Reuters - Demand for applications to buy U.S. homes and refinance mortgages sank to the lowest level in nearly eight years, a trade group said on Wednesday, in the heart of a financial crisis that has sapped consumer confidence.

AP - There's plenty of blame to go around for the ongoing credit crisis, and a House panel investigating the meltdown Wednesday cast much of it on credit ratings agencies like Standard & Poor's for giving good-as-gold ratings to securities backed by subprime mortgage loans.

Reuters - Top Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate "fraud and mismanagement" at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

AFP - The financial crisis has provided a needed culling of weak US financial institutions and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should bow out in turn, a top New York banker said Tuesday.

Reuters - National City Corp, a U.S. Midwest regional bank hard hit by the credit crisis, on Tuesday announced plans to slash 4,000 jobs and said rising reserves for soured mortgage and real estate construction loans led to its fifth straight quarterly loss.

Reuters - Top Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate "fraud and mismanagement" at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

AP - Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

AP - Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

AP - Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

Reuters - Stocks fell on Friday on weakness in manufacturing and financial stocks after bleak data on consumer confidence and construction, but the Dow still snapped a disastrous three-week losing streak with it best weekly gain in more than 5 years.