Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Some troubling findings Thursday out of the Woodstock Institute, which examined home lending trends in seven major cities to discover that banks have scaled back prime loans to minority communities at a much quicker clip than they’ve reduced those same loans in predominately white neighborhoods.
The group — in collaboration with the California Reinvestment Coalition, the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina, the Empire Justice Center, the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project and the Ohio Fair Lending Coalition – found that between 2006 and 2008:
“After inflicting harm on neighborhoods of color through years of problematic subprime and option ARM loans, banks are now pulling back at a time when communities are most in need of responsible loans and investment,” said Geoff Smith, Woodstock’s senior vice president, said in a statement. “We are concerned that we have gone from a period of reverse redlining to a period of re-redlining.”
The groups are recommending that Congress tackle the problem by modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act, creating a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency and bolstering enforcement of existing fair-lending laws.
All food for thought as Senate lawmakers continue the long slog to pass financial reforms this month.
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