TV News LIES

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) may be forced to make a deal with federal authorities to avoid criminal prosecution over its handling of accounts of imprisoned swindler Bernie Madoff, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The newspaper said federal prosecutors and representatives of the bank had held preliminary talks about a deferred prosecution agreement.

Countrywide, once the US's largest subprime mortgage company, and one of its former executives have been found guilty of fraud by a New York jury.

The lender is now owned by Bank of America, and the decision marks the first time a bank has been found by a US court to be responsible for wrongdoing tied to its dealings in the financial crisis.

For the first time ever, the 10 highest-paid chief executives in the US received more than $100m in compensation last year, and two took home billion-dollar paychecks, according to a leading annual survey of executive pay.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder, was America's highest-paid boss in 2012, according to GMI Ratings annual poll of executive compensation, released on Tuesday. Zuckerberg's total compensation topped $2.27bn – more than $6m a day. His base salary was $503,205 but the vast majority of his enormous pay package came from exercising 60m Facebook share options when the company went public last year.

On Monday morning, Jersey City, NJ Mayor Steven Fulop signed the city’s paid sick days bill into law, which had been passed by the city council in September. The bill is now the seventh to become law in the country, joining New York City; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC as well as the state of Connecticut.

Employers in the city with 10 or more workers will now have to provide them with up to five days of paid sick leave a year, with workers earning a day off for each 30 days worked. Workers at smaller businesses will have the right to earn unpaid sick days. Over 30,000 workers who previously had no access to paid sick leave are expected to benefit.

We're seeing multiple reports that:

— "J.P. Morgan has reached a $13 billion tentative settlement with the Justice Department." ()

— " has reached a $13 billion tentative deal with the Justice Department, said a person familiar with the negotiations." ()

— "JPMorgan Chase & Co. has reached a tentative resolution of all civil mortgage-related matters with the U.S. Department of Justice, a person familiar with settlement negotiations said." ()

The 16-day government shutdown cost the economy jobs, delayed mortgages and lost retail sales — at least $12 billion worth, and maybe as much as $24 billion. As federal workers returned to work Thursday, statisticians and business people began toting up the damage:

• Estimates of the toll range from $12 billion to $24 billion for the U.S. economy, or as much as $1.5 billion per day, and as many as 250,000 jobs. The shutdown trimmed fourth-quarter growth by 20%, economist Joel Naroff said — an outcome any business would "consider a disaster.''