CHICAGO -- A Chicago college is offering a class on the Occupy movement.
Thirty-two undergraduate students are enrolled at Roosevelt University's "Occupy Everywhere" class. It's a three-credit political science course that looks at the movement that started last summer near New York City's Wall Street and spread nationwide.
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Newt Gingrich's campaign remains roughly $600,000 in debt, two months after it reported deep debts and a long list of creditors, newly released campaign spending records show.
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After a judge garnished Allen Iverson's bank account to pay a debt, it became clearer that his tragedy is coming full circle. And that's heartbreaking to someone who grew up at the peak of his stardom.
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By Katharina Bart
ZURICH, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The first indictment of a Swiss private bank over hiding untaxed money for wealthy Americans has heightened tension among private bankers fearful of being next in the firing line.
The United States has indicted St.Gallen-based Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, on charges it enabled Americans to evade taxes on at least $1.2 billion in offshore bank accounts.
The indictment, which was announced by the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday, set Wegelin rivals in Zurich and Geneva buzzing on Friday, highlighting the fear of another U.S. strike against a private bank.
"It seems the U.S. is shooting at everything in sight and we don't know when it's going to stop. I think the chances of another bank being indicted are pretty big," a Geneva private banker said.
"After all, why should the U.S. stop? Switzerland is small, it's an easy target, but a lot of money can be made out of it. When this whole thing started we didn't know how far the U.S. would go, but now we've found out."
Switzerland's finance department, foreign ministry, regulator Finma, banking lobby and finance ambassador SIF were silent on the indictment of Wegelin.
Wegelin itself, founded in 1741 and run by loquacious and gregarious private banker Konrad Hummler, also didn't comment.
The threat of imminent U.S. indictment, seen as the kiss of death for businesses, drove Wegelin to sell itself last week.
The indictment is the culmination of months of uncertainty for private bankers, many of whom won't travel to the United States, even for personal reasons, for fear of being arrested.
Several Wegelin rivals chided Hummler for "bringing on the indictment himself" through repeated verbal swipes at U.S. officials as they began cracking down on offshore centers like Switzerland. Unusually outspoken among banking peers who typically prefer to blend in and live and work in relative obscurity, Hummler courted press attention, which he successfully translated into business for Wegelin.
However, he did not fear irking U.S. authorities repeatedly. Justice officials were annoyed by a "farewell, America" letter he wrote to Wegelin clients in 2009, in which Hummler urged clients to sell any U.S. securities they owned given heightened Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of tax dodgers, according to people briefed on the matter.
Hummler's letter was taken by many rivals as a codified invitation for tax evaders to bring their funds to Wegelin as UBS and other banks were sweeping their accounts clean of tax offenders.
PAINFUL STEP
Hummler's "fatal error" was thinking Wegelin was safe from a U.S. indictment because the bank didn't run any U.S.-based branches, several rivals said on Friday.
Wegelin broke itself up last week in the face of the U.S. campaign, moving most of its employees, along with clients and assets of 21 billion Swiss francs, to Notenstein Privatbank, in turn bought by Swiss cooperative bank Raiffeisen for an undisclosed sum.
Last week, Hummler, who wasn't available for comment on Friday, called the step an extremely painful one.
U.S. and Swiss officials continue to work towards a solution to sweep Swiss bank accounts clean of offenders and make good on past transgressions. Several banks including Credit Suisse , which has put aside money towards paying a fine to the U.S. over offshore accounts, and Julius Baer, have come under intense U.S. scrutiny. Those banks, which both report earnings next week, declined comment.
Swiss giant UBS, seen by many as the blueprint for subsequent negotiations for Swiss private banks after its 2009 data handover and fine, also didn't comment. The U.S. seized more than $16 million from UBS's Stamford, Connecticut branch, which served as Wegelin's correspondent bank.
Early in 2009, UBS averted a criminal indictment by contravening Swiss banking secrecy and handing over around 250 sets of data to U.S. authorities on an emergency order by Finma, which was later taken to court over the move. Finma's handling of the affair was eventually vindicated on appeal.
The timing of Wegelin's indictment dovetails with the U.S. launch of an amnesty programme designed to induce taxpayers into coming clean on hidden assets, the IRS's third such program during its recent offshore campgain.
"This is classic tax enforcement strategy - the iron fist and the velvet glove," said Scott Michel, a tax lawyer and resident of law firm Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C.
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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Richard Burr's vocal opposition to the STOCK Act raised some eyebrows in Washington this week, and with good reason.
Burr, a North Carolina Republican who was one of just three senators to vote against the ban on congressional insider trading Thursday, owns investments in the natural gas industry that would benefit from legislation he co-sponsored offering tax credits for natural gas-fueled vehicles.
Burr has investments in the gas industry valued from $133,298 to $219,337, according to his 2010 filings. His portfolio includes $36,000 worth of stock in Chesapeake Energy Corp., the second-largest U.S. producer of natural gas. He also holds more than $25,000 in shares of Loews Corp., a holding company with subsidiaries engaged in the exploration, production, marketing and transmission of natural gas.
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This article comes to us courtesy of California Watch.
More than 400 redevelopment agencies were officially shuttered yesterday, leaving a trail of uncertainty - and a potentially staggering debt load.
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Aspiring actor Robert Aaron Stephens is accused of date raping at least women, and authorities are searching for more potential victims.
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that Stephens had been arrested for sexually assaulting women between May 2009 and October 2010. Investigators say that Stephens took the women on dates to Hollywood events where he would "get them intoxicated." Later that night, police allege, he would sexually assault the women.
Stephens' IMDB page reveals that he's had several bit roles in shows like "Law & Order," "Las Vegas," and "Clubhouse" since 2001. At least three of the roles are uncredited, which means that he appeared in a film or television program, but his name was not listed in the movie credits.
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WXYZ reports an Ingham County Circut Court judge has ruled against the state in a lawsuit over Michigan's emergency manager law.
Highland Park School Board member Robert Davis sued Treasurer Andy Dillon and Gov. Rick Snyder over the closed-door process of the state-appointed financial review team that is currently examining Detroit's finances. Davis alleged the review team's private meetings violated the Open Meetings Act.
This is a developing story.
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