ATLANTA (AP) - The first checks for extended unemployment insurance benefits in Georgia are on the way. State labor department officials are mailing the first of the checks Thursday. The extension provides for up to 20 weeks of additional benefits to individuals who exhausted regular unemployment insurance and the first and second tier of Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits on or after Feb. 15.
Georgia is facing a bleak June. In a letter to top state lawmakers on Thursday, Gov. Sonny Perdue says state agencies will lose 25 percent of their funding next month as Georgia continues to grapple with plummeting tax collections. The governor has lowered the amount the state may spend by $274 million to keep from running over budget for the fiscal year set to conclude June 30.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The credit card companies seem to have few friends on Capitol Hill these days, with even the most business-minded lawmakers siding with consumers in speaking out against steep rate hikes and fees. The House was expected to pass, possibly as early as Wednesday, a bill that would enact sweeping new restrictions on the industry, including a requirement that customers penalized by higher interest rates because they missed a payment are given a ...
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's proposed new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks will save billions of barrels of oil but are expected to cost consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016. Obama on Tuesday planned to announce the first-ever national emissions limits for vehicles, as well as require a 35.5 miles per gallon fuel efficiency standard.
DETROIT (AP) - A day after Chrysler LLC told a quarter of its dealers that it won't renew their contracts, owners of General Motors Corp. dealerships are awaiting word on whether they will be next. GM said it will notify 1,100 U.S. dealers on Friday that their franchise agreements will not be renewed. Dealers expect to hear either by telephone or FedEx letters that will begin arriving Friday morning.
NEW YORK (AP) - Chrysler LLC wants to eliminate roughly a quarter of its 3,200 U.S. dealerships by early next month, saying in a bankruptcy court filing Thursday that the network is antiquated and has too many stores competing with each other. The company, in a motion filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, said it wants to shed 789 dealerships by June 9. Many of the dealers' sales are too low, the ...
ATLANTA (AP) - Gov. Sonny Perdue says General Mills is planning a 1.5 million-square-foot distribution center in Social Circle, where it will invest $42 million and create 112 jobs. The governor says General Mills will contract with a third-party provider to staff and run the distribution center in Walton County. The facility will distribute General Mills products throughout the Southeast.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Look out Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare. Senators are meeting behind closed doors to consider whether the federal government should jump into the health insurance business.
BAGHDAD (AP) - A U.S. soldier opened fire at a counseling center on a U.S. base Monday, killing five fellow soldiers before being taken into custody, the U.S. command and Pentagon officials said. The shooting occurred at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city's international airport and adjacent to another facility where President Barack Obama visited last month.
Chrysler will file for bankruptcy after talks with a small group of creditors crumbled just a day before a government deadline for the automaker to come up with a restructuring plan, two administration officials said Thursday. The Obama administration had long hoped to stave off bankruptcy for Chrysler LLC, but it became clear that a holdout group wouldn't budge on proposals to reduce Chrysler's $6.9 billion in secured debt, according to the officials, who spoke ...
WASHINGTON (AP) - A person familiar with the talks says the Treasury Department has reached a tentative agreement with four of Chrysler's major debtholders as the automaker races to stave off bankruptcy. Under the agreement, the four banks will forgo claims to their portion of Chrysler's $6.9 billion debt in exchange for $2 billion in cash when the deal closes. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement has not been formally announced.
ATLANTA (AP) - House Democrats have again helped defeat a measure that would have doubled a tax break for homeowners amid concerns that it would force local governments to cut services or hike property taxes amid the economic downturn. The bill would allow voters to decide in 2010 whether to boost the state homestead exemption from $2,000 to $4,000.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional Democrats vowed Tuesday to all but strip AIG executives of their $165 million in bonuses as expressions of outrage swelled in Congress over eye-catching extra income for employees of a firm that has received billions in taxpayer bailout funds.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Acknowledging it's an "imperfect" bill, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he will accept a $410 billion spending package that includes billions in earmarks like those he promised to curb in last year's campaign. But he insisted the bill must signal an "end to the old way of doing business." The massive measure funding federal agencies through the fall contains nearly 8,000 pet projects, known as earmarks and denounced by critics as pork.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Monday cleared the way for a significant increase in federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research and promised no scientific data will be "distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda." Obama signed the executive order on the divisive stem cell issue and a memo addressing what he called scientific integrity before an East Room audience packed with scientists. He laced his remarks with several jabs at the way ...