ROME, Italy (PNN) - March 31, 2013 - Customers of an Italian bank have seen deposits fall by “a few billion euros” after a scandal in February, the bank announced Saturday.

Monte dei Paschi bank reported a yearly loss of 3.2 billion euros ($4.1 billion) - a higher-than-expected net loss for 2012 - after loss-making derivatives trades at the lender amounting to 730 million euros. Bad loans also contributed to the loss.

SACRAMENTO, Kalifornia (PNN) - March 28, 2013 - Were Kalifornia's state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits.

WASHINGTON (PNN) - March 28, 2013 - Incoming college freshmen could end up paying $5,000 more for the same student loans their older siblings have if Congress doesn't stop interest rates from doubling.

Sound familiar? The same warnings came last year. But now the presidential election is over and mandatory budget cuts are taking place, making a deal to avert a doubling of interest rates much more elusive before a July 1 deadline.

PARIS, France (PNN) - March 28, 2013 - Cyprus is sacrificing too much for its European bailout, which is destroying the foundations of the island's economy, its foreign minister told a French newspaper.

"Europe is pretending to help us but the price is too high: nothing less than the brutal destruction of our economic model," Ioannis Kasoulides told Thursday's edition of financial daily Les Echos.

WASHINGTON (PNN) - March 27, 2013 - Contracts to buy previously owned Fascist Police States of Amerika homes fell in February, held back by a shortage of properties.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Wednesday said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed last month, slipped 0.4% to 104.8.

LONDON, England (PNN) - March 25, 2013 - A senior euro zone official has announced that savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe's single currency by propping up failing banks.

The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales, and other assets to euro zone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (PNN) - March 19, 2013 - The National Government is pushing a solution to bank failure in New Zealand that would see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts, the Green Party said today.

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favored option for dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bailout.