Wall Street bailout
WASHINGTON The Bush administration sketched out a multi-faceted effort on Friday to confront the worst U.S. financial crisis in decades, outlining a program that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to buy up bad mortgages and other toxic debt. Relief washed over Wall Street with a surge of buying.
President Bush, flanked by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, acknowledged that the program will put a “significant amount of taxpayers’ money on the line.”
Paulson gave few details but said he would work through the weekend with leaders of Congress from both parties to flesh out the program, the biggest proposed government intervention in financial markets since the Great Depression.
Members of the Senate Banking Committee said they had yet to receive details of the proposal but were ready to move quickly when they do.
Before the markets opened Friday, the government announced plans to temporarily insure money-market deposits and to block short-selling in financial securities. Short selling is a trading method that bets the stocks will go down.
Speaking to reporters at the Treasury Department, Paulson said the new troubled-asset relief program he wants Congress to enact will include mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stepping up their purchases of mortgage-backed securities to help provide support to the crippled housing market.
He also said the Treasury Department will expand a program, announced earlier this month, to buy mortgage-backed securities, which have been badly hurt by the housing and credit crises.
Chief gameday buddy?
People would rather watch a football game with Barack Obama than with John McCain — but by barely the length of a football. Obama was the pick over McCain by a narrow 50 percent to 47 percent, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Friday.
Crash rattles L.A.
An out-of-service bus driven by a mechanic turned abruptly into a light rail train near downtown L.A. during the morning rush Friday, injuring at least 14 people and rattling commuters a week after a deadly train crash in a suburb. The track reopened about three hours after the crash.
Milk crisis widens
China’s tainted milk crisis widened Friday after tests found the industrial chemical melamine in liquid milk produced by three of the country’s leading dairy companies, the quality watchdog said. Tainted baby formula has been blamed for killing four infants in China since last week.
Baseball MVP divorces
It’s over for A-Rod and his wife of more than five years. With a prenuptial agreement in place, lawyers for the couple confirmed Friday that a settlement was reached less than three months after Cynthia Rodriguez first filed for divorce from New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez. Terms were not disclosed.
