. The securities are being held in Morgan Stanley retail accounts and were purchased through the bank prior to February 13, 2008.

The deepening toll from the global financial crisis could trigger the failure of a large US bank within months, a respected former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund claimed today, fuelling another battering for banking shares.

Professor Kenneth Rogoff, a leading academic economist, said there was yet worse news to come from the worldwide credit crunch and financial turmoil, particularly in the United States, and that a high-profile casualty among American banks was highly likely.

“The US is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say the worst is to come,” Prof Rogoff said at a conference in Singapore.

Read the full story here on the TimesOnline.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2030 the number of Americans aged 65 and older will more than double to 71 million, comprising approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population. With an aging population boom, Prudential Financial, Inc.'s

newly issued 2008 Long-Term Care Cost of Care research report is a valuable resource for consumers seeking information to help them make informed decisions about their long-term care needs. The study found an increase in the average cost of long-term care ranging from 5% to 13%, varying by type of service, in the past two years alone.

"Many Americans mistakenly believe that Medicare or private health insurance will pay for their long-term care needs. The reality is long-term care risk is substantial, and under current Medicare and Medicaid policy, much of it is the uninsured private responsibility of individuals who pay for care and of families who care for their relatives," said Andy Mako, Senior Vice President, Long-Term Care Insurance, Prudential.

Prudential's Cost of Care study sheds light on the State-specific average costs associated with nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and home health care services. The study results show the average assisted living costs and average nursing home costs in Alaska as the most expensive in the country at $82,956 per year and $183,595 per year respectively. Detroit ranked the highest for home health care hourly rate at $38.

A group of irked Facebook members filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook Tuesday that said the company's controversial Beacon advertising program violates several laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).

Beacon, which launched in late 2007, basically tracked the activity of Facebook members on certain partner sites and then posted an item in users' news feeds when they purchased something.

Bought movie tickets on Fandango, or new shoes on overstock.com? If you failed to click "no" on a blink-and-you-miss-it notice during checkout, your Facebook newsfeed would soon read "Chloe bought Dark Knight on Fandango."

That might not seem too harmful, but what if you bought tickets to "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" on Fandango or a copy of "He's Just Not That Into You" on overstock.com? Suddenly, all 200 of our closest "friends" are privy to that information.

Ticor Title, one of the largest title insurance firms in the country, is suing Countrywide Home Loans, the nation's largest home lender, saying it shouldn't have to pay out on a title policy because of Countrywide's gross negligence.

The suit, filed last month in Cook County Chancery Court, concerns just one Chicago mortgage made by Countrywide in 2007, but the implications are enormous, say real estate and title insurance experts.

If title insurers refuse to honor their policies, "You would have chaos," predicts Chicago real estate attorney Tom McNulty of Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg. The fate of tens of thousands of troubled properties around the country would be thrown into limbo while lenders and title insurers duke it out. Other deals would be held up because buyers and sellers would be reluctant to move forward without title insurance to protect their investment.

Ever since Apple’s board implicated “two former officers” in the options backdating scandal in late 2006, conventional wisdom has been that the company had thrown former general counsel Nancy Heinen and former CFO Fred Anderson under the bus. While the board found plenty of backdating, it exonerated CEO Steve Jobs and pointed the finger at them.

Wasn’t much of a bus, it turns out. Today, Heinen settled year-old charges from the SEC for essentially $200,000—a few quarters’ salary for a top executive at Apple. Sure, she had to repay the $1.5 million from the ill-gotten gains on the backdated options, plus $400,000 in interest, but of course she was going to have to give those back. The $200,000 is the fine for her purported crimes, which included having staffers draw up documents for a board meeting that never happened.

The FBI on Friday arrested a former Countrywide Financial Corp. employee and another man in an alleged scheme to steal and sell sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, of as many as 2 million mortgage applicants.

The breach in security, which occurred over a two-year period though July, was one of the largest in years, experts said.

The insider was identified as Rene L. Rebollo Jr., 36, who had worked as a senior financial analyst at Full Spectrum Lending, Countrywide's subprime lending division. He was arrested at his home in Pasadena and charged with unauthorized access to a financial institution's computers.

Two local government pension funds are the first UK investors to mount a class action lawsuit against a US bank for losses they claim to have suffered from its sub-prime investments.

Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street giant at the centre of the complaint, is being sued for £8m in compensation from the Lothian Pension Fund and the Northern Ireland Local Governmental Officers Superannuation Committee.

They are among five pension funds which allege Lehman's involvement in the sub-prime crisis cost them millions. The crisis caused by sliced and diced mortgages has wreaked economic carnage globally, though increasingly big investors are using litigation to fight back.

The UK funds" lawyer, Robert Roseman, said: "This is the first case where European institutional investors have brought a claim against banks in the US for violation of the federal securities laws."

