Details, Please: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised to get credit flowing again in the economy Tuesday, but the lack of detail in his much-anticipated speech helped drive stocks down nearly 5 percent, the worst selloff since President Barack Obama assumed office, The Wall Street Journal reports. Geithner outlined a mix of efforts that were mostly known: a fresh round of capital injections into banks, an expansion of a Federal Reserve and lending program and a public-private effort to relieve banks of soured assets. Later, Geithner told CNBC, "As you know, this is enormously complicated. We're being exceptionally careful that the taxpayer is being protected, that we're taking risks we understand, and that we're using these resources in a way that's going to give the maximum benefit in getting these markets going again." He called the basic structure of the plan the best way to get markets functioning at least risk to taxpayers.
Bigger Game: Remember NBC's “To Catch a Predator” series? Now the network is going after war criminals, and it's already generating controversy before the program's first broadcast, The New York Times reports. In December, an NBC crew and a Rwandan prosecutor confronted Leopold Munyakazi, a visiting professor of French at Goucher College in Towson, Md., and accused him of genocide. (He vigorously denied the charges.) But some human rights advocates are objecting to NBC’s year-long investigation, alleging that the evidence of war crimes is insufficient and the collaboration with a foreign government prosecutor is suspect ethically.
Hand Em Over: A court ruled Tuesday in favor of a Florida man seeking the return of his family's collection of rare art posters, worth an estimated $6 million, more than 70 years after the works were confiscated by the Gestapo and then given to a German museum. Peter Sachs, a retired airline pilot from Sarasota, Fla., had sued the German Historical Museum in Berlin for custody of at least 4,200 rare posters depicting movies, cabaret shows and political propaganda from the early 20th century. The collection had been assembled by his father, Hans Sachs, a Jewish dentist who fled Germany in 1938. The Washington Post has the story.
Dress Rehearsal: Solicitor General nominee Elena Kagan resisted any suggestion that she would make dramatic changes in the federal government’s advocacy before the Supreme Court, declining to criticize legal arguments made by the Bush administration and telling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that she is prepared to defend almost any law Congress passes. Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, appeared before the committee for a two-hour confirmation hearing on Tuesday amid widespread speculation that she might be nominated to the Court if a seat were to become vacant. Legal Times has more here.
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