Obama Team On Furor Over Foreclosures: 'Problem For The Banks and Servicers To Fix'

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Wednesday that the Obama administration will attempt to protect homeowners and police the kind of paperwork fraud that led the nation's largest banks to temporarily halt foreclosures this month, but added that the administration had yet to find anything fundamentally flawed in how large banks securitized home loans or how they foreclosed on them.

"Where any homeowner has been defrauded or denied the basic protections or rights they have under law, we will take actions to make sure the banks make them whole, and their rights will be protected and defended," Donovan said at a Washington press briefing. "First and foremost, we are committed to accountability, so that everyone in the mortgage process -- banks, mortgage servicers and other institutions -- is following the law. If they have not followed the law, it's our responsibility to make sure they're held accountable."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/20/obama-foreclosures-donovan-whose-problem_n_770591.html

Shots fired at Pentagon, investigation is ongoing

Pentagon police officers said they heard at least five shots fired around 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Officials in subsequent hours of the day discovered two bullet fragments embedded in the building’s bulletproof windows at the south end of the Pentagon, where renovation has been ongoing.

“We are looking at all the possibilities,” Pentagon spokesperson Steven E. Calvery said according to CNN.

No one is reported to have been harmed in what is being called an “isolated incident” by Calvery. The rooms behind the targeted windows were unoccupied at the time of the shooting, and while the bullets shattered, they failed to reach beyond the protective glass.

The shots elicited a shutdown and search of the entire Pentagon, as well as the interstate adjacent to the building. Several law enforcement agencies are monitoring surveillance footage as well as conducting ballistics tests to decipher who may have fired the bullets and with which type of gun – two things authorities say they’re unaware of at the moment.

The occurrence comes two days after early morning bullets were fired through windows of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, approximately 30 miles down the road from the Pentagon. Officials are still looking for suspects in that case as well, which also left no one harmed.

When asked if there were any ties between that and the Pentagon shootings, a law enforcement official, according to CNN, said, “except for the similarity in the incidents — windows shot out at military facilities — there is nothing to connect these incidents at this point.”

The last shootings at the Pentagon occurred seven months ago when John Patrick Bedell shot and injured two Pentagon police officers before taking return fire to the head, ending his life. The confrontation was followed by an increase in security measures at the Pentagon.

As for the shootings that occurred Tuesday morning, the investigation continues

DoD Accepting Openly Gay Recruits

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department said Tuesday that it is accepting openly gay recruits, but is warning applicants they might not be allowed to stick around for long.

Following last week's court ruling that struck down a 1993 law banning gays from serving openly, the military has suspended enforcement of the rule known as "don't ask, don't tell." The Justice Department is appealing the decision and has asked the courts for a temporary stay on the ruling.

The Defense Department said it would comply with the law and had frozen any discharge cases. But at least one case was reported of a man being turned away from an Army recruiting office in Austin, Texas.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith on Tuesday confirmed that recruiters had been given top-level guidance to accept applicants who say they are gay.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/department-of-defense-acc_n_768532.html

Forecloser Mill Employees Recieve Gifts

At a large Florida "foreclosure mill," a manager signed up to 1,000 documents a day without reading them and employees were given gifts to speed up foreclosure paperwork, according to depositions released today by the Florida Attorney General's Office.

The news, also reported by Tampa Online, comes as Bank of America, the nation's largest bank by assets, announcement that it would resume more than 100,000 foreclosures in 23 states after an internal investigation of its practices.

Florida authorities are investigating the law offices of David J. Stern over how it handled foreclosure paperwork. As the AP notes, Cheryl Salmons, an office manager at the law offices of David Stern, "would sign 500 files in the morning and another 500 files in the afternoon without reviewing them and with no witnesses," according to Kelly Scott, a former assistant at the firm.

The perks for good performance were considerable, according to Scott's statement. Tampa Online notes office employees were lavished with gifts:

"As a perk of Samons' [sic.] job, Stern's office would routinely pay her personal mortgage, a car payment, her electric bills and her cell phone bill, according to Scott, who told investigators Stern also bought Samons [sic.] a new BMW sport utility vehicle every year and gave her and other employees jewelry. Additionally, Stern purchased employee David Vargas a house, a car and a cell phone, Scott claims in her statement."
According to Kelly Scott's statement, Cheryl Ramos's marathon document signing sessions took place in an office conference room and would leave her wearied. From Scott's deposition:

They would [be] stacked amongst each other, side by side, and Cheryl would come twice a day, in the morning and mid-afternoon, around two or three o'clock and she would sign all of them, every single one of them...

Cheryl would give certain paralegals rights to sign her name, because most of the time she was very tired exhausted from signing her name numerous times per day. You had to understand it was more than five hundred files that she's signing morning and afternoon.


