Free Republic

A Senate panel has subpoenaed financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG, seeking evidence of fraud in last year's mortgage-market meltdown, according to people familiar with the situation. The congressional investigation appears to focus on whether internal communications, such as email, show bankers had private doubts about whether mortgage-related securities they were putting together were as financially sound as their public pronouncements suggested. Collapsing values for many of those securities played a big role in precipitating last year's financial crisis. The subpoenas are the latest in a series of moves by Congress to trace the roots...

A former congressional candidate convicted this week of faking his disappearance to boost his faltering campaign maintained his innocence and told ABC News that his case is not over. Prosecutors said Dodds faked his disappearance after the crash, soaking his feet in cold water to make it appear that he'd been lost in the snowy woods. He faces up to seven years in prison. "I'm saddened and disappointed," he said in an emotional interview on "Good Morning America" this morning. "It's been a long, almost two-year ordeal." Dodds, a Democrat, was on his way to Portsmouth, N.H., to meet with...

Dover, N.H. (AP) -- A businessman was convicted Wednesday of faking his disappearance after a car crash two years ago to draw attention to his long-shot congressional campaign. A jury convicted Gary Dodds of falsifying evidence, causing a false public alarm and leaving the scene of the April 2006 crash. He showed no emotion as the verdicts were returned on the first day of deliberations after a 15-day trial. Dodds, 43, claims he injured his head in a crash on the Spaulding Turnpike and nearly drowned in a river before being rescued 27 hours later from the snowy woods. Prosecutors...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she would not have attacked Iraq if she were president in 2002 and would end the war if elected, as she tried to blunt rivals like John Edwards who are stoking anti-war passions in the Democratic Party. Clinton, raising her voice at one point to be heard above anti-war hecklers, suggested that calls from Edwards and others to cut off funding for President Bush's troop increase are unlikely to win approval in a narrowly divided Senate. "Believe me, I understand the frustration and the outrage," Clinton said in a speech to the...

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe told administrators this week that schools will have to drop the word “American” from their official names. Also, any schools named after a person will have to be called by a moniker more reflective of its location. That means Ramstein American High School will simply be known as Ramstein High School. And David Glasgow Farragut High School in Rota, Spain, will take on the shorter name of Rota High School. The school in southern Spain is named for the U.S. Navy’s first admiral. School administrators were notified of the changes in a...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - A congressional hopeful wrecked his car and wandered a mile in a daze, swimming across a river and then huddling under leaves for warmth until he was found alive a day later, officials and relatives said. Gary Dodds, 41, was taken to a hospital to be treated for hypothermia late Thursday. His wife, Cynthia, said Friday that he was doing well but has only foggy memories of his ordeal and "definitely had a good bump to the head." Dodds crashed on the Spaulding Turnpike on Wednesday evening, but emergency workers who arrived a few minutes later found...