Their chief target is Wall Street, but many of the demonstrators in New York and across the U.S. also are thoroughly disgusted with Washington, blaming politicians of both major parties for policies they say protect corporate America at the expense of the middle class."At this point I don't see any difference between George Bush and Obama. The middle class is a lot worse than when Obama was electe...

President Obama on Monday proposed bailing out the U.S. Postal Service, urging that it be allowed to cut mail delivery to five days a week and raise the price of postage. He also proposed allowing the service to get a $6.9 billion refund from an over funded pension fund. “Bold action is needed,” Obama said. “The administration recognizes the enormous value of the U.S. Postal ...

One path to peace is in the message and who delivers it. That idea sank in for 1st Lt. Carter Langston, a Rock Hill native stationed in Afghanistan, when he learned that an American pastor and about 30 spectators had burned a Quran in Florida.In a country where anti-American sentiment already runs high, a few angry leaders in Afghanistan urged people to avenge the insult. The result was the deaths...

The state Budget and Control Board voted unanimously today to increase the amount that state employees and their employers pay for their health insurance.The 9 percent increase was spread equally among employees and employers, with a 4.5 percent increase for each.State employees who only pay for their own health insurance will pay an extra 42 cents a month. State employees who also pay for their s...

South Carolina budget writers on Thursday turned to tax scofflaws to help patch the state's budget.They've been a repeated target, but the twist this time? The crackdown would aim to collect from out-of-state tax cheats and help generate money to enforce the state's illegal immigrant laws and revive a mothballed Statehouse security system.The Senate Finance Committee wrapped up work Thursday on a ...

The oil price hovered near $105 a barrel Tuesday in Asia, giving back some of the previous day's gains but still near its highest level since late 2008 as battles raged between Libyan rebels and forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.Benchmark crude for April delivery was down 68 cents at $104.75 a barrel at late morning Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract...

Suicides among active-duty soldiers dropped in 2010 for the first time in five years, but the number of Army reservists and National Guard members who killed themselves nearly doubled, leaving Army officials scrambling to find ways to gain control of a suicide crisis that's defying the Pentagon's investment in prevention programs. "It's not a deployment problem, because over 50 percent of the ...

The world ramped up assistance to flood-ravaged Pakistan on Thursday three weeks after the crisis began, and U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Washington did not want Islamist extremists to come out of the disaster stronger.The U.S., Germany and Saudi Arabia all announced new pledges of aid, while Japan said it would send helicopters to help distribute food, water and medicine. The Asian Development Bank ...

Saudi Arabia's central bank holds more than twice the amount of gold previously estimated, a shift that analysts said reflected more of an accounting adjustment than an indication the oil rich nation was veering away from its conservative reserve policy.A June report by the World Gold Council, an industry group that tracks gold bullion holdings by nations the world over, showed the Saudi Arabian M...

BP mounted a more aggressive response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday as it deployed undersea sensors to better measure the ferocious flow of crude while drawing up new plans to meet a government demand that it speed up the containment effort ahead of President Barack Obama's visit to the coast.The financial ramifications of the disaster are growing by the day as the White House a...

Four states, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have filed administrative actions against Morgan Keegan & Co., alleging the company cost investors over $2 billion through fraudulent and reckless business practices.Officials in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky along with the SEC alleged the Memphis, Tenn.-based company fraudulentl...