David Stern had an especially close relationship with the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Scott said in her statement. The lenders were "considered his babies," Scott said and employees would change codes to hide files when their representatives visited the office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/foreclosure-mill-employee_n_767174.html

Wow!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/foreclosure-mill-employee_n_767174.html

U.S. soldier accused of killing civilians in Afghanistan will face a court-martial on murder and other charges, as recommended by an Army officer.

U.S. soldier accused of killing civilians in Afghanistan will face a court-martial on murder and other charges, as recommended by an Army officer.

The document approving the recommendation for the court-martial of Spc. Jeremy Morlock was signed by the officer in charge Friday. It was obtained by CNN, along with other documents, that summarize last week's hearing at an Army-Air Force installation outside Tacoma, Washington, where prosecutors presented evidence against against Morlock.

Base officials would not confirm the authenticity of the document, which has not been publicly released.

NATO official: Bin Laden, deputy hiding in northwest Pakistan

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding close to each other in houses in northwest Pakistan, but are not together, a senior NATO official said.

"Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the intelligence matters involved.

Rather, al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied protecting members of the al Qaeda leadership.

The official said the general region where bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley, which adjoins Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the U.S. invasion in 2001.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/18/afghanistan.bin.laden/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

Pentagon braced for the release of 400,000 Iraq files on Wikileaks

The Pentagon is braced for its biggest-ever security breach of classified information as Wikileaks, the website that publishes leaked official documents, prepares to release 400,000 intelligence files related to the Iraq war.

A task force of 120 people has been assembled to assess the potential implications and damage of the disclosure of the documents, which promises to eclipse the recent release of more than 70,000 classified US military files on the Afghanistan war.

Col. Dave Lapan, the Pentagon spokesman, said the timing of the leak remained unclear but the Defence Department was ready for a document dump as early as Monday or Tuesday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8069766/Pentagon-braced-for-the-release-of-400000-Iraq-files-on-Wikileaks.html

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Book Accused Bishop Long Of Sex Abuse In 2007

ATLANTA -- An author who published a 2007 book accusing Bishop Eddie Long of having homosexual relationships has called for the bishop to step down from the pulpit.

"He is leading God's people to the pits of hell. He needs to confess, repent and let God deal with him," said 'Snakes in the Pulpit' author Reuben Armstrong.

Armstrong is a radio show host based in Dallas, Texas, but said he traveled to Atlanta while researching his book after two New Birth Missionary Baptist Church youth pastors contacted him. He said what they told him back in 2006 sounds a lot like what's alleged in four lawsuits filed against Long in September.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/25394921/detail.html

Police search wooded lot for NC girl presumed dead

HICKORY, N.C. — Investigators used a police dog to search among tree-trimming equipment and piles of mulch for a missing 10-year-old North Carolina girl on Wednesday, a day after authorities said they believed the girl had been killed.

Hours earlier, Zahra Clare Baker's stepmother showed no emotion in court as a judge explained she could be sentenced to up to 30 months in prison if convicted of obstruction of justice. Elisa Baker is accused of trying to throw off investigators with a fake ransom note.

The girl, who used hearing aids and a prosthetic leg because of bone cancer, was reported missing over the weekend, but police have indicated they don't believe her father and stepmother's story.

Baker's court-appointed attorney, Scott Reilly, said she was "scared to death" and very emotional about everything.

Explosives in NYC

NEW YORK — A caretaker doing gardening work at a historic cemetery dug up a plastic garbage bag containing military-grade explosives last fall and left it at the site, where it remained until a volunteer told authorities about it Monday, setting off a big police response.

The employee found the C-4 last year after digging down about a foot into the ground at New York City Marble Cemetery on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. It contained eight sticks of the explosive, but Kelly said they couldn't have gone off because there were nothing to detonate it.

U.S. Apologizes For Medical Experiments In Guatemala

WASHINGTON — American scientists deliberately infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis 60 years ago, a recently unearthed experiment that prompted U.S. officials to apologize Friday and declare outrage over "such reprehensible research."

The discovery dredges up past wrongs in the name of science – like the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study in this country that has long dampened minority participation in medical research – and could complicate ongoing studies overseas that depend on cooperation from some of the world's poorest countries to tackle tough-to-treat diseases.

Uncovering it gives "us all a chance to look at this and – even as we are appalled at what was done – to redouble our efforts to make sure something like this could never happen again," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH-funded experiment, which ran from 1946 to 1948, was uncovered by a Wellesley College medical historian. It apparently was conducted to test if penicillin, then relatively new, could prevent some sexually transmitted infections. The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades.

"We are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday.

President Barack Obama called Guatemala's president, Alvaro Colom, later Friday to apologize. Clinton had called to apologize the night before.

"Obviously this is shocking, it's tragic, it's reprehensible," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "It's tragic and the U.S. by all means apologizes to all those who were impacted."

Guatemalan Embassy official Fernando de la Cerda said his country hadn't known anything about the experiment until Clinton called to apologize Thursday night.

"We appreciate this gesture from the USA, acknowledging the mistake and apologizing," he said. "This must not affect the bilateral relationship."