Policy

China inflation spike pricks policy easing expectations

8 Feb 2012

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's annual inflation spiked to a consensus-busting 4.5 percent in January as spending jumped during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday season, breaking a five-month softening trend and forcing a market rethink of policy easing expectations. The size of the seasonal distortion makes the January data particularly hard to read, but economists say it is likely to have ...

GOP vows to reverse Obama birth control policy

8 Feb 2012

Republicans vowed Wednesday to reverse President Barack Obama's new policy on birth control, lambasting the rule that religious schools and hospitals must provide contraceptive coverage for their employees as an "unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country."

County board to debate controversial immigration policy

8 Feb 2012

Cook County commissioners will be on the hot seat Thursday as they face critics and supporters of a controversial policy directing the county sheriff to ignore requests from the feds to hold suspected illegal immigrants in jail longer.Immigration rights activists, expected to show up by the dozens at a public hearing in the downtown county board room, will call on elected leaders to stand by the ...