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Home prices fell for the sixth straight month in December as high mortgage rates damped buyer demand, according to data released Tuesday. New S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index data released Tuesday showed prices falling nationally by 0.3 percent in December from the previous month after season adjustments. But prices were still higher than at the same time a year earlier, posting non-seasonally adjusted increase of 5.8 percent. “Home prices fell again in December, but levels are still higher than a year ago. Buyers and sellers ended the year on a discouraging note, with sales declining as mortgage rates soared, new listings...

On Friday’s edition of NBC’s “Now Tonight,” White House Council of Economic Advisers member Jared Bernstein argued that America’s government debt doesn’t weaken the country. Host Jake Ward asked, “For those of us at home, the idea of having debt sounds like a very, very bad thing. … What I want to ask you here is, is [Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)] right, does our debt as a nation make us weak?”

Apr. 17, 2015 - 4:24 - Iraqi city of Ramadi at risk of falling to terror group

California faces a 12.6% unemployment rate, and a $20 billion budget deficit. Assembly Democrats seem to believe that the solution to these problems is to rush to implement ObamaCare. Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez introduced a bill this week to conform parts of state law to ObamaCare and set up a massive new state health care bureaucracy. Given that even the federal government is still figuring out exactly how they are going to implement this sweeping new law, there is no need for California to push a bill prematurely through the Legislature right now. ObamaCare is facing Constitutional challenges and...

Concern over the impact on Israel's economy may soon die down, as for the first time in several days, several hundred flights took off for and from Europe Tuesday. On April 14, Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, leaving a cloud of ash high above Europe. Authorities cancelled all flights, for fear that the ash would enter plane engines and cause them to fail in mid-air. The dearth of flights also brought Israel's international air commerce to a grinding halt. On Sunday, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz mulled calling a special meeting of the Finance Ministry to discuss the impact of the phenomenon...

SACRAMENTO — While praising President Barack Obama's moves to allow California to impose tighter controls on tailpipe emissions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now finds himself under pressure from fellow Republicans demanding that he weaken the state's broader greenhouse-gas laws as part of any deal to solve the budget crisis. The possibility of compromising the state's landmark standards to curb global warming has environmentalists fuming. They also worry that Democrats will be forced to trade environmental safeguards for GOP concessions on raising revenue. “This is fiscal blackmail,” said Bill Magavern, state director of the Sierra Club. “They know they could never achieve...

Providing Iraqis with humanitarian aid packages as well as generators, blankets and mattresses is helping to break the insurgents’ stranglehold on poor communities. By Multinational Division – Center PAO FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER, Iraq, Sept. 25, 2007 — Soldiers here say that handing out humanitarian aid packages has helped to help break the hold insurgents have had on a poor community in Salman Pak. "Once that bond is broken, it will enable us to help [local citizens] even more." Capt. Walter Straube A local sheik who is a concerned citizen leader has been working with Company B, 1st Battalion, 15th...

SACRAMENTO -- State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, already linked to a corruption probe, and Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Tustin, refused on Tuesday to drop a bill that could weaken campaign-finance probes against lawmakers. One probe that could be affected is apparently one involving Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert, who lashed out Tuesday at a state agency he accused of improperly revealing its inquiry. "It is disturbing the Fair Political Practices Commission has apparently chosen to violate their own rules prohibiting them from discussing an ongoing investigation and make comments to the press," Battin wrote in a...

WASHINGTON - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Gov. George Pataki are pressing Congress to protect key parts of the Clean Air Act as lawmakers and the Bush administration seek to change the law. The two moderate Republicans on Tuesday urged senators considering updating the act not to reduce the powers states have now to enforce environmental regulations or create tougher state regulations. The governors, who both place great emphasis on their environmental initiatives, wrote to members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which will hold a hearing Wednesday to consider changes to the Clean Air Act....

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's failure to make a dent in the Democrats' big majorities in the California Legislature, despite extensive campaigning for Republicans in key districts, could make it tougher for him to enact his agenda. "By and large, I think it's clear that the Democrats in the Legislature have nothing to fear from the governor and they can deal with him as equals, as we did this year," Senate President Pro Tem John Burton said Wednesday. "That club is not there," he added, referring to the threat that Democrats in marginal districts could lose their seats if...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), backed by 14 of the most liberal members of the United States Senate, has introduced a homeland security bill containing subtle provisions that opponents of the legislation say would weaken the ability of honest, law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. "The Justice Enhancement and Domestic Security Act of 2003," or S. 22, is described in the text of the bill as a way to "enhance domestic security." In fact, the bill itself is so extensive that it goes by at least 26 different...

<p>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -State air regulators weakened the nation's toughest auto emissions regulation today, favoring cleaner cars over pollution-free vehicles that automakers failed to mass produce.</p> <p>The California Air Resources Board voted 8-3 to adopt rules promoting technologies that have emerged since its revolutionary 1990 regulation that would have required 10 percent of cars for sale this year be nonpolluting.</p>