Free Republic

A federal judge threw out a U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule Tuesday that capped all credit card late fees at $8. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas approved a joint motion from a coalition of six business and banking groups, including the American Bankers Association (ABA) and the CFPB to scrap the rule, which was established last year. The ABA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among the plaintiffs that challenged the rule in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas, arguing the bureau exceeded its statutory authority....

NATIONAL SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY New Hires Data Has Potential for Updating Addresses of Convicted Sex Offenders ... To help track the location of sex offenders, law enforcement officials have turned to other sources of information, such as state departments of motor vehicles and commercial databases. Previous GAO work suggests that the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) has been useful for the purposes of verifying eligibility for federal benefit programs and collecting debt owed to the federal government, and is a timely source of information.4 The NDNH is a database maintained by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within...

Local retailers raided RALEIGH -- Law enforcement officers this morning announced a crackdown on stores that sell pipes and other products the government considers drug paraphernalia. Officers raided four stores in the Triangle and two in Wilmington on Thursday and seized possible drug-related inventory, court records authorities released Monday show. Two of the stores - Buddha's Belly and Snap Dragons - are located across from N.C. State University. The other local stores were Rock 'N' Roll Outlet on Capital Boulevard and Rock 'N' Roll Village in Clayton. U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney said the multi-agency investigation, called "Operation Pipecleaner," is aimed...