The Senate passed financial reform Thursday, and President Obama will sign it, but many of the tough decisions will be made by federal regulators. How they interpret the bill will be key.
The test to determine whether BP can keep the cap closed on its leaking well began Thursday afternoon after an overnight delay. When the test began, no oil was escaping from the well.
BP announced on Thursday that it had capped its hemorrhaging well, at least temporarily, marking the first time in 86 days that oil was not gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
AP - The oil has stopped. For now. After 85 days and up to 184 million gallons, BP finally gained control over one of America's biggest environmental catastrophes Thursday by placing a carefully fitted cap over a runaway geyser that has been gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico since early spring.
AP - Congress on Thursday passed the stiffest restrictions on banks and Wall Street since the Great Depression, clamping down on lending practices and expanding consumer protections to prevent a repeat of the 2008 meltdown that knocked the economy to its knees.
AP - Resolving a high-profile government case linked to the mortgage meltdown, Goldman Sachs & Co. has agreed to pay a record $550 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex investments.
The Iranian nuclear scientist who returned to Tehran today left behind some $5 million he was promised by the CIA as part of "benefits package" offered by the CIA's National Resettlement Operations Center, US officials tell ABC News. "Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the sanctions against Iran," one US official said. "We've got his information and the Iranians have him." When Amiri defected, the CIA offered him $5 million for information about the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Typically, the CIA places these kinds of funds in escrow so that an informant is only paid bit by bit, at the agency's discretion. Keeping the money in escrow prevents an asset from grabbing the money all at once.
The mammoth battle for Kandahar will test soldiers' basic fighting skills by combining tactics learned from the trenches in World War I, the close-quarter fighting of World War II, the jungle-like conditions in Vietnam and the urban warfare of Iraq.
A test designed to measure pressure within BP's ruptured oil well finally began Thursday, and for the first time in months, oil stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
More U.S. soldiers killed themselves last month than in recent Army history, according to Army statistics released Thursday, confounding officials trying to reverse the grim trend.
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