Citi results weighed down by failed loans

Citigroup provided a sobering reminder Thursday that the economy is still struggling, reporting that its third-quarter results were weighed down by billions of dollars in failed loans.

The bank reported a $101 million profit before accounting for $288 million in preferred stock dividends and the debt exchange offer that gave the government a 34 percent stake in the bank. Including those items, the New York-based bank reported a $3.24 billion loss.

Citigroup, one of the hardest hit during the credit crisis and recession, said loan losses during the quarter came to $8 billion, down $386 million from nearly $8.4 billion in the second quarter, but a sign that …

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NYC mom gets prison for fatal DWI crash

NEW YORK (AP) — A mother will spend four to 12 years in prison for drunkenly driving a station wagon full of children and crashing on a Manhattan highway, killing one of them, as they headed to a slumber party.

Carmen Huertas tearfully apologized, and spectators audibly wept, as she was sentenced Friday.

The crash last October on the Henry Hudson Parkway killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado. Her still-devastated family came to court wearing T-shirts and pins bearing her smiling picture.

"What haunts me the most is I promised to protect my daughter. And I feel like I failed her," Lenny Rosado told the court.

He was a single father, raising an only child. He said his …

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Men are pigs; give me money: Tax-funded artists are the left's version of the $600 toilet seat

CALL me perverse, but I spent an evening last week checking outKaren Finley's new act. Trivia buffs will recall Finley as thechocolate-covered nude performer who did colorful things with yamsand federal arts money in 1990, thus attracting great attention aseither an embattled artist or a national laughingstock, depending onyour point of view.

"Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman" was staged in a tinytheater in lower Manhattan, with the audience sitting quietly inamazing discomfort on empty paint buckets instead of chairs. Thewarm-up act, the Dancing Furballs, consisted of several chocolate-marked young people dancing with enthusiasm but not muchcoordination. Other …

Pastors, churches offer views on same-sex marriage

What is your response to the same-sex marriage issue?

"I see it as largely a civil matter. It doesn't change who I am as a pastor." Ed Olfert, pastor of Grace Mennonite Church, Prince Albert, Sask.

"I can't say I've completely come to terms with where I stand.... I have compassion for those on the edge." Karen Martens Zimmerly, co-pastor of Grace Mennonite Church in Regina, Sask.

First Mennonite Church, Kitchener, Ont.-just completed a series of sermons on human sexuality. One of the sermons was a "sermonic conversation" between two of their pastors on homosexuality-describing various perspectives on the matter, and the history of the discussions within the …

Prison terms devastate Myanmar democracy movement

In a devastating week for Myanmar's democracy movement, dozens of its members have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, as the military-ruled government locks away writers and Buddhist monks _ as well as musicians, a poet and at least one journalist.

By the weekend, more than 80 had received sentences of up to 65 years _ a move that seemed designed to keep them jailed long past upcoming elections, activists and analysts said Sunday.

"They are clearing the decks of anyone who is likely to challenge their authority ahead of the election" in 2010, Larry Jagan, a Bangkok-based newspaper columnist and Myanmar analyst, said of the generals who rule the …