The complaint alleges Lehman "repeatedly downplayed the risks associated" with owning such debts and "concealed the true extent of the company's exposure."

A spokesman for Lehman said: "We believe that this suit is completely without substance."

Links to the story on the internet:

BusinessWeek

New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo said Monday that he was expanding an ongoing securities investigation to include JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia.

Cuomo's announcement that state regulators are widening their probe into the marketing of so-called auction rate securities to include the three banks comes after other major banks reached settlements with US regulators in the past week.

"Today we're expanding our investigation into the auction rate securities scandal to insure investors across New York state and the nation get their money back," Cuomo said in a statement.

Five of North America's largest credit unions are reporting big paper losses on mortgage-related securities, a sign that housing-market distress is spreading even to the most risk-averse financial sectors, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said on Monday.

According to federal regulatory filings, the five corporates showing big mortgage-related losses are U.S. Central Federal Credit Union, Western Corporate Federal Credit Union, Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union, Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union, and Constitution Corporate Federal Credit Union, the Journal said.

The filings indicate that the credit unions -- cooperative financial institutions -- have together reported about $5.7 billion in "unrealized" losses as of the end of May, the paper said.

Mortgage finance giant suffers much larger-than-expected loss due to reserves for credit losses and slashes its dividend to preserve capital.

Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae reported a much larger-than-expected loss in the second quarter and slashed its dividend Friday, more signs that the problems in housing and financial markets are not over.

The firm reported a net loss of $2.3 billion, or $2.54 a share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast a loss of 68 cents a share, compared to earnings of $1.86 a share a year earlier. But large increase in reserves for bad debt and a writedown in the value of its holdings hurt the results.

American International Group lost $5.3 billion in the second quarter as housing values slid and disruptions continued in the credit markets.

Securities analysts had been expecting A.I.G. to post a small net gain. Still, its loss was less than the $7.8 billion it lost in the first quarter of this year, which was the worst in A.I.G.’s history.

The continued red ink underscored the way A.I.G. has been battered by the troubles that have been spreading through the financial sector since late last summer. In the second quarter of 2007, before the collapse of mortgage-backed securities began to cause runs on hedge funds and huge losses at banks, A.I.G. earned $4.2 billion.

Freddie Mac on Wednesday posted its fourth straight quarterly loss as it braced for a prolonged housing crisis by setting aside twice as much money for bad loans and setting plans to slash its dividend by at least 80 percent.

The worse-than-expected results come just three weeks after U.S. authorities orchestrated a sweeping effort to prop up the second-biggest provider of U.S. residential mortgage funding and its rival Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac affirmed a commitment to raise fresh capital.

Freddie Mac's chief financial officer repeated that it continues to maintain a surplus over regulatory capital requirements, and said the company can wait for "choppy" market conditions to improve before raising capital, which could exceed $5.5 billion.

The attorney general of New York, Andrew Cuomo, plans to take legal action against Citigroup, which he says misled investors about the dangers of auction-rate securities and destroyed evidence that his office had requested as part of its investigation into the company's sales practices.

Cuomo said he would file charges against the company under the state's Martin Act, which empowers him to file both criminal and civil charges.

The news came Friday on a day that Citigroup disclosed in a filing that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and several state agencies, led by the Texas State Securities Board, were also investigating its auction-rate securities practices.

Read the entire story here on the International Herald Tribune website.

HSBC has warned that conditions in financial markets are at their toughest "for several decades" after suffering a 28% fall in half-year profits.

Europe's largest bank saw profits drop by $3.9bn to $10.2bn (£5.2bn) in the first six months of the year, as its North American arm made a $2.8bn loss. The firm announced $3.7bn in fresh credit writedowns. HSBC has been among the banks worst hit by the credit crunch, whose financial toll has run into the many billions. It has already announced writedowns in the value of its assets - linked to the slump in the US housing market - of more than $15bn

Read the full story here on the BBC Website.

The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, but a second, far larger one is quickly building.

Homeowners with good credit are falling behind on their payments in growing numbers, even as the problems with mortgages made to people with weak, or subprime, credit are showing their first, tentative signs of leveling off after two years of spiraling defaults.

The percentage of mortgages in arrears in the category of loans one rung above subprime, so-called alternative-A mortgages, quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. Delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent in that time.

Insurers are cautiously offering coverage for green building projects, but many carriers remain reluctant to provide this specialized coverage as they continue to evaluate the risks involved, according to a report by insurance broker Marsh.

The report, titled “The Green Built Environment in the United States, The State of the Insurance Marketplace,” said the construction of environmentally friendly green buildings is growing at an expanding rate, but “the commercial insurance marketplace is keeping a watchful eye on this trend and monitoring the delicate balance between risk and reward.”

Read the full story here on the National Underwritner website.