NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of influential mortgage investors is intensifying efforts to encourage a new phase to U.S. housing stability plans that would give homeowners ability and incentive to pay their loans. Proposals from a coalition led by Fortress Investment Group address the problem of "underwater" loans, whose high balances relative to fallen home values have to many ...

A New York businessman has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme that took in more than $31 million. Richard Piccoli, who is 83, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Buffalo to 20 years for ...

Amherst and Williams colleges are marking the 150th anniversary of the first intercollegiate baseball game with a rematch. The archrivals will play Sunday in Pittsfield, Mass., the town where the schools first played in 1859. The game was played in Pittsfield because neither team was willing to travel to ...

University of Massachusetts officials on Monday quashed efforts by an Amherst campus chaplain to offer two college credits to any student willing to campaign in New Hampshire this fall for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Chaplain Kent Higgins told students in a Sept. 18 e-mail, "If ...