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re than 4,600 new police officers are to be hired across the United States at a cost of one billion dollars as part of the country's economic stimulus plan, administration officials said Tuesday. The grants will be awarded to some 1,046 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and will provide the full salary and benefits for 4,699 officers for three years, according to a Justice Department statement. There is also a provision that departments receiving the funds retain the positions for at least a fourth year

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM Office of Communications & Outreach 400 Maryland Ave., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20202 _______________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release July 24, 2009 PRESIDENT OBAMA, U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION DUNCAN ANNOUNCE NATIONAL COMPETITION TO ADVANCE SCHOOL REFORM Obama Administration Starts $4.35 Billion "Race to the Top" Competition, Pledges a Total of $10 Billion for Reforms President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that states leading the way on school reform will be eligible to compete for $4.35 billion in Race to the Top competitive grants to support education reform...

Note: The following text is a quote: Vice President Biden, Attorney General Holder Announce Recovery Act Funding to Support Law Enforcement Recovery Act Funds to Add Police Officers to the Streets; Build Safer Communities Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder today announced $1 billion in grants to fund the hiring and rehiring of law enforcement officers all across the country under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The grants will be awarded to 1,046 law enforcement agencies from all 50 states and will provide 100 percent of the approved salary and benefits for 4,699 officers...

Some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies are reaping billions of dollars in extra revenue amid global concern about the spread of swine flu. Analysts expect to see a boost in sales from GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis when the companies report first-half earnings lifted by government contracts for flu vaccines and antiviral medicines.

Freddie Mac Gets Another $6.1B from Gov't BY STEPHEN BERNARD | AP Business Writer You have entered an invalid email address From (email):* Required NEW YORK (AP) - Battered mortgage giant Freddie Mac received $6.1 billion in new funds from the Treasury Department to help offset its mounting liabilities, according to a regulatory filing submitted Wednesday. The company could also be close to naming a new, permanent CEO, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has been operating Freddie Mac since last fall, requested the funds for Freddie Mac after the mortgage...

One of President Barack Obama's most prominent Wall Street backers gives him high marks on just about everything except his approach to Wall Street.

By Glenn Somerville and Corbett Daly WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday it has put another $7.5 billion into auto lender GMAC to enable it to support both Chrysler LLC [CBS.UL], and General Motors Corp Corp (GM.N) car buyers and partly meet a shortage of capital. The widely anticipated action is intended to help counter a scarcity of credit that has helped drive sales of domestic cars into a ditch. The Federal Reserve also extended an exemption that will let GMAC keep lending to GM dealers and retail customers, which it normally would be...

Oregon Republicans offer no-new-tax budget by Harry Esteve, The Oregonian Tuesday May 12, 2009, 1:43 PM SALEM -- Oregon could pay for a full school year and protect its most vulnerable citizens without raising taxes, according to an alternative budget proposal released Tuesday by Republican legislative leaders. Their two-year spending plan, outlined in the broadest terms at a news conference, effectively gives most state agencies the same amount of money they got over the past two years and maintains a surplus to cover emergencies. "A rush to new taxes, quite frankly, is unnecessary," said Sen. Frank Morse, one of the...

At least $53 million in federal funds have gone to ACORN activists since 1994, and the controversial group could get up to $8.5 billion more tax dollars despite being under investigation for voter registration fraud in a dozen states. The economic stimulus bill enacted in February contains $3 billion that the non-profit activist group known more formally as the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now could receive, and 2010 federal budget contains another $5.5 billion that could also find its way into the group’s coffers. An Examiner review of federal spending data found that ACORN has received at least...

Reporting from Washington -- President Obama touted his plan for developing high-speed railways Thursday, detailing how $13 billion in federal money would act as a "down payment" on creating speedier passenger train service. "High-speed rail is long overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways," Obama said. "There's no reason why we can't do this." The proposal lists the long-planned rail corridor from Los Angeles to San Francisco as one that could receive funding, as well as a network featuring...

