JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — The state of Mississippi will receive $33 million from a national settlement with Standard & Poor’s over allegations that it knowingly inflated its ratings of risky mortgage investments that helped trigger the financial crisis in 2008.
Attorney General Jim Hood says in a news release that Mississippi sued S&P in 2011, joining with Connecticut, the first State to sue in 2010. By 2013, the Justice Department and 17 other states filed similar lawsuits against S&P.
Standard & Poor’s is paying about $1.38 billion in the settlement announced Tuesday over ratings issued from 2004 through 2007.
Hood says the credit rating agencies were just as culpable as the investment banks in causing the financial crisis. Hood says the credit rating agencies held themselves out to be objective and independent.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even as the economy shows signs of improvement and poverty levels off, new U.S. census data suggests the gains are halting and uneven. Depending on education, race, income and even marriage, not all segments of the population are seeing an economic turnaround.
Poverty is on the rise in single-mother families. More people are falling into the lowest-income group. And after earlier signs of increased mobility, fewer people are moving as homeownership declined for a fifth straight year… […]
Today, Congressman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking the United States Department of Justice to give their opinion on Mississippi ’s recently voter identification ballot initiative. In November […]
After attending a local Democratic caucus meeting earlier this year at Provine High School in Jackson and at the urging of some in attendance. There James Reed left with the understanding that it was his time to offer himself as a public servant. “I really didn’t have this on my radar,” Reed said. “But after being asked to run, praying about it and discussing it with my wife, I decided to do it.”
Reed is seeking the office of Election Commissioner for District 1 in Hinds County. […]