Search

The article focuses on speaker Nancy Pelosi and senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders who sought Ady Barkan, dying of amyotropic lateral sclerosis, who came in California to testify universal medical eligibility and mentions that Barkan was rising in world of liberal activism before diagnosis.

The article offers business-related news briefs in the U.S. as of January 26, 2014 including the release of iPhone models of electronics firm Apple Inc., 2013 fourth quarter financial performance report of automotive firm Ford Motor Co. and the economic growth estimate of the Commerce Department.

WASHINGTON -- Under increasing pressure from global investors and world leaders, European government officials indicated Saturday that they were working to intensify their response to the continent's growing debt problems. It was an acknowledgment, after weeks of public stonewalling, that a plan announced in July had failed to calm financial markets. Fears that Greece could default on its mounting debts, and that other European countries might follow, have repeatedly sent global markets plunging in recent weeks. Investors are also increasingly concerned that uncertainty itself is disrupting economic activity around the world and slowing growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, increasingly alarmed by the spillover effects of Europe's financial crisis, has begun an intensive lobbying campaign to persuade Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and other leaders to ramp up efforts to stem any contagion from the debt crisis in Greece. In phone calls and meetings over the last week, President Obama urged Mrs. Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to take coordinated measures -- including spending billions in additional funds to bail out Greece and bolster European financial institutions -- to prevent Greece's debt woes from spreading to its neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- Rising alarm that Europe is not addressing its economic problems with sufficient speed or force pervaded and soured the annual gatherings here on Friday of economists and policy makers from around the world. European officials sought to soothe the concerns, taking to podiums across the city at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to defend the financial health of the euro zone. They also reiterated their commitment to developing a coordinated response by early November. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve announced an unconventional plan on Wednesday to reduce borrowing costs for businesses and consumers, trying once more to spur economic growth despite urgings from Republicans that it refrain from any expansion of its stimulus program. The Fed said that it would invest $400 billion in long-term Treasury securities over the next nine months, using money raised by selling its holdings of short-term federal debt, in an attempt to drive down interest rates on mortgage loans, corporate bonds and other forms of credit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- Just weeks ago, economists and financial analysts were dismissing Washington as largely irrelevant to the economy's course in coming months, if only because it chose to be. They are not dismissing it anymore. The possibility of major parts of President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill becoming law, and of further steps next week by the Federal Reserve, have forecasters saying that the decisions Washington makes in the weeks ahead could have a substantial effect on economic growth and unemployment. At a minimum, the stimulus could be insurance against the headwinds blowing from Europe's debt crisis and the impact of the recent government spending cuts in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The nation's political leaders agreed on Sunday to spend and invest less money in the American economy, a step that economists said risks the reversal of a faltering recovery, in the hope of improving the nation's long-term prosperity. The emerging outlines of a deal to cut spending by at least $2.4 trillion over 10 years, with a multibillion-dollar down payment later this year, would complete an about-face in the federal government's role from outsize spending in the immediate aftermath of the recession to outsize cuts in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration has been barraged with ideas for reworking the government's role in housing finance, spanning the spectrum from guaranteeing all mortgageloans to eliminating all federal subsidies for homeownership. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, speaking Tuesday at a conference to discuss the possibilities, made clear that the administration was not pondering such radical kinds of surgery as it develops a proposal it hopes to unveil in January. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]