U.S. coffee importers and roasters are worried that a new auction system in Ethiopia makes it almost impossible for them to buy coffee from the particular farmers whose beans they want.
First came the housing bust, followed by eroding job security and dwindling retirement accounts. Now, the worst downturn in decades is nibbling away at something so entrenched that people took it for granted: simple, everyday convenience.
Declaring the future of mankind at stake, President Barack Obama on Sunday said all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms and that the U.S. had a "moral responsibility" to lead because no other country has used one.
Federal and state officials are cracking down on mortgage modification scams, accusing "criminal actors" of preying on desperate borrowers caught up in the nation's housing crisis.
American taxpayers and stock owners have taken it on the chin in this financial crisis. The same can't be said of bondholders who lent money to the most troubled banks.
The Treasury Department is trying to ensure broader participation from hedge funds and other private investors in its bad asset purchase program by loosening the criteria for those who want to take part.
The University of Massachusetts in Amherst said Friday it would scan, catalog, digitize and put online papers of civil rights movement pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois.