Most of this as-yet-undiscovered problem, Gober says, lies in the area of reinsurance, whereby one insurance company insures the liabilities of another so that the latter doesn't have to carry all the risk on its books. Most major insurance companies use outside firms to reinsure, but the vast majority of AIG's reinsurance contracts are negotiated internally among its affiliates, Gober says, and these internal balance sheets don't add up. The annual report of one major AIG subsidiary, American Home Assurance, shows that it owes $25 billion to another AIG affiliate, National Union Fire, Gober maintains. But American has only $22...

Books claiming that science disproves ‘young-earth’ creationism are very common, and books that claim the Bible itself does not mandate a literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis are not in short supply either. David Snoke’s book A Biblical Case for an Old Earth ostensibly falls in the latter group, though his main reason for rejecting biblical creation is really uniformitarian ‘science’. Books like these generally don’t pose a threat to informed creationists, and this one is no exception. In fact, Snoke could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had actually taken the time to...

D.C. officials say any federal stimulus funds provided for schools and bridges in the District will enable them to drop their own funding plans for such projects and divert the money to help plug other gaps in their 2010 budget. The officials argued at a meeting of the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia on Tuesday evening that such action would not undermine the purpose of the stimulus package, which has been designed to move money quickly into projects where it will produce the most jobs. But some economists see the plan as an example of a...

Obama urged to spend billions on weather research1 hour 45 mins ago Tim Gaynor Weather scientists on Tuesday urged Barack Obama to spend $9 billion on satellites and research to prepare for hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires and examine links between destructive weather and climate change. Members of the American Meteorological Society meeting in Phoenix said they want Obama, who becomes U.S. president on January 20, to provide the funds over the next five years. "There are some very basic research questions that need to be addressed so that we can make wise policy ... and better protect people and infrastructure,"...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve announced Monday that it will make hundreds of billions more dollars available to the nation's banks in return for a wide range of troubled collateral. The central bank said that its so-called term auction facility, which accepts financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities as a collateral, will be doubled immediately to $300 billion. The total amount available to banks will rise to $600 billion under the moves announced Monday. In addition, the Fed signaled it could increase the amount available through those loans to $900 billion by the end of the year,...

Washington - While crafting a bill intended to rescue the U.S. economy this week, lawmakers couldn't stop themselves from adding billions of dollars in tax breaks that have little to do with restoring confidence in financial markets. Senators quietly tucked a number of earmarks into the tax package of the 451-page bill that was passed Wednesday night and is expected to be put to a vote in the House today: a $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children; a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners; $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for...

As the public focuses on a $700 Billion dollar bailout bill, many may not have noticed the separate $630 Billion the The Federal Reserve will pump into the global financial system or the just approved $600 billion spending bill that funds the government into March. This is on top of the 180 Billion the Federal Reserve pumped into the system last week.

Russia has managed to sell Saudi Arabia $4 billion worth of weapons. Half of that is for 100 Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters. The Mi35 is the export version of the most recent Mi24. This is a twelve ton helicopter gunship that also has a cargo area that can hold up to eight people, or four stretchers. The Mi24 can carry rockets, missiles bombs and automatic cannon. It is used by over thirty countries, and has a pretty good reputation for reliability. The design is based on the earlier Mi-8 transport helicopter. Thus the Mi-17 is also a 12 ton helicopter,...

Private equity firm the Carlyle Group came under renewed pressure to come to the rescue of its beleaguered investment fund, Carlyle Capital, which warned on Monday that creditors could liquidate up to $16 billion of assets. A spokeswoman for the Carlyle Group told Forbes.com that it was considering "all options" to maximize the interests of stakeholders in Carlyle Capital, adding that the Amsterdam-listed fund's troubles had not materially affected the parent company or its other 54 funds. So far it has provided an unsecured credit facility of $150 million to the fund, which it launched last July. The pressure was...

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report. Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily. The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control...