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WASHINGTON - Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Saturday he is donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing his loan on an apartment building after reviewing documents showing he received special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp. Conrad said it appears that Countrywide waived 1 point on his mortgage for a Bethany Beach, Del., vacation home. He said he would donate the equivalent amount of money to Habitat for Humanity. "Although I did not ask for or know that I was receiving a discount, and even though I was offered a competitive loan from another lender, I do not want to...

You're not going to believe this about Countrywide : "Senators Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut and chairman of the Banking Committee, and Kent Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee, refinanced properties through Countrywide’s “V.I.P.” program in 2003 and 2004, according to company documents and emails and a former employee familiar with the loans. Other participants in the V.I.P. program included former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and former U.N. ambassador and assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke....

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigned Monday, amid multiple ethics investigations and criticism from top lawmakers. Jackson said he will step down on April 18. He did not mention the allegations in his brief statement Monday, saying only that he wanted to attend to personal and family matters. The resignation came after criticism from members of Congress that Jackson has refused to respond adequately to allegations of impropriety. No names have been floated as candidates to replace Jackson, a long-time friend of President Bush from their days in Texas.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's top housing official, under criminal investigation and intense pressure from Democratic critics, announced Monday he is quitting.Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson said his resignation will take effect on April 18. The move comes at a shaky time for the economy and the Bush administration, as the housing industry's crisis has imperiled the nation's credit markets and led to a major economic slowdown....

Two top Democrats on Friday called for the resignation of U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, citing questions about his leadership and his agency's operations during the national housing crisis... Democrats have raised allegations about potential improper political interference at HUD, particularly regarding to the use of contracts and federal spending. Mr. Jackson has consistently denied wrongdoing. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate subcommittee that controls HUD's appropriations, sent a letter to President George W. Bush on Friday calling for Mr. Jackson's removal. "Unfortunately, the allegations surrounding Secretary...

Another Senator is questioning the decision to spend billions of dollars to help especially hard hit areas of southeast Louisiana rebuild – especially areas that will continue to be vulnerable to another storm. Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett made his comments at a hearing of the Congressional appropriations committee where the head of the Department of Homeland Security and the director of HUD were asking for an additional $19 billion to continue rebuilding. “I’m happy to appropriate money to people who are in trouble,” said Bennett. “But, if we are going to appropriate money and rebuild in a place that...

Programs and agencies geared at stamping out homelessness in Erie County will get $9.4 million in 2006 from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The grants, to be announced locally Thursday, include nearly $3.7 million for new projects and services. In 2005, programs in Erie County received no new funds through HUD's annual competitive grant-making process. But local advocates for the homeless said the latest round of grants was smoothing over the disappointment from the 2005 grant announcements. "For the first time in a long time, we got everything we asked for from HUD," said William T. O'Connell,...

A Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged. Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of "500,000 people for a long time," and "it's not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again."

Oh my God ... how .. how could this be?

Black political leaders such as Jesse Jackson have convinced African-Americans that they are victims who must vote Democratic to erase decades of discrimination, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson contended Wednesday. The HUD secretary said President Bush's campaign is trying to counter that by focusing on younger black voters, rather than those who grew up during the civil rights era of the 1960s. Those voters have especially "been conditioned that if you are Republican and white, you hate black people, and that's nonsense," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. Alphonso Jackson, 58, said Republicans are focusing...

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other black political leaders spread a message of victimization that leads most blacks to vote Democratic, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson charged Wednesday. The HUD secretary said he has advised President Bush's campaign to focus its efforts on younger blacks who did not grow up during the civil rights era because older blacks who did ``have been conditioned'' to vote Democratic by Jesse Jackson, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and others. ``They have made a living telling black people they are victims,'' the HUD secretary said in an interview with...

HUD secretary booed at Baptist convention By JANET McCONNAUGHEY Associated Press writer NEW ORLEANS -- The nation's largest black church group interrupted President Bush's housing secretary with sustained boos when he said Thursday that the Republican Party is committed to helping blacks. Alphonso Jackson, who is black, appeared at the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention USA a few hours before Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry was scheduled. "Kerry's not going to say anything about what's better about his party -- he's going to make an emotional speech and blame the Republican Party," Jackson predicted. As such things go,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- In an effort to break the Democratic Party's grip on the black vote, several leading black Republicans have accepted an offer from one of the nation's largest urban radio networks to deliver a weekly address targeting African Americans. Alphonso Jackson, whom President Bush chose to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will present the first address on Saturday at 1:06 p.m., said Jerry Lopes, president of program operations and affiliations at Pittsburgh-based American Urban Radio Networks. "We welcome the opportunity to speak directly to the African American community throughout our nation," Ed...