This is the Daily Digest, a series of daily blog posts meant to send you to news stories that might be of interest. The Daily’s got your campus news covered; come to here to see what else is out there.
Your Daily Digest for Sept. 8, 2010:
BP released a report today that blamed numerous companies for the April 20 oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill. The culmination of a four-month internal investigation, the 193-page report "deflects attention" away from BP and toward mistakes made by contractors Transocean and Halliburton, the New York Times reports. Because the report was written by BP employees themselves, the findings are unlikely to influence the Department of Justice’s possible criminal and civil charges, according to the article.
Less than a month after Wells Fargo was ordered to pay $203 million in restitution to Californian customers for unfair overdraft practices, TCF Bank is headed toward the same trouble. Minnesotan Kimberly Savage filed suit against the bank through Hennepin County District Court, alleging the bank put larger charges on the card before smaller ones, intentionally disordering them in efforts to incur more overdraft fees, the Star Tribune reports. According to the article, federal banking regulations passed last month prohibit automated overdraft protection, but do not make "high-to-low check clearing" illegal. Savage and her attorney are seeking class-action status for the suit for all similarly affected Minnesotans.
President Barack Obama will announce this afternoon his intentions to end tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 when the reductions, leftover from the George W. Bush era, expire, the Washington Post reports. The Republicans’ plan to continue these cuts, White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said, would add $700 billion to the national deficit over the next decade. Obama does not seek to eliminate the cuts completely; he supports continuing them for families with less than $250,000 yearly income.
