World News

• UK ‘tops internet shopping chart’
  

  UK shoppers spent more online than any other country in Europe last year, accounting for almost a third of all European sales, research suggests.
  UK consumers spent £38bn online in 2009, or an average of £1,102 per shopper, according to the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).
  Online sales now account for almost 10% of total retail [...]

• Beyonce is queen of Grammy Awards
  

  Pop stars Lady GaGa and Taylor Swift have each picked up two early Grammy Awards at the start of the prestigious music ceremony in Los Angeles.
  Risque singer Lady GaGa won best dance recording for Poker Face and best electronic/dance album for The Fame.
  Taylor Swift won best country song and best female country vocal performance, [...]

• NI policing talks set to resume
  

  Talks aimed at saving the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland resume on Monday with both sides optimistic.
  Sinn Fein and the DUP have spent the last week deadlocked over transferring policing and judicial powers from Westminster to the Stormont Assembly.
  Talks made progress although Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward warned there was still "work to be [...]

• Haiti children
  

  By Rupert Wingfield-HayesBBC News, Port-au-Prince

  For children, the streets of Port-au-Prince are some of the most dangerous in the world.
  Even before the earthquake, kidnap gangs were estimated to take thousands of children from the slums and streets of the Haitian capital every year.
  But the quake has made the situation even worse. Now there are thousands [...]

• Male breast ops ‘ fastest growth’
  

  Breast reductions for men are the fastest growing part of the cosmetic surgery industry for the second year running.
  Numbers rose by 80% last year, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps).
  Pressure created by men’s magazines is partly to blame, said a top surgeon.
  Overall, cosmetic surgery appears to be defying the [...]

• Timing clue to children’s deaths
  

  Two children died less than 24 hours before being found in the boot of a car in East Sussex, police have said.
  Harry Donnison, three, and his sister Elise, two, were found in large holdalls in the car in Heathfield.
  Post-mortem tests showed signs of asphyxiation although further toxicology tests are to be carried out.
  Their [...]

Business News

• Chart: Performance by Mortgage Servicers Through December 2009

  by ProPublica
  Chart: Performance by Mortgage Servicers Through December 2009
  by Paul Kiel and Dan Nguyen, ProPublica – January 15, 2010
  On Jan. 15, 2010, the Treasury Department released data showing how the largest mortgage servicers participating in the administration’s billion foreclosure prevention program have been performing. You can see that breakdown below. The data show activity through Dec. [...]

• Listen In: ProPublica Reporters on NPR

  by Amanda Michel, ProPublica –
  On Wednesday, ProPublica and NPR’s Planet Money announced an ongoing investigation into the inner workings of Wall Street during the boom years.
  ProPublica’s Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger rang the investigation’s opening bell with Planet Money editor Alex Blumberg and correspondent Chana Joffe-Walt. They noted that the SEC is only now [...]

• Were You Involved In the CDO Industry?

  by Amanda Michel, ProPublica –
  ProPublica’s Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger and NPR’s Planet Money are collaborating on an investigation about the inner workings of the Wall Street CDO industry. For more details, see their story today about how nearly three years on, the SEC is asking basic questions about key players in the meltdown.
  If [...]

• SEC Just Now Seeking Key Information On Meltdown

  by Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica –
  This story is part of an ongoing investigation with NPR’s Planet Money. 

  Almost three years since banks started taking losses that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Securities and Exchange Commission is still asking basic questions about what happened.

  Were you there?
  If you [...]

• Feds May Tighten Rules on Omniscan, a GE MRI Drug

  by Jeff Gerth, ProPublica –
  Dec. 2, 2009: This post has been corrected.
  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is weighing further regulation of three drugs used to create high-contrast images on MRI scans, based on a new analysis that suggests they carry a higher risk of causing a rare but potentially fatal disease.
  The issue — [...]

• At University of Phoenix, Allegations of Enrollment Abuses Persist

  by Sharona Coutts, ProPublica –

  After federal regulators accused the University of Phoenix of systematic enrollment abuses in 2004, the school’s parent company paid out nearly million to resolve the allegations.
  Phoenix allegedly had broken the law by tying recruiters’ pay to enrollment numbers, U.S. Department of Education investigators found, creating pressure to sign up [...]