Inside a Florida Mortgage Scam

The FBI and the Department of Justice unveiled Operation Malicious Mortgage last week, a nationwide bust that produced more than 400 arrests over the past three months for fraudulent home-loan schemes. In South Florida alone, more than 100 people have been arrested since last September, including 19 just last week

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Obama heads to Mexico amid escalating drug violence

President Obama travels to Mexico on Thursday as the United States’ neighbor to the south continues to wrestle with increasingly deadly drug wars. Obama recently announced a crackdown on border violence and on the smuggling of cash and weapons into Mexico — a step that could mark an end to a blame game over where responsibility for the violence lies. The president recently designated three Mexican organizations, which he says are involved in drug trafficking, to face hefty financial sanctions under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.

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‘Robust action’ could curtail piracy, expert says

Both the United States and France pulled off-high profile rescues in the waters off the Horn of Africa in the past week, killing a total of five pirates to free hostages who had been holed up for days. While those operations gained international attention, there have been dozens of attacks so far this year. Experts say it will take an international effort to combat the rising number of attacks.

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Economist Mark Zandi: The Chic Geek

Mark Zandi, the chief economist and co-founder of Moody’s Economy.com was in the midst of a whirlwind day that included two speeches, a panel discussion, a television interview and a visit to the Congressional Budget Office — but he still found time for a little extracurricular research. In a taxi on the way to the Park Hyatt hotel in Washington, where he was making a presentation to a bank-industry group, Zandi turned to the driver. “How’s business” he asked.

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Is AIG Spending Too Much on Public Relations?

AIG CEO Edward Liddy was a model of fiscal discipline. Appearing before Congress last month, he committed the bailout billionaire to pay back its government loans, clean up the financial mess it created and act as “good stewards of the public funds we have received.” So why is AIG spending tens of thousands of dollars every month on four big p.r

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Obama must leave door open to N. Korea

There’s an old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Although President Barack Obama and other world leaders could be forgiven for feeling that North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is deliberately driving them insane, that adage is worth keeping in mind amid the calls for U.N

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