WASHINGTON — Soon after lawmakers finished work on the nation’s new financial regulatory law, a team of JPMorgan Chase lobbyists descended on Washington. Their goal was to obtain special breaks that would allow banks to make big bets in their portfolios, including some of the types of trading that led to the $2 billion loss now rocking the bank.

Several visits over months by the bank’s well-connected chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and his top aides were aimed at persuading regulators to create a loophole in the law, known as the Volcker Rule. The rule was designed by Congress to limit the very kind of proprietary trading that JPMorgan was seeking.

Even after the official draft of the Volcker Rule regulations was released last October, JPMorgan and other banks continued their full-court press to avoid limits.

JPMorgan’s blunder amplifies calls for tighter regulation

(Reuters) – A man who impersonated his dead mother as part of a real estate scam – using lipstick, manicured nails and even an oxygen tank at a meeting – was convicted of fraud on Thursday and faces up to 83 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Thomas Parkin, 51, was found guilty of 11 criminal counts, including charges of fraud, grand larceny, perjury and forgery for his scams. Along with the real estate fraud, Parkin and a partner cashed his mother’s social security checks every month for six years, stealing about $44,000.

WASHINGTON — Baby boomers wired to their iPads and smart phones are giving U.S. health experts some new ideas about ways to cut the soaring costs of medical care in graying America.

Some of the ideas might sound like “Robo-Granny”. An astronautical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a skin-tight undersuit equipped with sensors that can constantly monitor the vital signs of its elderly wearer and feed the data into a computer that fires off health alerts. It was first designed for a landing on Mars.

(CNN) — Someone in Maryland is about to have a wildly euphoric weekend.

A winning ticket for the record-breaking $640 million Mega Millions jackpot was sold in Baltimore County, the Maryland Lottery said Saturday.

Lottery officials are waiting for information on potential jackpot winners from other Mega Millions states.

The winning numbers in the Mega Millions lottery Friday night were 2, 4, 23, 38, 46 with a Mega Ball of 23.

California Lottery Commission spokesman Alex Traverso said 29 tickets sold in that state matched five of the six winning numbers. He said the payout will be about $125,000 to $130,000.

(CNN) — Amanda Clayton hit it big playing the Michigan Lottery. Like many winners, she used her $1 million prize to buy a new house.

But the Lincoln Park, Michigan, resident is receiving money in another form — $200 a month in state food assistance, according to CNN Detroit affiliate WDIV.

“I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn’t, I thought, maybe, it was OK because I’m not working,” Clayton, 24, told WDIV when it asked whether it was appropriate for her to receive the money.

Now a state lawmaker is trying to stop such assistance, which is not illegal. He says the food assistance should not go to those who have found riches through the lottery.

(CNN) — Thousands of travelers have been left in the lurch around the world after the carrier Air Australia went into administration and grounded its fleet Friday.

“It currently appears that there are no funds available to meet operational expenses so flights will be suspended immediately,” the company said in joint statement Friday with its newly appointed administrators, KordaMentha.

About 4,000 passengers in total have been left stranded in Hawaii, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia as a result of the suspension, said Michael Smith, a spokesman for KordaMentha.

“It also appears highly unlikely there will be any flights in the short to medium term,” the airline’s statement said, advising passengers to make alternative arrangements.

When the price of Powerball lottery tickets increases from $1 to $2 on Jan. 15, Chris Taranto says, he will still buy them.

So will a lot of other lottery players, he told phillyburbs.com. And their chances of winning will improve.

“People like to dream in this country,” the Delran, N.J., resident said as he purchased tickets for the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries at the Hartford Deli on Tuesday. “The only true dream left is the lottery.”

With the price increase, the Powerball jackpot will grow from a minimum of $20 million to $40 million, and that could grow to the hundreds of millions if it takes several weeks to get a winner.

WASHINGTON — When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.

Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a “millionaire’s tax.”

The holiday spirit is alive and well in Miami after an anonymous donor dropped a diamond ring into a Salvation Army kettle Friday.

Miami-Dade Salvation Army Capt. Linda Payton said her office received a call around 1 p.m. from a woman who wanted to remain anonymous.

“She said that she had just left something in the kettle in front of Kmart and that it was something special,” Payton said.