NY state, city officials ban ‘placement agents’ from involvement in pension investments

NEW YORK — Amid an expanding corruption investigation, top officials in Albany and New York City said Wednesday that they would bar lobbyists known as placement agents from soliciting investment business from the state’s two biggest public pension systems.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination to head health and human services sent to full Senate

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius won Senate committee approval as health secretary over Republican opposition Tuesday, putting her on track for a final Senate vote in coming days.

45 years after Freedom Summer, Miss. quietly gets rid of laws meant to thwart civil rights

JACKSON, Miss. — While researching a case, attorney Ed Blackmon stumbled across leftovers of Mississippi’s segregationist past — laws enacted to discourage the fight for equal rights for blacks.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination to head health and human services sent to full Senate

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius won Senate committee approval as health secretary over Republican opposition Tuesday, putting her on track for a final Senate vote in coming days. Her expected confirmation would complete President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, which held its first formal meeting Monday without Sebelius there.

With unemployment soaring, new leadership recommended for RI Economic Development Corp.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — State political leaders have failed to create a consistent economic growth strategy and the board that runs a state economic development agency should resign, a group impaneled by the governor said in a report released Tuesday.

Kidnapped Swiss Red Cross worker freed in Philippines, Italian man still held by militants

MANILA, Philippines — A Swiss Red Cross worker was freed Saturday after three months of captivity in a Philippine jungle, but al-Qaida-linked militants were still holding an Italian hostage who is ill and needs surgery, officials said.