The government had details on both the suspected bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and plans by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Yemen to strike U.S. targets, Obama said. He blamed a breakdown in intelligence-sharing among agencies. The plot was foiled when the explosives failed to ignite and passengers and crew aboard the flight on Dec. 25 took action.
“The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack,” Obama said at the White House yesterday after meeting with senior advisers. “This - - - - >

Exxon agreed to buy XTO Energy in an all-stock deal at a 25 percent premium, showing how eagerly a company that is among the most conservative in a conservative industry is jumping into the market for natural gas.
As negotiators haggled in Copenhagen over a global plan to curb carbon emissions, the deal suggested Exxon sees change coming for an energy source best known now for heating homes.
The deal announced Monday was also the largest for the U.S. energy sector in at least four years and Exxons biggest acquisition since it bought Mobil Corp. for $75 billion in 1999.
The technology to - - - - >

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke made the comments in an Op-Ed piece to appear in Sundays Washington Post, five days before the Senate Banking committee holds a hearing on his nomination for a second term. His current four-year term expires Jan. 31.
Bernanke wrote the nation is challenged to design a financial oversight system that will “embody the lessons of the past two years and provide a robust framework for preventing future crises and the economic damage they cause.”
But two proposals being considered “are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and - - - - >

A spokesman for the New York-based banks Chase Card Services unit confirmed the change after a law firm that sued banks over arbitration clauses announced a tentative settlement with JPMorgan Chase.
Chase decided to stop sending credit-card disputes to arbitration in July, and now is removing the arbitration clause, spokesman Paul Hartwick said.
Banks say arbitration is less costly for everyone than lawsuits. They also argue that banks increased legal costs would in turn be passed on to consumers. But consumer groups have criticized arbitration as tilted in favor of banks.
Hartwick said Chase believes its policy change “is the right thing for - - - - >

Santander said in papers filed in federal court in Miami that it was duped by Madoff and that shareholders in two funds that invested with the con man cant sue the bank directly. The suit is a proposed class action to include all Santander customers in Latin America who lost money in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
“Defendants failure to detect Madoffs fraud was not due to their intentional or severely reckless failure,” Santander said in the Nov. 18 filing. “The far more likely, and hence plausible, inference - - - - >

Venture funds stung by the recession are “moving away from the early stage” and toward less risky, later deals for young technology companies, Ashish Patel, Intel Capital managing director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said in an interview in London. Intel Capital has about $2 billion under management.
In the U.K. alone, investments in young, high-growth companies fell 23 percent in the first nine months from a year earlier to 593 million pounds ($967 million), according to the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association. - - - - >

The “problem occurred when I made commitments for too much money and then I couldnt put the strategy to work,” Madoff told SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz in a June 17 interview described in a report yesterday. “It was my mistake not to just be out a couple hundred million dollars and get out.”
Kotzs exhibits, including an account of his interview with Madoff, were posted on the SECs Web site. No transcript of the interview was released.
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The number of bank failures has reached 115 since January - more than four times the total for 2008 and the most since the savings and loan crisis in 1992. And most experts expect problems caused by unpaid loans to force many more closures in the coming years, mostly among small, community-based banks.
Banks are typically shut down late Friday afternoon. That gives the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. time over the weekend to handle the shutdown, which most often involves transferring deposits to another bank that is taking over the failed institution. The first sign of failure consumers see may be - - - - >

FBOPs banks in California, Texas, Arizona and Illinois were closed yesterday by regulators, raising the tally of bank failures to 115 this year, according to a statement from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. U.S. Bancorp agreed to assume all the deposits and essentially all the assets of the banks, the FDIC said.
U.S. Bancorp Chief Executive Officer Richard Davis is adding branches, acquiring deposits and seeking to gain share in the mortgage market. The lender, which in June repaid $6.6 billion in funds from the Treasurys Troubled - - - - >

The smaller, community banks are especially exposed to commercial real estate loans, which now pose the biggest challenge for many financial institutions and their overseers, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair told lawmakers at a Senate hearing.
A year after the financial crisis struck with force, the stability of the banking system has improved but remains fragile, and commercial real estate lending is a key trouble spot, said Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo.
With more than 7 million U.S. jobs lost in the recession, office space has sat empty and developers have defaulted on their loans. Nearly $500 billion in commercial - - - - >